Swedish... who???
Who can make a career out of a hobby? Probably not many. But I did!
It all started with an old Lenco turntable, a bad two line mixer and a broke down casetteplayer. In 1979 I got my first DJ-job at a small local teen-club in Gävle, Sweden. In 1982 my family moved to Los Angeles and I had no choice but to tag along with them. I was only 16 and not exactly thrilled at the time. But looking back, I wouldn’t trade it for a million bucks.
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Life in Californa started in La Cañada, a small community by the San Gabriel mountains. To my dads despair I turned my room into a small studio and started making my own mixes and radioshows. Shortly after sending my Duran Duran megamix to a swedish DJ known as "The Swedish Eagle", I found myself on Richard Blade's morning show at LA’s #1 radio station KROQ. That morning I was nicknamed "Swedish Chris". |
I did plenty of mixes for KROQ. Most popular were my Megamixes. Simple Minds, Depeche Mode, New Order, Pet Shop Boys, Thompson Twins, Heaven 17, the list goes on. You could say I was on the "cutting-edge", splicing up every song that catched my ear. It didn't take long before some record labels started to take notice. At that time I teamed up with DJ-friend Boris Granich and Falco's "Rock me Amadeus" beacame our first remix to hit the charts. It went straight to #1 on Billboard's Hot 100 and we got our first gold record for sales exceeding 500 000 copies. |
 Depeche's Dave Gahan at KROQ |
 Me & Samantha Fox at Power 106 |
In spring of '86, a new station called Power 106, started pumping "a fresh new music mix" across Southern California. Me and Boris became the station's special Powermix-DJ's. Within a year Power 106 was #1 and our Power- and Clubmixes were trademarks of the station. We made mixes of Madonna, Michael Jackson, Roxette, Bobby Brown, Taylor Dayne, Pet Shop Boys, D-Mob, Janet Jackson, Lisa Stansfield, Exposé, En Vogue, Babyface, Prince, Donna Summer, Rick Astley... ... the list seems endless. Boris & Chris was rockin´ the mix.
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We started doing special dance mixes for the labels. In 1986 we earned another #1 US-hit with our remix of Paula Abdul's "Straight Up". This one went platinum! More remixes followed. Boy George, Jody Watley, Rod Stewart, Depeche Mode, Trans X, and yet another platinum record for Bobby Brown. We did a few swedish acts too. Like Lili & Susie, Style, Trance Dance and Lena Philipson. Besides all the radio, remixing and DJ-ing, I went to school. Yeah... school! Told you music was my hobby. Music was on my spare time. From high school I went on to college studying Graphic Arts and Marketing for a couple of years. I then continued at California State University at Northridge and got my Bachelor of Science in Business Administration/Marketing. I graduated Cum Laude in 1988. Damn, I'm proud of myself! Why be bashful? |
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 ABC, Pepsi & Shirley and me at Powerhouse IV in Hollywood (where else?). |
So what am I doing back in Sweden? Sure, life in California was great. When it was good - it was REALLY GOOD! Sunshine, beaches, girls, parties, nighclubs, sneak previews, showbiz, and... yes... a bit of fame. Hey, I was "Swedish Chris"! Earthquakes? More people die in Sweden from shoveling snow. But still I wanted to go back to Sweden. Why??? What do you think? Girls... girls... girls...!!! I met a very special one - Marie! Today she's my wife and mother of our two kids, Nicklas and Sara. |
I knew I wanted to go on in radio but commercial radio was still illegal in Sweden back in 1992. So I got myself a job as an AD at local advertising firm and worked part time at Swedish Radio P4 (public service) and kept on spinning records at clubs every weekend (something I still do). In December of 1993 commercial radio became legal and I became Station Manager at RIX 105 in my hometown Gävle. But bringing commercial radio to Sweden hasn't exactly been a breeze. Imagening a business developing from scratch to a highly competitive, well researched and very technically advanced business in less than five years. You had to constantly stay on top of things to be number one. And you better believe I've learned a lot. Still I believe my biggest asset has been listening and learning about radio in California. Perhaps that's why I was asked to become Program Director of the RIX Radio Network, Sweden's largest commercial radio network. Did I take the job? Guess! For me "radio is not a job - it’s a way of life". Need I say more?
/Chris.
