Interview with Anette Johansson and Mats Edstrom of Shiva

By Neon Blonde

January 30, 2003

Q:  First of all the name…SHIVA.  Is it pronounced (shee-va)?  What does it mean and who came up with it?

Anette: Yes, it´ s pronounced that way.  SHIVA is a powerful Hindu God, one of the greatest. He stands for example ecstasy and power. It was Mats who came up with the idée to use that name and I liked it right away.

  Mats: In the beginning I thought SHIVA was a female powerful god, we could refer to Anette’s powerful voice, well something like that. But later I read about it and Shiva was a male god of course. Anyway you have to have a name.

Q:  How long has the band existed and who are the members?

Anette: SHIVA has only existed for about a year and consists of me, Anette.   Mats and I go back at least 8 years.

  Mats: As Anette says it’s only her and me in the band. We’ll see in the future if there we’ll be more band-members.

  Q:  Where are you guys from?

Anette: We are from Sweden and from a town called Jönköping.

Q:  Anette, you have the most amazing voice!  What’s your musical/vocal background?  Have you been in any other bands?

Anette: Thank you! I don’t have any schooling besides singing in the shower. I have been in a couple of bands like Angelez and Yankee Heaven (where also Mats were a member). With Yankee Heaven we released 1 album but we never got anywhere though.

Q:  What’s it like being the only female in the band?

Anette: Well, SHIVA is only two persons so it´ s an equal situation for both of us – I´ m the only woman and Mats the only man. You know, it´ s no problem for me to be a woman in this male-dominated genre – actually it’s very nice…  

Q:  Mats what is your musical background?  When did you start playing the guitar?  What other bands have you been in?  When did you decide to be a professional musician?

Mats: First of all I’m not a professional musician, thou’ it takes very much of my time. I’ve been playing the guitar as long as I can remember. But lately I’ve been concentrated to producing and song writing. I’ve been playing in bands like ARROW, Yankee Heaven, but it was many years ago. Actually both Anette and I had been away from the music a couple of years. The last years I’d been in contact with Anette and she was real hungry for singing. So we started SHIVA and began working on a demo.

After sending out our first demo to ‘web-zines’ and magazines we’d got great response from these people and they helped us to finally getting a deal. It all happened very fast.

Q:  Describe for us a day in the life of Shiva.  In other words, what’s a typical studio-day or tour-day like?

Anette: Well, Mats is in command and I follow orders...ha ha just kidding. We are just having a good time and we laugh a lot.  Mats usually play a couple of ideas that we try out, what key, choir and so on. Then I write the lyrics finished at home and Mats puts down the music in his studio and then we come together to finish the song. We have never been on tour so we don’t have a typical tour-day.

  Mats: It would be a dream to play our songs live, but we must see how things turn out with SHIVA. We‘ve got our jobs and families and so on to think about, so you need to more or less live on the music. It’s a very early state of the band but hopefully we can go on tour in the future.

  Q:  How do you feel about the CD?  Did you have to make compromises or did it come out the way you wanted?

Anette: I´ m very proud of the album. We never had any attention of going “world wide” with it – no, we just hoped that our parents and friends would be nice to us and buy it. But it turned out with a contract with Z records and a lot of attention in magazines so I must say I´ m amazed, but happy, that there are a couple of more people then our families that like what we are doing.

  Mats: I’m pleased with the album. I’ll think we have managed to write 11 great songs. Our intension was to make an album with lot of attitude. And the most important, we had lots of fun recording this album.

Q:  Tell me more about writing these songs, who wrote what?

Anette: Mats is the songwriter – I have no talent for that, but I do try to write the lyrics to some of the songs for example “Another Mans Wife”.

  Mats: Well, I write all songs but of course Anette give the songs a lot of her personality. And we usually write the lyrics together.

Q:  Did you have a sound you were trying for or did the sound just come about naturally?

Anette: I don´ t think we have a typical sound that we are trying to create, we usually just see what happens when we record. But it´ s important that it feels real, emotional and most of all….contains a lot of power!

  Mats: My intension has all the time been to play our songs with a lot of attitude.

Q:  What would you say the style of music that SHIVA writes, produces, and plays is?

Anette: Hard rock with a touch of metal perhaps?

  Mats: We have been reviewed a lot in the melodic rock-scene. But I’ll think that SHIVA appeals to rock- AOR- and hard rock fans. Whatever, we play for fun and I’ll think you can hear it.

Q:  How long would you say the process took to make this CD?

Anette: I believe it took about 6 month to finish the songs then it took 6 month before the album was released.

Q:  I’ve been listening to the cd for about two weeks, almost everyday, and I can’t get enough of it!  What would you say is your favorite song off the CD is?

Anette: I´ m very glad that you like the album. My favorite must be “Another Mans Wife” or “Shame on you”.

  Mats: My favorites are “Stay out” or maybe “Shame on you” It’s different from time to time.

Q:  What would be your favorite song to perform or that you’ve written?

Anette: I think I would like to perform “Shame on you”- it´ s a little bit dirty and I like that kind of songs.

  Mats: Dow Jones Index would be nice to play live.

Q:  I am diggin’ “Another Man’s Wife” and “Would You Lie To Me”.  I just love the music, guitar, and vocals on both of them.  Tell me about these two tunes.

Anette: well, “Another Mans Wife” is about a situation I think we all experience sometimes, we have loved ones but suddenly we meet that person we hoped to meet in another life.  It´ s a fine line between trust and dishonesty and most of us (?) does not cross that line but the woman in the lyrics does.

  Mats: “Would you lie to me” is a great song, the lyrics is also like “Another mans wife” about trust and dishonesty. But not so much about unfaithfulness.

Q:  The production is awesome.  Did you have help with the production or did you do most of it yourself?

Mats: All songs are recorded and produced and mixed in my studio. I’ve produced the album and Anette has been my co-producer.

So yes, we did it all by ourselves.

Q:  What would you say your fan base is like here in the US?

Anette:  I have no idea actually. We are newcomers so I guess not many Americans have heard us…yet hopefully!

Q:  How are you received in Sweden?

Anette:  The album is too new; it has mostly been marketed in Germany. We hope our label will market it well in the US. I think you can hear influences from U.S. in our music.

Q:  What’s Shiva doing right now?  Have you guys been on any tours or have any plans for touring?

Anette: We are working on our second album that we hope will be released in October this year.

We must see what happens with our debut-album and then we’ll decide if we will “go on tour”. If it turns out well we’ll probably try to go on tour.

Q:  I believe this album would be very successful if you could get radio airplay.  How hard is it to get on the radio?

Anette: In Sweden this kind of music is not often performed on the radio. It´ s difficult to make the stations play unknown music, at least here in Sweden.

Q:  What are the best ways for new bands like yourself to get heard and signed and get their music to the masses?

Anette: Like you said radio is a door opener so that’s a great way. We got our record deal by sending material to the “right persons” that liked our music and gave us new connections that lead us to the deal. Without this people we probably would not have a deal today. So I believe right people and right timing are important.

  Mats: Web-zines is a great way to get in contact with the “right people”, that’s how we finally got our deal.

Q:  Last I just want to say thanks.  The music I’ve heard has been fresh sounding!  It has great songs, great vocals & guitar with multi-platinum production.  Please tell us what is next for Shiva…because like many others I would love to see you live!

Anette: At the moment we are working on our second album. When it comes to go on tour or do gigs we have no plans for now. Maybe in the future, that would be a lot of fun. It depends on how successful our albums get.

  Mats: We’re very exited about the next album. We’ve already been in the recording- studio. And I’ll think this time we’ll take our music a step further. Anyway, it feels that way.

Q:  Feel free to mention anything else you want us to know that I haven’t asked!  Thanks and happy trails.

Anette: Nice to hear from you and take care!

  Mats: Hope our album will appeal to all the rocking Americans.  

KEEP ROCKIN'!

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