The Universal Melodic Rock of Nationwide

Nationwide is a melodic rock band from Sweden, whose debut recording Echoes will be unveiled October 18th via Pride & Joy Music.  Featuring former members from Age of Reflection, the auditory tapestries of Nationwide are sure to enrapture music fans all across the world.  Highwire Daze recently interviewed guitarist and founding member Carl Berglund to find out more about the magic of Echoes, an update on his previous band Age of Reflection, his connection with the almighty Quorthon of Bathory infamy, and other universal topics of intrigue.  Read on…

We’re here with Carl from Nationwide. First of all, where is the band based out of and what is your local music scene like there?
We’re based in Västerås Sweden, in the middle of Sweden, about 80 kilometers from Stockholm. The music scene here in our hometown is, I’m not going to say dead but it’s not very much live music here, so we get a lot of time to spend in the studio.

What is meant by the name, Nationwide? I think there’s probably a good story behind your band name.
We wanted a name that was easy to remember and looks good in print. You have to imagine it on a huge backdrop at Madison Square Garden. It also needed to be a name that wasn’t already taken, but mostly, that reflected our vision. Nationwide is exactly what we want for a music to reach people everywhere. It also symbolizes music as a universal language that crosses borders and is understood by everyone nationwide.

How did you wind up joining Pride & Joy Music?
We sent the demos to different labels, of course, but partly, we got the best deal from Pride & Joy. But also with my previous band, Age of Reflection, we were signed to AOR Heaven, and by that time, Birgitt Schwanke was the CEO of Pride & Joy. She’s their promotion boss at that time, so I’ve known her since then.

Let’s talk about Echoes. Is there any story or concept behind that title?
Not really. It’s the title of one of the songs. From the beginning, we thought that just like the name Nationwide, we want to spread our music, like an echo all over the planets, but the lyrics to the song Echoes isn’t about that.  It’s kind of a love song, and most of our songs are love songs or all the lyrics take us closer to the feelings and events that we experience on a daily basis and the focus on the songs is that we want everyone to recognize themselves in our songs. Recurring themes as love, frustration, friendship.

I saw your video for The One. On top of what building was that video filmed and who’s the girl in the video?
The building is, in fact, here in Västerås Sweden, we call it the skyscraper but it’s only 15 stories high, but the first large high building built in Västerås in the 80s. It’s located in our hometown. The girl in the video is also a local girl, a model called Miss Silver Freak, if you look her up in Instagram. She’s a good friend of us, and we needed a beautiful girl, so she was the obvious choice.

How do you get permission to go shoot on top of a building like that? That was fabulous.
Yeah. An old friend of mine that owns the house and I asked around and he said, “Anything for Rock and Roll, as long as you don’t fall down and die, then we don’t have a problem.”

As they say, it pays to have friends in high places.
Exactly.

Your next single is Without You. Tell me about that song and the upcoming video.
That’s a song about heartbreak, losing your love. And the video, we recorded in our own studio and rehearsal room. We have a really nice studio with two rooms, one for the rehearsing, and the kitchen and the other room is the studio room. We shot it in there. We got a really nice black walls, red ceiling, and red carpets, so the colors are really good and it’s more like also live playing video.

Has Nationwide played live or toured yet or is that something you’d like to do for this album.
That’s really what we want to do. We love to play live. We haven’t done it yet with Nationwide, but all of us come from other bands which have played a lot at festivals and clubs. So, our main goal is to release an album and then get out and play live as much as we can because we love it.

If Nationwide could open for any band, either now or from the past, who would it be and why?
If Nationwide opens up for any band maybe some big band in our genre – Def Leppard maybe. I love FM. They’re not as big as Def Leppard of course but I love them. With Age of Reflection, we played with them in another gig, so they’re fabulous guys. But I say Def Leppard, yeah.

What was it like working with Heartwind on Heartwind III and how did you become involved with that band?
Mikael Rosengren, one of the main guys there and the keyboard player was, in fact, meant to play keyboards with Nationwide from the beginning, but after a couple of months, we saw that Heartwind, then Constancia took so much of his time and he lives far from here, so it’s hard for him to travel to get here for rehearsals. But at that time, he wanted me to play the guitars. He sent me a song or a demo with just keyboards and drums and asked me if I could play some guitars on it and play the bass, and I did and it turned out really good. So, it’s on Heartwind III.

Let’s talk about Age of Reflection, what is currently going on with the band, if anything?
Nothing. We decided to disband Age of Reflection, September last year. We had different ambitions. So, me, Peter on lead guitar and Mikael on bass continued and started up Nationwide. Urban, the drummer from Age of Reflection and me have a more modern metal project called Unraveling.

What’s going on with Unraveling? Do you have any music out already or about to come out?
We have just one single release that we released by ourselves in January or February, I think. We’re just three guys living kind of far from each other, so we don’t meet so much. But we have six or seven songs ready, so we’re going to release as singles by ourselves as it seems right now.

Did Age of Reflection get a chance to tour here in the US or is that something you’d like to do with Nationwide?
Not the Age of Reflection as it is right now, but Nationwide, we would love to tour the States. For Scandinavian bands, I think it’s kind of hard to get a break in the States, that’s what I think. I’ve seen, now, that Age of Reflection starts spinning in United States, so we hope that it can bring Nationwide as well.

You mentioned the Age of Reflection played with FM. What was that experience like and was Steve Overland cool to hang out with?
We played at the festival with them, but they were really nice guys, really. And that’s what I love about playing live at festivals because you get to meet both new bands like ourselves but also my teenage heroes, and hang out with them, like Robert Tepper as well, and Ted Poley, all that guys.

Those two that you just mentioned, Robert Tepper and Ted Poley, I’ve seen them out here in Los Angeles play at The Whisky or over the Rainbow, and it would be cool to see Nationwide play at the Whisky.
It would be. One thing in my bucket list is to play in LA, so I really hope so.

Okay, we’re going to go back to the 90s. What was it like working with the band Haterush and with Black Mark Production?
It was kind of a short time, but it was fun. It was a new genre for me to play power metal, and it was kind of cool to be on that label because of Bathory and all the history and legacy of them.

Did you get to meet Quorthon of Bathory during that time?
No, just his father.

Were you ever into that style of music, like the early black metal?
Not then, but I listened some to black metal now but not back then. I wasn’t much into power metal either back then, but it was newer metal and my roots in the 80s of rock. But now, I really like some black metal, some of it.

Are you currently involved with any other bands or projects that I haven’t mentioned?
Not really. Nationwide is my main focus, my highest priority and Unraveling, it’s also important, of course, for me. But I’m not working with Unraveling as much as with Nationwide right now. So, it’s the two of them and then I’m producing in the studio, so I tried to learn and be better in working with a studio as well.

So, you have a new album about to come out. What’s up next for Nationwide after the album is released?
We’re already writing new songs. We recorded about seven or eight new ideas and demos. Our hopes are for writing the new album, and release Nationwide 2, by the spring of 2026, I think. Now, in the meantime, we’re rehearsing and preparing for live shows and also working a lot together with a record label to promote Nationwide. We’re planning more music videos, releasing the album on vinyl, and trying to reach as many people as possible.

Do you have any messages from melodic rock fans here in the States who are reading this right now?
Listen to Nationwide!  We’re combining the sound of the 80s AOR, classic rock, and with a modern touch. And here in Europe, melodic rock is really, really coming back.  I don’t really know how it is over there in the States, but I really hope it’s coming back there as well, so we can get there. That’s a dream.

Oh, it’s definitely coming back here. Eclipse is going to be playing out here at the Whisky next year, which totally surprised me. Didn’t you work with Erik Mårtensson of Eclipse?
Yeah. Both for the Age of Reflection albums and now with Nationwide.  Erik Mårtensson, the singer in Eclipse, did the mix and the mastering of the album and he’s the obvious choice because he’s so talented. He’s so good.  I know when I send him the songs, it’s going to be magical.

Nationwide is:
Carl Berglund: Guitar, Keyboards, Backing Vocals
Daniel Groth: Lead Vocals, Keyboards
Peter Ledin: Guitar, Backing Vocals
Richard Holmgren: Drums, Backing Vocals
Mikael Hagström: Bass, Backing Vocals

(Interview by Ken Morton)

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