Artist Information

Instrumentation
Her current lineup on her new album "My Kind of Heartbreak" consists of Chuck Anthony ( Ace of Base, Back Street Boys) on electric guitar, Jocke Otterbjork on bass (Lutricia McNeil, Bounce), James Bradley (Anita Baker, Chuck Mangione) on drums and guest artists on keys, violin, and backup vocals. Anouschka on acoustic guitar and lead vocals.

Biography
Anouschka has spent the past months arranging and producing her new album "My Kind of Heartbreak". It is due for release February/March 2006. Her blues song "Man Like You", shot to Number 2 on the charts of Midnight Blues Special Radio a few days after it aired. Other tracks are spinning on numerous indie stations. Judging from these test runs, a distribution should not be long in the making once the album is released.

Anouschka can currently be seen in guest appearances most Saturdays at Stampen (where she is considered a rising blues star known for her sexy and dynamic energy on stage, vocal pipes and cool electric guitar!) and Tuesdays at Wirstroms until the album has been completed.

Accolades include: New Talent Award Semifinalist 1994, Follow that Dream 1994, Honorable Mention in John Lennon Songwriting Contest 2001, Berklee College Singer Songwriter Awards 1992 & 1993 & 1994, Hallmark Greeting Card Finalist 1994.

Her first EP released in 1998/99 played on college stations in the States, Radio Bandit in Sweden (featured as a rising female star), and Hungary. CCTV (Cambridge Community Television) did a one hour program on her and her songwriting.The independent film "Woman" featured one track from that EP and one instrumental score.

Anouschka grew up in the United States, Asia, and Europe. Her extensive travels have given her a wide world view, a few language sunder her belt, and an eclectic taste for musical influences and a hunger and restlessness for new artistic horizons and adventures.

She started out folk in the 70s, went rock for a few years in the 80s as lead singer for the Swedish all girl rock group Svaarta Aankan, got turned on to jazz as one of the few female guitar students at Berklee College in the 90s and most recently discovered blues in Stockholm.

Her debut EP in 2000 introduced her as a fresh talent in the AC and AAA genres. She has since developed her new edgier sound whilst performing extensively with numerous line ups in Boston and Los Angeles.

So, where were you born?
In Stockholm, Sweden. My mother is Swedish. With my American father, a doctor in the US Army, we moved around extensively in Europe, Asia and America during my childhood.

Do you recall what your first guitar was? And do you still own/play it?
I was 12, when my Swedish grandmother brought me a beat up acoustic she’d bought at a flea market for 20 dollars. I named the guitar Tinkerbell, because she had a very treble sound. The strings were hard and my fingers bled. I bought a beginners book, taught myself simplified chords and started writing songs. Throughout my childhood Tinkerbell was my solace from always being the new kid on the block.

Later my grandfather gave me my first love guitar, an Ovation, ( Tinkerbell II). The first Tinker got lost in a move. 16 years later Tinkerbell II was stolen from my car when I was attending Berklee College of Music in Boston. It had been with me everywhere in my world travels and I was devastated. That guitar was the last tangible remnant of my childhood. It took me a year to find the Takamine I have been performing with since! Last year I went electric though and got a custom Halkan for my birthday!

At what point in your life did you move to the States?
I only spent a few early years in the States. Not until high school and Tufts University did I truly live there.

When were you living in Europe and Asia?
This is a trick question that only my mother could answer correctly, I think, but there were my first years in Geneva, Switzerland, four years in Bangkok, Thailand, a year of boarding school in England, and two years of the International School in Frankfurt/Main, Germany. Every summer was spent in the Southern Swedish woods, though, which is why I romanticized Sweden as my home.

What parts of Europe and Asia did you live in and for how long?
I consider Thailand my first proper home since we lived in the same house and I attended Bangkok International School for four years. I learned Thai, Thai dancing, and studied Buddhism. I learned about Judaism from my father’s side and about the Swedish Lutheran tradition from my mother’s side, so I had a very diverse intellectual spiritual and multi-cultural exposure (which I am extremely grateful for) at an early age. I also had many interesting vacations growing up, such as trekking in the Himalayas at Mt Everest when I was 11, and traveling in war torn Nicaragua after the Sandinista Revolution when I was 16.

Did you perform in each of those countries as well?
I determinedly performed ever since I got that 20 dollar guitar with my songs regardless if anyone wanted to hear me or not! I played at every school. The kids were mean and locked me up in the piano room once when I was practicing in Germany. Once they threw food at me when I sang “Killing Me Softly” at a school assembly in Kansas. In boarding school in England, I was forbidden to play my guitar anywhere but in the bathroom. When I started playing French horn I was moved to the garage! (LOL) But thankfully, all that changed, as I got older! I performed in every country I traveled to. In the Kenya Bush I taught some chords to a Masai warrior. He fell in love with me and wanted us to marry. See what havoc a chord can wreak!

What kind of responses did you get if so?
I usually get a wonderful response when I perform live. This last year at jams has been especially rewarding. Both women and men come up and thank me for performing.

What made you decide to move back to Sweden?
I love LA, but I was very lonely. Some very bizarre things happened to me there! But I’ll keep those juicy stories for another interview... or another album! I thought Sweden would welcome me like a long lost childhood dream. I was wrong. Insane things happen here too. I now believe you build your home within yourself like a tortoise. I am portable now. I travel well.

With your new album "My Kind of Heartbreak", are there any personal stories that you wrote about?
Every song is inspired by a personal story but I take great artistic liberties to best serve the song. So, yes and no.
There are so many types of heartbreak- the heartbreak from lovers, family, shattered dreams, a continual sense of loss, and of never quite belonging and coming into one’s own. Heartbreak is where we either grow the most or lose ourselves the most. I’ve done both. This album has been percolating in me for a long time. I just needed the opportunity.
I had a culminating heartbreak moment last year that topped everything off. I hit a downward spiral. After years of trying to play by the rules I realized I wasn’t even interested in the game anymore. We can always change our perception even if we can’t change our circumstance. “Good Girl Gone Wild” is my freedom song. “Man Like You” and “When RU Coming Round” are about a man I was madly convinced was my soul mate. (He never came round) “Venice Beach” is about my love-hate relationship with LA, I love the anything-goes but hate the sleaze. “House of My Father” is about my broken relationship with my father and the fear I felt trying to be the dutiful good girl growing up. At the end of the day, every song is about some kind of heartbreak ergo the title “My Kind of Heartbreak”. I hope that there is a little bit of everything for everyone. That was my communication goal with the album, to strike a common chord on a positive note.

Are there any tracks in particular that you are most fond of?
I usually love a song when I’m working on it and then get sick of it. Right now I like “Venice Beach”, “Lets See This Through”, “House of My Father”. Lets See This Through because it’s got a happy ending, and because I truly believe that “heroes can be ordinary men”; we can all help “save” one another in small unassuming ways from small random acts of kindness, to grandiose acts of loving someone and mirroring them in their best light. I like “Venice Beach” cause it’s a little edgier in the vocals, and “House of My Father “ because I find my arrangement very effective, emotive and the lyrics poetic.

How long did it take you to put the album together?
Almost 8 months, but I had the album mapped out after a months work. I had these songs in me, some were revisited fragments, some wrote themselves. “Venice Beach” and “House of My Father” were last-minute studio rewrites. “Man Like You” was a song I improvised at a jam session. We had just finished and I wanted the guys to have a chance to show off their chops and solo. Since it’s a standard 12 bar it was just a jam track. It was supposed to be a hidden track, but when it went number 2 on the radio chart at Midnight Blues Station in France, the hidden track idea didn’t seem so good.

I didn’t have the budget for high tech recording so I thought it would be cool to record old school analog without production tricks and crutches. I asked Chuck to co-produce with me because I love his guitar arrangements and his spiritual maturity. He did a great job, staying integral and involved to the end. He was a perfect balancing act for me. He encouraged me when I needed it, gave me my space when I needed it, and stepped in and told me when I should let it go. James, Jocke and Per were totally cool too and on the same page of professionalism and accessibility. I handpicked with care the people and energies that I let into this project. Everyone is so accomplished. I wanted that to shine through. Nowadays it is so easy to sound good, even when you know very little. This record is a tribute to old school craftsmanship.

Has it been officially released yet and where will we all be able to get it?
“My Kind of Heartbreak” will be released in May and available at numerous online stores, including Itunes via our online distributor www.cdbaby.com! Please visit www.anouschka.net for updates and links to stores. If anyone would like to be kept informed or pre order the first copies, please email me at mail@anouschka.net!

Where do you find your greatest satisfaction? Writing or performing?
They are different types of thrills. The first is the moment I bring my charts to a great group of musicians and feel the songs flesh out and breathe life from all the different energies and capacities in the room. After hours and months of working alone it is so gratifying. Inside my head can be a very lonely space to be for such a long time.

Then there’s the undeniable high of a performance where the magic happens - The songs just play themselves and we are in complete synchronization with each other and the audience… I guess I love every step of the process in a different way. It’s the only time I feel at peace.

Tell me about your lineup, how did you come across such talented musicians?
Once I started putting myself out there, I got hooked up pretty quickly. But it has been hard to get paying gigs where I can afford to pay a full lineup. I am hoping this album will change that.
I met James at a Tuesday jam. They were impressed when I was the only guitarist who could read a jazz chart, so they told me to sit in whenever I wanted to. Then I met Chuck at the Saturday Blues Jam. Jocke I knew from Berklee in Boston. He’d played a lot with Chuck so they were tight and Chuck played a lot with James. It’s a small world.
Do you perform with some of them at all or were they only assisting you with the recording of your album?
I have performed with all of them at various times. If I get a tour/gigs and can hire the full line up, we’re there. But we all freelance so I am open to working with others if they have prior commitments.

Officially when did you become a full-fledged musician?
I‘m still working at it! I long every day for the chance to have a steady rehearsal and practice routine with gigs lined up, so I can spend my time maintaining my chops and growing instead of marketing and promoting.

When will you perform in Chicago?
As soon as I’m invited!

Well, come on over! :-)

Why did it take you six years to record another CD?
Money.

Who are your inspirations as you grew up? And who are your blues inspirations?
Everything and anything except Metal! James Taylor, Stevie Wonder, Simon and Garfunkle, Eartha Kitt, Abba, Kate Bush, Billy Joel, AC/DC, Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Chicago, James Taylor, Debussy, Euro hits, Susie and the Banshees, Joy Division, Earth, Wind and Fire, George Benson, Keith Jarret, Jobim, Bill Frisell, Chick Corea, Brazilian artists, John McGlauflin, Joni Mitchell, Rickie Lee Jones, Jarreau…
This past year, Blues Breakers with John Mayall, Freddy King, Bill Withers, Etta James, Muddy Waters, and any standards that show up at the jams. I love the humor and soul in blues and the improvisational communication on stage. I cannot believe that I never learned about blues at Berklee. How can you learn jazz and songwriting without learning the blues? It makes no sense to me.

What are you future plans both musically and personally?
I hope to get a solid label on board to assist with marketing, to tour, to place songs in TV and film, to spread a good vibe and make enough money to consider myself legally employed! I want to continue growing, to become a better soloist and record many more albums. I would also love to write for others and produce. My personal goals are to meet my soul mate, fall and stay in love, have children - both my own and adopted - keep healthy, and do volunteer work with environment, orphans and wildlife.

Thank you for answering these questions!
Thank you for your interest in my music and me!

Website
http://www.anouschka.net

Discography
Anouschka Debut Album- 2000
Naked Eye 3-Compilation Album 2000

New album "My Kind of Heartbreak" release due 2006