The Deadbeats

From Finspång With Love.

Let’s all go back to the halcyon days of 1996 when the Hellacopters beat out ABBA for a Swedish Grammis award and those of us in the United States and elsewhere held out hope that Sweden was the new Detroit or Sydney. Of course, the Hellacopters are now known worldwide and they have inspired and, some say, spawned, a whole slew of Swedish bands who continue to kick it out to this day. One of these great Swedish bands is Finspång’s The Deadbeats.

I can remember vividly the first time I ever heard the Deadbeats. After a horrible day at work I used to cruise the isles at Tower Records in DC looking for new stuff to turn my crank. I was going through the “D” Miscellaneous section when I saw a CD by a band called the Deadbeats. Now, I’m old enough to remember the Deadbeats from LA but this did not look anything like that band. And it sure as hell didn’t sound anything like those LA guys. Not one bit.

Intrigued, I purchased this CD and when I got home and played it I was treating to a righteous peeling of my brain layers as I heard these great songs for the first time. I’m glad to say that 3 years later that CD is still in my carousel and it gets very heavy rotation at the Chateau Champion.

Over the last couple of years I have become friends with Andreas Axelson, the singer/guitarist and main songwriter for the band. This cats writes the tunes that make my ass wiggle. And for a jaded bastard like me that takes one hell of a lot to do.

My mind boggles at the thought that such great music could come from a small town on the E4 highway to Stockholm and makes me think what the hell is in the water there that makes this stuff rock so hard?

So, here I am, on the cusp of moving to Sweden to be part of the rocknroll scene there. And I’m thinking why are the Deadbeats known in the US?(because of their first full length on Fueled Up Records and their one 7 inch record on New York’s The Telegraph Company record label) But in Sweden they seem to have been bypassed. This is a sin, nay, a crime that needs to be rectified immediately. It’s time to change all that! The Deadbeats have been demo-ing new material like crazy and now have an LP’s worth of new material ready for your listening pleasure.

And how the hell can you ask for any more than that?

Dave Champion
Washington, DC
1/2003