Chapter 7
SEPTEMBER 1994
The band was still waiting for the producer to find some time.
A few more songs were written, like A Safety belt for Suzie and Freezer.
Wed 28th – The producer Tim Hunt, and the engineer Jim Brumby, arrived in
Gothenburg for the final rehearsals.
THE RECORDING OF STEREO
OCTOBER 1994
Sat 1st – The album sessions began at 11.00. As usual, the band would do most of the recordings at the Music-A-Matic studio.
Kent: “It had taken so long for Tim to find a suitable date for the album, so when he arrived we had like a million songs”.
Chips was “between apartments” so he was living in the studio at the time.
Sat 15th – The last song for the album was written; Anxiety, Coke and Chocolate Bars.
NOVEMBER 1994
Tue 22nd – The recordings had to stop because Chips health was getting worse. The doctor ordered him a to week of complete silence! No more singing! The producer Tim Hunt had to return to England.
Wed 30th – Chips was better again and the missing tracks were completed with Walle Kaaling engineering.
DECEMBER-94
Fri 2nd – Kent becomes a father.
Hans: “When Kent’s daughter Ellen was born he called us from the hospital and we recorded her through the phone and put her on the album. She can be heard on the outro. She was less than 24 hours old”.
Tue 6th – The mixing started at Marcus studios in London, where Tim Hunt and Jim Brumby met up with the band again.
Sat 17th – 24 songs were mixed. 21 of them ended up on “Stereo”. Over the Top was done for a Swedish Motörhead tribute. In bed without Madonna/ Sleep/Sonny was a bad guy would end up as b-sides. Kuddel and Breiti from Die Toten Hosen, who happened to be in London, showed up in the studio for a quick guitar-solo session on the last song to be finished – Next to nothing.
Tue 20th – The Album was mastered in London and everyone went home to celebrate Christmas.
1995
JANUARY 1995
Sat 14th – The band began rehearsing for the upcoming tour.
Mon 30th – Malmö: The first show after the album (but it’s a very short one) only 3 songs, at a party for the Måzart Award.
Tue 31st – Fox management sues Sator for an unmentionable large sum of money! A lawsuit that would cause the band a lot of trouble throughout this year.
FEBRUARY 1995
Fri 10th – The Out of The Void single was released this day. The album “Stereo” showed up in the stores a couple of days later.
Mon 20th – Back in the studio again for another tribute. This time it was for a Danish Gasolin tribute album, planned for release in April. The song – This is My Life. Producer – Nille Perned.
MARCH 1995
Sat 4th – The Out of the void video was filmed in Malmö. The day after a video for It Really Doesn’t Matter Now was also shot. Both videos were directed by Björn Lindgren who’s been working with Cardigans, Wannadies, Brainpool, Kenickie among others.
Wed 22nd – Hultsfred: A band called The Carbonas performed the first Ramones album in correct order (with only a short break between side one and side two!). Some said the four guys looked very much like the members of Sator, who would start their own tour in the same city on March 24th.
Fri 24th – “Mother of all tours” opened in Hultsfred. Support acts were The Zeros from California and Souls from Gothenburg, who joined Sator on most dates on the tour.
Mon 27th – Gothenburg. During a day off, The Zeros and Sator recorded two songs together; Talking and You me us. Both tunes were written by The Zeros.
APRIL 1995
Thurs 27th – The tour had been going for over a month. In Sundsvall, Jan Kask (the lead singer of Brainpool), sang with Sator on Sweet Baby’s Baby Baby Baby Baby Baby Baby Baby I Love You. A song Brainpool recorded after a suggestion from Kent. Sator used to do this number a couple of years ago, but haven’t played it for a long time.
MAY 1995
Sat 13th – The coldest concert ever? At an outdoor show in Luleå (in the far north of Sweden) the temperature was 4 degrees below zero!
JUNE 1995
Sun 11th – Hamburg: Sator went to Germany for a short double-bill tour with the Swedish band Popsicle.
JULY 1995
The band also appeared at several Swedish festivals during the summer.
Between the show dates, Sator launched their own label, Planet of Noise Records. It was not meant for Sator recordings, but for vinyl-only 7″ singles. First singles out were by Naked Soul, White Flag and The Zeros.
Mon 31st – The band arrived in Gothenburg to record some new songs.
AUGUST 1995
Tue 1st – The recording continued and would go on all through the week. 6 new songs were recorded: Find The Time/All Up To You/This Side of Nowhere/Hey You!/In With The Crowd/I Want You Tonite.
Mon 28th – The mixing of the songs recorded earlier that month, was started. It would take two days.
Thurs 31st – Malmö: The final show of the “Mother of all tours”.
SEPTEMBER 1995
The band finally took a real break. No shows, no rehearsals and no songwriting.
Chips: “This time we decided to really take the break we only talked about a year earlier. We still had one major problem hanging over us, the lawsuit from our former management and it took a lot of energy away from us”.
Tue 12th – Chips was guest on a track of Johan Johansson’s “…och hans svarta lilla värld” album.
Tue 26th – A settlement between the management and the band was completed.
Chips: “It was wonderful! We had been involved in various legal battles constantly for the last 4 years! Now we finally saw the end of all the troubles”.
OCTOBER 1995
Mon 2nd – The only Sator work during the fall was a mix of an early version of I’m gone for a single in Japan, and finishing two other lost demos; What do you want?/If you could see me now (formerly known as Gimme).
Sun 15th – Sator received Slitz magazine’s award for most important Swedish rock band in the last 15 years! They accept the award and performed Pigvalley beach, Safety belt For Suzie and The Damned’s New Rose.
Michael: “It felt kind of strange to get an award like this. We had always felt that no one really cared about us and that we were on our own”.
Chips also appeared with Kai Martin och Stick on rhythm guitar for one song ’cause the original guitar player didn’t show up.
NOVEMBER 1995
Two more Planet of Noise singles were released, La Secta and B-Gum Justice.
DECEMBER 1995
Fri 1st – Gothenburg. Chips produced The Nomads’ mini album “The Cold Hard Facts of Life” and some extra tracks. It was very fast session, 10 songs in three days! Chips, Kent and Hans can be heard on various tracks.
Fri 8th – The two Sator/The Zeros songs recorded earlier during the year were mixed.
1996
JANUARY—APRIL 1996
Chips produced Bazooka!’s album “First floor second skin”.
On February 18th Sator recorded “This perfect day” for a Japanese tribute album to The Saints. Apart from that, the only thing the band did together was to play 5 songs at The Nomads’ 15 year anniversary at “Studion” in Stockholm on April 5.
Chips also produced a session with The Moonboys, and an EP with Mutts.
Sator/Sator Codex got their own tribute album called “Guldskivan”. 21 bands do their version of Sator/Sator Codex songs. As a bonus track you can hear the first Baby Demons song ever released – My baby’s Gone Mental.
MAY—JUNE 1996
Several new songs were written. Swinging London was an early one.
Chips was working on a demo session with Mouth. Kent and Chips also helped out on the recording of a new White Flag album.
JULY 1996
Mon 8th – Chips jumped the night train to Malmö to produce Mutts first album.
Sat 20th – Chips played and sang backing vocals on a session with Stry Terrarie in Malmö.
Sat 27th – Chips jumped on a plane to Stockholm to meet up with Kent for a short guest appearance at The Nomads special Lollipop show outside Stockholm. Kent sang 16 Forever/She pays the rent while Chips was banging away on his guitar. Chips also jumped in on Bangkok with Alex Chilton on vocals. A couple of hours later he’s back in Malmö again to continue with the Mutts album.
AUGUST 1996
Sat 10th – For the first time in almost a year, a real Sator show! They were asked to support Die Toten Hosen in Berlin in front of 22 000 people.
Hans: “We couldn’t say no to a thing like that, so we had to bring the band back together again”.
After the Berlin show Chips left for California to visit some friends of Sator.
SEPTEMBER 1996
Mon 16th – Chips (still in California) were in the studio for a one-off band that had Hector Penalosa from The Zeros on bass and lead vocals, Chips on guitar and backing vocals and Victor Penalosa from The Melanies on drums and backing vocals. Two songs were recorded at Chris Von Sneidern’s studio in San Francisco.
Meanwhile in Gothenburg, Kent produced the debut album by Smash Hit Wonders.
OCTOBER—NOVEMBER 1996
Sator finally got back together again and started working on a new album. A lot of new material was written.
A split single with the French band Gang Bangers was released. They also did two shows in Sweden, the only Swedish dates that year (in Köping and Gothenburg).
On November 22nd Chips made another short guest spot with Mutts in Malmö contributing with backing vocals and guitar on two songs.