The early days [up]

Benny Söderberg.
Interview in japanese press 1993.

State your birth date.
– August 14 1967.

Birth sign?
– Leo.

Where did you grow up?
– I grew up in Sollentuna, a suburb of Stockholm, Sweden.

What kind of up bringing did you have?
– A safe and colorful one.

Was your family musically inclined?
– In a way, yes.

What did you want to be as a kid?
– Forever young.

Did you have musically training?
– Choir practise.

When did you start playing music and what gave you the ambition to do it professionally?
– I started to sing in a boys quire when I was about ten years old at the local church.
I early had a dream of making something different out of my life. And since music was my major interest I just grew in to it.

When was first public performance?
– In school, at the age of 14.

Did your good/bad experiences from other bands enhance this ambition? If yes, then which bands, and when did you play with them?
– Of course playing in a band helps you to improve your talent.
I have played in a number of local bands.

Fortune 1992: Benny, Jan Lund, Thomas Hauk and Henrik Bergqvist.

Fortune 1995: Emil Fredholm, Jan Lund, Henrik Bergqvist, Benny and sebastian Sippola.

Fortune in Japan 1994.

What instruments do you play/use and think is the best?
– Part from singing I compose on keyboard, guitar and computers.
I also play the drums, which is the first instrument I learned to play. I practised the drums for five years before I decided to sing instead.

When did you join/form the band (Fortune) and how did it happen?
– Me and Jan Lund (bass) formed the band. After having worked on demo tapes in our studio we decided to form the group and began advertise at music stores and in magazines looking for a guitarist and drummer. But we didn´t find the right mix at first. Since Jan Granwick (Glory) is an old friend of ours, he recommended one of his pupils to us and it seemed right from the very start. And that´s how Henrik Bergqvist joined the band. Thomas Hauk joined just a month before recording the debute album Making Gold.

Could you briefly tell who influenced you the most to go into the field of music you are into now? And how?
– Bands like Deep Purple and Rainbow. But mostly Van Halen, after having seen them live in Stockholm back in 1984 I was trapped.

Did you encounter any difficulties when entering the music world?
– Yes. I have discovered that everything is relative.

Which other artists would you recommend people to listen to, and why?
– I recommend people to listen to what ever they really want to listen to, without minding what else might think about it. Mix the styles, listen to rock, funk, soul classical, jazz and so forth.
I listen to all of the classic hardrock- and heavy metal bands, and I also listen to Bob Marley, new pop- and rock music, swedish bands, Bach and Mozart and many of the great singers, Stevie Wonder for instance.

Happiest experience?
– Love, and being loved.

Most terrifying experience?
– The opposite.

Fortune released three cd albums and reached high on the Japanese charts in the early nineties.
The song “Life Goes On” was a popular radio hit in Sweden in the summer of 1992.
1994 the band toured Japan (Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya).