The Melodic Rock Reveries of Winding Road

Photo Credit: Anders Erkgards

The Melodic Rock Reveries of Winding Road

In the grand traditional of the great AOR bands of the past and present arrives Winding Road, ready to present their dynamic melodic rock reveries to the world. Winding Road recently issued their Self-Titled debut via AOR Heaven, featuring standout selections such as It’s A Matter Of Survival, Summertime, and Stranger In The Night.  Fans of classic acts such as Journey and Whitesnake will definitely want to explore the auditory wonders found within Winding Road.  Highwire Daze recently interviewed interviewed guitarist Magnus Åkerlund to find out more about Winding Road and their exhilarating AOR tapestries.  Read on…

Introduce yourself, tell me what you do in Winding Road, and how long the band has been together.
My name is Magnus and I’m the guitarist in Winding Road. On the album I also played all the basses, played most of the keyboards and sang backup vocals. I also produced, mixed and mastered the album so I guess I do all sort of things….

How did Magnus Åkerlund (Blender) and Jan Hedlund (Coastline, Eagle Down) meet and decide they wanted to do a band together. Were they familiar with each other’s band history?
Me and Jan has known each other since 1995 so we were very familiar with with what the other had been doing musically . We went to the same music school (not the same year though). We’ve talked about writing music together for a long time but in 2018 we finally gave it a shot and we really hit it of great.

Jonas Tyskhagen has a classic AOR rock voice. What is his musical background and other bands he’s been involved with?
Jonas was also a student at the same music school so he and Jan had been in a band before. Jonas is originally a drummer and played in the Swedish death metal band Incardine in his youth (but he has played in lots of different genres). Besides being a fantastic singer he also plays great guitar.

How did you wind up signing with AOR Heaven?
Georg from AOR Heaven sent us a message via our Facebook page and we sent him some demos. He then offered us a deal which we signed.

Select two songs from the new album and what inspired the lyrics.
I’ll chose the two opening tracks then.

It’s A Matter Of Survival had the chorus words from the beginning. Jan is a master of coming up with lyrics on the fly. I just press record and he finds words to the melody and most of the time some of them just works and we have to find a theme and write the lyrics around them. If I remember correctly the theme centered around a phone call one of us had with a person who was seriously into environment issues and judgement day. So we wrote the lyrics around that persons perspective.

Summertime was themed around life on the road.

Who did the cover art for Winding Road and how much input did you have on it?
The cover was designed by Ingo Ertl who was recommended to us by the record company. We gave him the guidelines of what we wanted and we were very pleased with the result.

What has it been like to write and record new music in the middle of a worldwide pandemic and so much social unrest in the world?
We had most of the material written and recorded until the pandemic broke out so it really didn’t affect us. I think we’re going to see a lot of records in the near time cause no one can tour so there’s nothing else to do but to write and record if you’re a musician.

Has Winding Road ever played live and/or plan to do so after the pandemic comes to an end?
We’ve only played one live show but our plan is definitely to play live once the pandemic is under control.

If Winding Road could open for any band either now or from the past, who would it be and why?
I would have to say Europe since that’s my favourite band. I know Jan would agree with me on that one and for Jonas it would probably be Black Sabbath or Whitesnake.

Are you currently involved with any other bands or projects outside of Winding Road?
No other serious projects at the moment

What do you hope the rest of 2021 brings for Winding Road and for the music community in general?
We hope to grow our fan base, sell records and that live shows will be allowed again.

Any final words of wisdom?
Stay true to what you believe in.

Winding Road is:
Jonas Tyskhagen: Lead Vocals
Magnus Åkerlund: Guitar, Bass, Keyboards, Background Vocals
Jan Hedlund: Drums, additional Keyboards, Background Vocals

(Interview by Ken Morton)

Winding Road on Facebook
AOR Heaven on Facebook