It all starts back in 1979-1980. Stefan already had a band called: Abduhlas Profeter (The Prophets of Abduhla) which played rock influenced by bands like Black Sabbath, Deep purple and Led zeppelin when I (Max) first met him at the St Eriks carpenter school in Stockholm. (Yes, me And Stefan started up as carpenters, Gunnar as a welder…) They where looking for a new drummer,so they tested me on a gig and suddenlyI was a member in a rock band!
The band went through a critical period when some band members dropped of into other projects.Finally it was just Stefan and me left from the original setting ,but Gunnar Maxén was already a "Hang around and Wannábe for the bass job. In 1981 Gunnar entered the bass position, but at the same time we got kicked out of our rehearsal room by the landlord, so some thing had to be done and this quickly!Through some talk in "the hood" we heard about a new place to play! A former bomb shelter, good stuff we all said. But we went out of luck; it already was too many bands at the joint. By now we were a frustrated bunch of apes!So frustrated so we started a nightly criminal project to get into that place! I guess its ok to reveal this since it by now should be statute-barred. (No longer punishable)We broke in without any visual damage to the door and locks. They had constructed a big scary locking device on the door that was a total disaster! We just had to turn two bolts, and the gate to music was wide-open!We carried on with this nightly "brake in and entry stuff for long, if not for a whole year, I dont remember exactly.
A couple of years later most bands had left the building since it went to unhealthy to be there! No one cleaned anything and the degradation slowly made it unexplainable disgusting. "Bio Hazard!" (We can assure You it was unhealthy) So the time for the apes "hostile takeover was finally to come!After an additional year we where the only ones holding the ground, and we still do! But we had to clean up the mess to survive in that environment! We where doing endless sessions of jamming in these first years. We tried to get a real tight communication with the musical sides of the brain. It was always new stuff created in the heat of the moment!Most of it taped live during the sessions and kept in the vault for future reference.This was a set with guitar, bass and drums and we wanted a keyboard player to add up the bands sound. And some guys and girls went through the job but no one stayed for long. Much because we wanted to spend a lot of time to get the band tighter and better. Five days a week was the minimum requirements for all of us. In 1985 Peter Dahlström (who left the group for personal reasons in 2005) joined the group and we switched between the instruments so everyone was interacting with the keyboards. Peter loved the five days a week schedule, in fact I think he would have wanted us to permanently live in the bomb shelter. Witch we, (believe it or not), periodically did at least for a couple of weeks during Easter leave and summer vacations.
It was in those days we went into a more symphonic style with very long songs and instrumental parts. We listened very much to U.K, Genesis, Steve Hackett, Yes and Kansas by the time, and those groups were our main source for inspiration back then… still is I guess, even if other musical styles has entered our liking.
We did not stay at a 4-person setup during the whole period after 1985. We tried other keyboardists without finding anyone that wanted to spend the amount of energy and passion needed for the job. Maybe we are a bunch of "wierdoes". Does no one outside the Monkey cave really fancy endless music sessions without payment? Sorry, but we just dont think the money is the leading star here. We look for the kicks in getting it right and win over our personal obstacles. The joy comes from achieving something one never thought was possible. At this point our main sources of inspiration was Weather report, Pat Metheny group, Keith Jarrett etc.
In the early to mid 90´s we played on several occaitions and gained a quite respectable reputation. Unfortunately we never decided our band name until later. We played under several names during a decade and people who fancied us did not have an easy job finding us from time to time. (Correct assumption: No, we have not taken a marketing course, still havent). It wasnt until the late 90´s that we sat down and came to the conclusion that we where actually doing ourselves a bad thing, changing our name of and forth like that.
This immediately initiated a great search of a good band name. Out of about 300 lousy names Brother Ape came out on top. We instantly referred to it as the name that made us all equal no matter heritage. No matter how many names we have had before or how persuant we ware of being good musicians instead of marketing directors. This name made us equal to anyone on earth. We where presidents, Kings, Knights of our own situation and no one but us could make a difference. (We thought). Until Hansi Cross found us digging the dirt. He has really made a difference since he is the man solely responsible of getting our work "out of the basement" and in to the living world. To You!
Thanks for listening in on our little history. Gunnar, Max and Stefan
