In the spotlight with Anders Jörnesten

22 December 2021 70

In today’s “In the Spotlight” I have the huge pleasure to give you Anders Jörnesten who is about to release his very first EP

Hi Anders and thank you so much for joining us.. This close to your release I know
how busy and excited you must be.

Thank you! Yes, I’m both busy and excited. Once the music is sent to the distributor, it takes
a couple of weeks for the song to get released on the platforms and the preliminary release
date is set to September 23. So, at this stage I’m doing my best to send it around to radio
stations and reviewers etc. When I released my debut single Wild Wild Country this summer,
I had no idea how to spread the word about it. Now I learned a lot more, so it will be much
easier for me to reach out.

Your very first EP “Man on the run” is just about to be released, how does it feel?

I’m really excited about the EP, and the five new songs on it. I believe it’s a step up for me
musically and I can’t wait to release it. Genre wise I guess I’m still doing some sort of
acoustic alt country. But I don’t wanna restrict myself too much when it comes to genres.
The EP reflects a broad musical palette, stretching from 70s outlaw country to americana and
newer indie folk music.

How has the process been for you? Were there steps that were easier than you
thought or more difficult?

I think that the hardest part is coming up with new songs the second hardest thing is to get
heard. I really like that anyone without a record deal can put their music on platforms
nowadays. The downside is that it’s really hard to get an audience, since it is so much music
being released. But as I said earlier, I’m learning a lot on how to reach out. And the upsides
of democratizing music production are huge, especially for unsigned indie artists.

Did you have any help or did you do all/most of this all alone?

I basically write all my songs by the bedside by myself. Sometimes I ask for feedback from
my wife and kids, and occasionally from friends. Their continuous support means a lot to me.
The songs are then recorded in a professional studio. The EP took one day to record. On
two of the songs I hired a musician who added some pedal steel guitar. I really love that
instrument; it expresses both hope and despair at the same time and gives a really nice
atmosphere to the sound. My brother is a photographer and he made the covers to the single
and EP.It is really important to me that I have full control of the song writing process. The music has
become a mean for me to express myself. Therefore, I want the songs the be a product of
me, not of anyone else.

Now when it is about to be heard by the public, what are your biggest fears and
your biggest dreams?

I started to write music for the first in my life in the beginning of this year. I’ve written about
30 songs so far, but far from all of them are good. After finishing a song that I’m happy with,
my fear is always to run out of ideas for the next song.
I am not so afraid that people are not going to like my songs, it’s up to the audience to decide
about whether they like it or not. My main concern is always for myself to feel happy and
proud about the songs I release. And if others share that feeling when they hear the songs,
that’s fantastic.
My biggest dream is to keep on doing and developing my music and slowly grow an
international audience. I have a normal office job that I really do like. I don’t have to make
any money out of my music, which I believe is a good thing for me. I can write and record
whatever music I want to, without have in mind what an audience wanna hear. Sure,
sometimes I dream about being a full-time musician, but when I think it through, I always
conclude that it would mean a lot of trade offs with regard to the freedom of writing
whatever music I want and doing it my way. And I feel perfectly happy with combining my
regular job and the music I make on my spare time.

What are you doing now? Ready for the next project or is there still much to be
done after this release?

I have a couple of new songs ready for a coming release, and I’m continuously writing new
songs. I don’t know yet if the new songs add up to another EP or a full album. Time will tell
that. And sure, there will a lot of work to reach out with the new EP. I do all that by myself,
so there’s a couple of hundred emails I will have to write in the coming weeks, some activity
on twitter etc.

What advice would you give to all those that are gathering the courage to release
their first Album/Ep/Song?

If you are going to use music as a mean of expressing yourself, the first thing to do is to take
yourself seriously. I haven’t always done that myself, but if I’m going to release music, in my
name, that I can stand behind 100%, then I must take it seriously and dare to be a bit
pretentious. There’s really no other way around it. That doesn’t mean however, that
everything needs to be 100% perfect regarding the production. On the contrary, I’m far from
a perfect human being, and if my music is some sort of an expression of myself, there will
always be issues with me singing out of tune sometimes etc. That doesn’t really matter if the song you’ve written is good, and you are singing it with your own authentic and unique voice.
Then people will listen to your music, appreciate it and see beyond the possible errors.
There’s a lot of success stories in the history of music confirming this.
If you don’t take yourself and the music you are making serious, then doubts will arise, and
you will automatically start questioning yourself. Therefore, it is also important to write music
that you like yourself, not music that you think others might like.
To summarize, take your music serious and don’t ever mentally detach yourself from it. Find
your own unique and authentic voice (yes, everyone has one) and don’t be a perfectionist.
When you put all that together there will be no way of getting around the fact that writing
and releasing music is what you gotta do. Even if you happen to be a 42-year-old Swedish guy
with no looks and a strange sounding name.

What is the one thing you would like to tell your Fans?

Haha! I don’t think I have that many fans out there yet. But I would really like to thank those
(few and brave) that reached out and told me that they enjoy my music. It really means so
much to me and gives me self-confidence to continue doing things my way. There’s a
fantastic feeling to express yourself and receiving confirmation that you are heard and
understood by others. That’s some serious fuel for the soul!
I’m also grateful to several internet radio stations, including SLE among the first, that plays
my music. That really gives me a boost to continue writing songs. Even if an artist is making
his/her own thing, music is about being heard and listened to as well.

What is the one thing you would like to tell the Music industry?

I am a 42-year-old Swedish guy that started to write music at the beginning of this year. I
don’t really know so much about the music industry itself. Other than the fact I don’t like
most of the music coming out of the music industry. But I guess that could have to do with
me getting older as well. Although I have never liked music on commercial radio stations, I
have always listened to indie or underground music, never listened to nor enjoyed any pop
music from the charts. I guess that the music industry as such is no place for me to be at.
And I don’t wanna be there either. I’m gonna continue writing and singing my songs and put
them on the platforms for people to hear. I’m pretty happy with just that.