The Final Project

The nature of the Bollenberg Johansson Experience changed since John "BoBo" Bollenberg last updated us on this project. Bobo brought in a variety of guests, culminating in the If Only Stones Could Speak CD that was released in September 2002. Those guests included Roine Stolt (The Flower Kings), Rick Wakeman (Yes), Heather Findlay (Mostly Autumn), Jordan Rudess (Dream Theater), William Kopecky (Kopecky) among others. The CD is a concept album about historical events tied to various Belgian locations. -ed.

Well a lot has happened since our last update. What were considered to be the backing tracks were taken to Arjen "Ayreon" Lucassen's home studio in order to take into account Arjen's professional advice. That advice at the time however was very hard to swallow as Arjen told our John "Bo Bo" Bollenberg to re-record all bass and drum parts. What happened was that everything had been recorded without a clicktrack so most of the parts weren't what they call "in sync" (not to be confused with N'sync!). Meanwhile Pär Lindh offered to take on the role as producer and look into solutions to solve all this. He drafted in American bass player William Kopecky (of the instrumental prog-rock trio Kopecky) who came over to Sweden to tour with the Pär Lindh Project and meanwhile agreed to re-record all bass parts. On top of that Pär did all of the drum parts as well as adding keyboard textures. It wasn't an easy task as, to be honest, everything had to be done from scratch, yet our friends decided to at least keep most of the material Björn Johansson had recorded, which is why these "not in sync" problems started to surface.

In December 2001, John "Bo Bo" Bollenberg went over to record his vocals at Pär's very own Crimsonic studios in Uppsala, Sweden. Meanwhile, two songs that had already been recorded were regarded as being not good enough so John wrote two completely new songs, which had to be tackled from scratch. Whilst in Uppsala both John and Pär teamed up with Roine Stolt, who also resides in the same village. Roine would be on holiday in Mexico for three weeks over the holiday season and would be back in Sweden on January 17th. A misunderstandnig between Pär and Roine led to Roine getting the necessary tapes to work on rather belated, which nevertheless gave him the possibility to add guitar on three out of the nine proposed songs. These tapes then got the quick mix treatment and were shipped over to Belgium just in time (they were delivered the day before the session!) before yet another impressive name came to deliver his solos.

Whilst on tour with his band Dream Theater, Jordan Rudess agreed to come down to the studio whilst the band was in Belgium. Jordan was picked up at his hotel on Tuesday morning, February 5th and was driven to the NMI studios in Oostende, Belgium. There he attacked the Kurzweil 2500 XS adding his distinctive style to no fewer than five tracks. Listening back to the material we have so far, things are really coming together nicely and If Only Stones Could Speak will indeed become an impressive album. Also in January, a 20-piece choir was recorded to enhance certain parts of the album. Due to the fact that Rick Wakeman has asked to record his parts in the middle of March the release for the album has been postponed a little, so right now we're looking at a May release. Meanwhile, designer Mattias Norén has come up with some great artwork, so bit by bit it's all coming together. And bit by bit everyone involved in the project is getting more and more nervous ...

Links:
Arjen "Ayreon" Lucassen
Pär Lindh
Kopecky
Roine Stolt/Flower Kings
Dream Theater
Jordan Rudess
Rick Wakeman

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Published on: 2002-02-10 (2714 reads)