Robex Lundgren virkblogg.

Have any of you played in other bands? Yes, members in Pearls and Flames or musicians collaborating within the project have been members in other bands before. At the moment Pearls and Flames are more like a bandname for recording music and to do that I work with friends that also are fantastic musicians. We are not yet an active live performance unit but that can hopefully change if we release an album and it gets attention.

People involved right now are:

Markus Nordenberg (ex Coastland Ride) - Lead- and background vocals, additional keyboards, songwriter.

Sven Larsson (ex Street Talk and Coastland Ride live band) - lead guitars and additional rhythm guitars

Tomas Coox (ex Coastland Ride live band) - additional keyboards and songwriter

People that to this day are collaborating with the project:

Tommy Denander - (Radioactive, Alice Cooper, Robert Hart and more) - Programming, bass, guitars, keyboards and songwriting)

Anders Rybank - (ex Coastland Ride)

Where are you from? Me and Tomas Coox live in Sundsvall, Sweden and Sven Larsson lives in Söderhamn, Sweden.

What year did the band form? Pearls and Flames started with me and Tomas when we did some recordings back in 1998. At the same time I was in Coastland Ride and I chose to focus more on moving on with that band. To this day Coastland Ride have made three albums so we had a fun ride 😊. Coastland Ride was put on hold in November 2019 after not been active for six months. The last six months before we made the decision to quit Coastland I started to writing and collaborating with Tomas and Sven as I didn´t want to stop making music. In April 2020 I started a collaboration with Tommy Denander. I am also collaborating with Anders from Coastland Ride on some songs. I am lucky to work with all these good friends and talented high-class cats

What's your style of genre? Melodic music with touches of AOR and Westcoast.

What inspires you? My lyrics deals with my own experiences but also tell the stories and scenes from other people´s everyday life.

Are you looking for a booking agency, and what are your thoughts around that? Not now. Right now, the focus is to record a bunch of high class songs that will gather interest from Melodic rock labels.

What are your songs about? Mostly different kind of relations between people.

Who does the composing and writes the lyrics? In some of the songs I have composed all music by myself while in some of the songs the music has been composed by me in collaboration with my writing partners. All the lyrics are written by me.

Do you compose in a certain inviroment? No, not really. Ideas can come in different situations (on the bus, when I´m out walking or running, when driving my car and so on). When they do, I sing them into my phone so I can remember them and I write the lyrics down in the phone´s memo.

Have you done any covers live? We have not been playing live yet.

Where can people buy your merchandise? Right now we are not selling merchandise as I don´t think it would be any idea. First, we need to get our music out.

What do you think about people downloading music instead of buying records now a days? I don´t know how common it is with illegal downloading these days? I think many people pay for downloading digital albums or stream songs by Spotify, Itunes and other streaming platforms. That´s the new era and I think it is something that we must get used to. It´s nice though to see that vinyls are coming back on the market.

How do you think the music industry have changed because of this? Today more and more artists can get attention and get there songs out on different platforms. That means on one hand that the competition are getting harder but on the other hand that even the smallest budget artist can write song, record them at home, get the material out and reach an audience. That gives fantastic possibilities that artists and musicians never had back in the old days. The back side of it is that there is so much music you have access to and I think that possibility effects how people value music. Nowadays you don´t have to long for good music because it´s everywhere. You don´t have to choose between which of two or three albums you should buy because you can get them all on Spotify. I think that takes the value and excitement away from music.

What do you think of my work? I know that you´ve been around for many years now as you made an interview with Coastland Ride for many years ago. It´s fantastic that you keep doing this for the love of music. It´s you and other people with the same enthusiasm that keep the interest in music and artists alive and you give people something to read and talk about. Keep up the good work!

How do you think and know that this interview will help you in the music business? I hope that this interview gives you and other people a little hint of what Pearls and Flames are and hopefully it will gather some attention to the project 

Do you have any role models or idols?

I have some vocalists that I really like listening to when I like to hear good singing.. Richard Page, Mark/Marcie Free, Lars Säfsund, Warren Wiebbe, Kenny Loggins, Jimi Jamison, Kip Winger, Tony Harnell and Steve Perry.

Artists I really dig as composers and performers are Kevin Gilbert, Mark Spiro, John Parr, David Foster, Toto, Chicago, Unruly Child, Survivor, Journey, Work of Art, The Defiants, Airplay, Maxus and….oh I think I have stop because I can go on all night

Why do you think that they exist?

They have abilities and motivation beyond the ordinary.

Is it easier to find inspiration from older bands, or bands that are more active today? It varies for me. I think that I through the years have come up with a certain way/style of writing songs that don´t change much.

What have been your biggest obstacles? So far, I don´t think we have had any

What advice would you give other bands or artists? Be true to what feels good to you and try to have as much fun as you can.

Do you have any new material? Yes! We have a lot of songs in the making. Some of them are waiting to be mixed and mastered, some of them are waiting for me to track the vocals and some of them are not yet recorded. All in all, I think there are 13-14 songs.

What are your web sites? www.facebook.com/pearlsandflames mail: [email protected]

Do you have something to add? We really looking forward to getting the songs out. I think they will appeal to fans of melodic music and great musicianship