Year : 2021 (Japan Edition)
Style : Melodic Hard Rock
Country : Denmark
Audio : 320 kbps + all scans
Size : 169 mb
Bio:
Ronnie Atkins, real name Paul Christensen (* November 16, 1964, Vejle, Denmark), is a Danish musician and singer for the heavy metal band Pretty Maids, which he co-founded with guitarist Ken Hammer in 1981.He has also been performing with the metal opera Avantasia since 2013, in which he participated as a singer on two studio albums; The Mystery of Time (2013) and Ghostlights (2016).
Pretty Maids are a Danish hard rock/heavy metal band from Horsens, Denmark. Formed in 1981 by Ronnie Atkins and Ken Hammer, their sound and music can be described as classic guitar-laden heavy rock with a strong emphasis on melodic elements like vocals and keyboards.Over the years, Pretty Maids have sold hundreds of thousands of records, but have never broken through in a major way, except in Japan during the 1990s. They have supported well known bands as Black Sabbath, Whitesnake, Deep Purple, Alice Cooper, and Saxon, and were also featured at the 1987 German version of Monsters of Rock, where Metallica headlined along with Deep Purple.After a prolonged international touring hiatus before the release of the 2006 Wake Up To The Real World album, the band have every year since been touring their primary markets of Denmark, Sweden, Germany, and Spain.In March 2014, Pretty Maids are going to release their 13th studio album Louder Than Ever.
Album:
Frontiers Music Srl is pleased to announce the signing of Danish vocalist Ronnie Atkins to a solo deal. The acclaimed Pretty Maids and Nordic Union vocalist will release his new solo album, "One Shot", in 2021."To be honest, I initially had no intention to do a solo album to begin with, but for various reasons and in particularly my own personal health situation, I finally decided to have a crack at it", says Atkins. "Around Easter 2020 and only some six weeks after I was told that everything seemingly looked very positive for my health, I was unfortunately diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and told it was incurable, which was devastating news for me. Needless to say, that was a total game changer and I went into a kind of panic situation for a while! But when the dust had settled, I realized there were two ways to approach the situation. I could sit down, accept the facts and feel pity for myself or I could pull myself up, set some goals, pursue my dreams and carry on living! And with fantastic back-up from my family and true friends, I went for the latter", continues Atkins.With the global pandemic shutting down touring for the foreseeable future, Atkins knew a tour promoting the latest Pretty Maids album, "Undress Your Madness" (2019), was not going to be in the stars anytime soon. Suddenly, the timing for working on a new solo album seemed to have presented itself."Well, I couldn't change the facts by any means. The whole world was on a lockdown and the future prospects of concerts were very uncertain and still is to this day! Basically, that meant that if I was gonna carry out the idea of a solo album, it had to be now since I don't necessarily have all the time in the world. I had all these ideas recorded on my iPhone that I felt were too good to never see the light of day and I was writing a lot at the time to help ease my frustrations", tells Atkins.Ronnie's next step was to connect with producer (and Pretty Maids bandmate) Chris Laney to begin the work of putting these ideas together into songs. Chris is overseeing production, Jacob Hansen will mix and musicians appearing on the album include - in addition to Laney - Allan Sørensen, Morten Sandager, Pontus Egberg, Anders Ringman, Pontus Norgren, Kee Marcello, Olliver Hartmann, John Berg, Linnea Vikström Egg, and Björn Strid."Not being able to handle the recordings myself, since I'm old school and a complete idiot when it comes to IT, Pro Tools and the like, I hooked up with my PM friend and firesoul Chris Laney, who literally cheered me up and convinced me to go ahead with it. So, I decided to get moving and literally recorded my ideas on either piano or guitar and with a mellotron click to keep the beat and the accompanying vocal. Then I would send these along to Chris, who did the instrumentation in Stockholm and would then send back demos to me. Then, I recorded the vocals first, which is totally the opposite of what you'd normally do, but based on the uncertainty of my health situation, I wanted to get them down. After that we did the basic tracks, drums, guitars, keys, backing vocals, etc. An odd way of doing it, for me at least, but it worked. And so, this procedure slowly moved on during the summer and finally turned into an album of 12 new songs", explains Atkins."I wouldn't have been able to carry out this project without the enthusiasm of Chris, who has been my constant partner in this project from day one. On top of that, I had the pleasure of working with a variety of great musicians/singers such as Pontus Norgren, Kee Marcello, Oliver Hartmann, Pontus Egberg, Linnea Vickström Egg, Björn Strid, and last but not at least, my PM relatives Allan Sørensen and Morten Sandager", continues Atkins. "Musically and lyrically this album has been a different process for me, considering everything going on. Musically, it could have gone in various directions. It's always a question of what you want it to be. A good song is a good song, so it's really a matter of how it is packaged. But I decided to make it appeal to the fans, the supporters who've been following me for almost 40 years, so this is basically a melodic rock album with a heavy twist. Lyrically, it also has a different approach. I found it hard to write about sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll, due to the situation I'm wrapped up in, so I guess it turned out a bit more personal and maybe melancholic at times. But it reflects my thoughts at the given time these lyrics were written", concludes Atkins.While the creation of "One Shot" is bittersweet for a variety of reasons, it's nonetheless another thoroughly wonderful melodic rock offering from one of the masters of the genre.
Line Up:
Ronnie Atkins - Vocals (1982-present) - See also: PRETTY MAIDS, Avantasia (live), Nordic Union, ex-L.A., ex-The Mini Four
+ guests:
Chris Laney (rg, lg, k, bv)
Anders Ringman (ag)
Pontus Norgren (lg)
Kee Marcello (lg)
Oliver Hartmann (lg, bv)
John Berg (lg)
Pontus Egberg (b)
Allan Sørensen (d)
Morten Sandager (k)
Linnea Vikström Egg (bv)
Bjørn Strid (bv)
Tracklist:
01. Real
02. Scorpio
03. One Shot
04. Subjugated
05. Frequency Of Love
06. Before The Rise Of An Empire
07. Miles Away
08. Picture Yourself
09. I Prophesize
10. One By One
11. When Dreams Are Not Enough
12. One Shot (Orchestral Version) (Japan Bonus Track)
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