A Chat with Mikael Rosengren of Heartwind and Constancia

A Chat with Mikael Rosengren of Heartwind and Constancia

Swedish keyboardist Mikael Rosengren has not one, but two brand new albums about to be released – both on Pride & Joy Music!  Heartwind III, available September 2oth, is an all-star AOR project featuring guest participation from the likes of Rick Altzi (Gathering Of Kings), Jakob Samuel (Poodles), Thomas Vikström (Therion, Candlemass), Andreas Novak (House Of Shakira), Nalle Påhlsson (Treat) and more!  Constancia’s latest masterwork IV Evermore combines the very best in melodic and progressive rock and will be out August 30th!  Highwire Daze recently interviewed Mikael Rosengren to discuss these two very amazing albums as well as his very brilliant and epic career in music.  Read on…

How did the Heartwind project initially come about?
Well, actually, I can’t nearly say this, but 41st year as a songwriter, so I’ve been doing this for so many years. But I don’t know if it was maybe seven, eight years ago. An old friend of mine, actually, a friend of my friend contacted me and asked if he could have lunch with me and I said yes, of course. And that was Göran Engvall in Heartwind.

And that was the start of Heartwind because he had a few songs and he wanted some talent, nice guy to work with. And I said, wow, yeah, let me listen. So, I listened to his ideas, his songs, and we used a lot of them. And also, my songs that I was been writing and that was the start of Heartwind and the first album, Higher and Higher.

How did the cooperation with Pride and Joy come about?
Well, that was thanks to Constancia, actually, my other band, because we were working together with Birgitt at Pride and Joy on one of our earlier albums. So, I knew her, and I knew her also from AOR Heaven. So, yeah, I’ve known her for many years, actually. Not personally, but we have been in contact.

You have some amazing artists on this album. First of all, what was it like working with Jakob Samuel of The Poodles on that amazing song Warrior?
That was cool. I really, really love Jakob. And we met actually 1986 or 87, first time when he was in his band Jailbait, and they won the Swedish Music Award Rock-SM, the same competition that Europe won in 1983, I think it was. So, we were working together, and we talked a lot about music. And that was our first contact. And then after, what could that be? It’s almost 40 years also.

We’ve been in contact every now and then. But this was the first time we actually worked together. I got the question a long, long time ago from Jakob to maybe join Poodles. But I didn’t do that because I’m a little bit too comfort in just being at home doing my things, write my songs, have my family, my other interests. So, maybe I’m not that touring kind of guy, but I love to write music. I love to play music.

Nalle Påhlsson from Treat and Therion and many other bands. Tell me about that collaboration.
Actually, I think it was two years ago, I was part of an album released by Escape Music and Khalil Turk, that was Circle of Friends. And the album was called The Garden and I had eight original songs of nine on that album.  I collected as many of my good friends and musicians I had and that we have in Sweden. So, we made a lot of songs. I think I have 50 songs or something and that was also why I already had contact with a lot of those guys from there. I think the best we have in Sweden when it comes to hard rock.

So, I just asked them to, hey, do you want to join also on Heartwind, our third album? So, yeah, many of them said, yes, of course, let’s do it. So, that’s a little bit the collective friendship and the musicians that I’ve been working with for so many years, and there are so many more people. So, maybe for the fourth album, we will have other names. I don’t know.

And then I’ll just ask about one more, Rick Altzi from Masterplan, At Vance, Herman Frank. And so many other bands. What was it like working with Rick?
I was watching Gathering of Kings on Sweden Rock Festival a few years back, and me and my brother were standing there in the audience, and I really, really loved Rick. I recognized him, of course, and I knew him from Masterplan, but I hadn’t seen him before.

So, both me and my brother said, wow, that’s our idol right now. So, I do what I always do, I contact them. I find them at Facebook many times, and I just ask hey, this is me, I’m doing this. We’re working on this. Do you want to join? And he said, yes. So, that’s the story. Simple as that.

Has Heartwind ever played live? Is that something you would like to do with Heartwind?
Yeah. Now, we have put ourselves in a quite tricky situation because we are so many involved right now. But yes, we have played live one time in Stockholm and we are talking about doing it again. But since me and Göran have families with quite young kids and a lot of other things to do, and we work full time, it’s a little bit tricky to say that yeah, let’s go out and play live.

But yes, we would like to do it and there might be coming up gigs. But now we have moved from a band to more projects, actually, since we are so many great musicians and singers. So, it could be like we have to set up a live version of Heartwind. So, I don’t know. Let’s see. But we have been playing live at least one time, yeah.

Constancia, your other band, is about to release a new album called IV Evermore, which you put those together it’s Forevermore. How did Pete Godfrey of Blood Red Saints become involved with Constancia?
To put a little bit background to Constancia also, I was playing in my band, I had called Token. I had released two albums with Token, also Scudiero. And after many years I felt like right then at least, I felt a little bit fed up of collaborating with all guys and people always want to have the last word or want to have it their way.

So, I just felt to do my own record with my own songs and the things that I really listened to and love from my heart. So, I did that and asked Janne if he wanted to join this, my first so to say, solo album. But that was the start of Constancia then. The name came from a boat that I saw when I was in Greece or something.

So, we started Constancia and that was soon something we wanted to do more. We both love the songs, and we really enjoyed working with each other. And the first album and the second album is with David Fremberg. David Fremberg, a fantastic singer and songwriter. So, when he said to me and Janne that sorry, guys, I can’t be anymore with you, we started to find a new singer.

And then Janne played a song that Pete was singing at and I fell in love with his voice. I would say he is one of the best in the world to create these harmonies and backing vocals and the melodies. He’s amazingly good at that. So, that was, for me, a first choice and he said, yes, I want to do it. So, that’s the story about Pete and Constancia.

Constancia would be a lot easier to do shows and tour with them as opposed to Heartwind. Are there any Constancia shows coming up, or would you like to do shows?
I think we are a little bit in the same situation. I mean, it’s quite funny because we released the Constancia album now, the last of August, and the Heartwind album on the 20th of September. And in both situations, in both bands, we haven’t planned for any gigs. But we have got a question for Constancia to play a festival.  And that could be, actually, that we do that. We have only met a few times recording videos, but we haven’t played live because we are so divided into different parts of Sweden and England now. So, it’s a little bit tricky, actually. So, maybe the same situation as Heartwind. It might be a gig or two or more later this year or next year, but nothing planned except for maybe this festival.

The first album, Lost and Gone, was released in 2009 on Frontiers. When you look back on that album and working with Frontiers, what do you think of it now, in retrospect?
Good, because I have to say, good. But the first album based on that situation I just told you about, that I wanted to do my own thing. So, it was very much from the heart I wrote those songs. Sometimes you might want to write a hit song or a typical kind of song, but this was me from the heart, really. So, I really like it. I think we have learned some things regarding production and the technique is getting developed more and more in those ways.

So, you can record and produce albums even better today. But no, I really like it. But again, I think if you take Constancia as an example, our collaboration and our way of writing songs today, and everybody putting their instruments to each song is better because we have learned how we work, we have learned how to create things together. So, I mean, that’s not rocket science because that’s the way of band’s getting better together. So, I think, yes, we have developed on this new album. I hope you can hear that.

Talk about Token and looking back, what you think of that music and that time in your career.
That was in one way fantastic because we were much younger, we were not even 30. The first time when we put the band together, we were around 20 and we were competing also in different music competitions here in Sweden and Stockholm, and we were out playing quite a lot here in Sweden. And that was when you were new into this kind of business, playing live, you have an audience. It was magic. So, then coming back a few years later, doing Token again, reunite the band and release two albums. That was really cool because it was such a great memory from even back to when we were teenagers. A little bit like Nestor, you know the Swedish band, Nestor. But okay, they have succeeded a little bit more than Token.

Scudiero, you mentioned them and you did an album on Z Records. What was that experience like and working with Z Records?
Well, maybe you expect a certain answer to that question because we have had a lot of incidents and discussions and maybe troubling things working with them. If you ask the Swedish bands, most of the Swedish bands that were working with them, my personal experience wasn’t that much trouble or problems or so. I think it worked fine.

But I know that there were some issues actually that I wasn’t personally involved with, but I’ve heard from other musicians and bands. So, just as a label, we got to England, playing there live two times. We were having shows in Stockholm together with other bands. And it was also good memories and good times.

It was quite complex music, a little bit progressive, melodic rock and we didn’t do so much after a while. We had a great friend and great guitarist, Fredrik Folkare, for example, in the band. And Johan Fahlberg was our singer to be on the second album that we actually recorded, but we haven’t released it.

And Johan was an amazing singer. And then we were with Token at the same label as Jaded Heart. So, I just said to Johan and to Michael in Jaded Heart, talk to each other. There’s a wonderful band and a wonderful singer here. And they did. A few weeks later, Johan was on an airplane going to Germany, did the test singing, and they fell in love with each other. And the story you might know about Jaded Heart now is so many great albums with Johan. But then we lost him in Scudiero. But maybe we can try to bring up that second album again and do something with it and release it. That would be fantastic!

Have any of your bands ever played here in the States?
No. That would be great. I really heard myself a few minutes back talking about live shows or not. But I mean, if somebody says, please, can you come here and play live? We would love to do that. And no, we have never been. I’ve never been in the United States playing live. That would be fantastic.

So, just a fun question. Do you ever get confused with Mikael Rosengren of Steel Rhino?
Well, this is very, very funny. There is at Spotify, I think, a podcast is Väsby Rock Podcast. And the episode, I think it was 51, you can check that, is with me and Göran from Heartwind. We are talking too much too long. But it’s a quite funny show because the program leader, what do you call that in English? The host is called Micke Rosengren also. And he had a radio show back in the 80s.

1985, I was sitting in my summer house, 15 years old, press play and record on my cassette recorder and recording songs from his radio show. And the one you mentioned I saw that, and I’ve listened to the band, but I don’t know him. But Mikael Rosengren from the radio show in the 80s, we know each other and he’s actually helping us as a great friend at our release party that we will have with Heartwind in September.

And there is a fourth guy, I think, actually. But I don’t know him. I think Göran said to me the other day, I think I found the fourth one. So, there are three or four Mikael Rosengren’s.

What’s up next with Heartwind and Constancia now that you have not one but two albums coming out?
I’m looking at the new CD album. It just arrived a few days ago. So, the Constancia album is here. We will try to continuously work with the media, social media to reach out because unfortunately right now we haven’t done that much. We are also not having as many listeners per month that we would like to have or should have. So, try to reach out, actually, and the same with Heartwind.

There are singles coming up from both bands and we need to work with social media and try to spread the word. And we have a little bit more listeners actually in Heartwind, which is fantastic. Thank you to all the listeners out there. And we will then have this release party in the Hard Rock Restaurant, Garlic & Shots on the 13th of September. It’s a Friday and everybody is welcome.

It might be tricky to come from the United States to Stockholm, but anyway, you’re welcome if you can. So, that’s not a live show. It’s more a meet-and-greet show and play music one week before the album is released. But we will play songs from the album then.

Do you have any messages for Heartwind and Constancia fans here in the States who are reading this now?
I must just say it’s amazing to be here in this (interview), so far away, but yet so close. And thank you so much. If you have listened already or if you want to listen to both Heartwind and Constancia, we are so happy. And who knows, maybe we can meet in the United States one day. So, I’m just humble to say thank you. It’s because of you guys listening that we exist. Just thank you and keep listening and keep rocking out there.

(Interview by Ken Morton)

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