After nearly 40 years of fronting melodic rock stalwarts Pretty Maids, singer Ronnie Atkins was given a diagnosis that changed his life. Using the downtime from the pandemic, Atkins used that diagnosis as fuel to write and record his first solo record titled One Shot. Ronnie recently took some time to give an open and honest interview about his health, his new record, and his time with the band.
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On his health – My health is really good. Well, I don’t think it’s really good, the diagnosis is what it is but I’m feeling good at the time. I’ve just actually been through some troubled weeks because there was another cancer scare and all but a long story. I went to a lot of biopsies and stuff. Well, that was no cancer cells in the biopsy, so and I was told that on Friday, so I’m super happy. I’m going to need these scans every third month and every time is very nerve-wracking for me and my wife and kids. You never know what you get told, because last time when I had that serious stage 4 diagnosis when it spread, I didn’t actually feel any pain. You never know what awaits you. Dealing with this disease is like a mental thing. It’s there in the sub-conscience 24/7, but it’s something you’ve got to learn to live with. You can’t change what it is, what it is. So let’s get the best out of it. :43
On recording One Shot after learning his diagnosis – I was already (working on the record) because I didn’t tell anybody. What I was told was actually a year ago in March, just six weeks after it was clear. It totally pulled the rug underneath me and my family and I wasn’t ready to cope with it. I was in a panic for a long time. To make a long story short, that is the sole, not the sole reason, but the main reason for doing this album was to have something positive, to focus on, try to park the disease a bit, even though that’s totally not possible. That’s what I did when I had all these songs, ideas that I just wanted to get out of my system because, at the time being, I didn’t know how much time I had left. I wasn’t declared terminal, but I just went in and read the statistics. That’s not for me to recommend that to anybody. But I think I would kind of panic. My good buddy Chris Laney said, “Well, send me whatever you’ve got and I’ll do the instrumentation”, and that that’s how we did it. I think we started doing this around May, April. I did this this this cameo appearance of this project they had called At the Movies where I sang “We Don’t Need Another Hero” by Tina Turner. That’s where I found out that I could actually still sing. I still have the pipes, because I had a long last spring. I couldn’t reach the high notes at the time. Every time I reached the high notes, I started coughing, my lung tissue was damaged. So. to get back to the question, I know we started it back then and already, but I didn’t go public with it until September or October of last year. 2:00
“One Shot”
On putting One Shot together with Pretty Maids bandmate Chris Laney –He’s been mainly the producer and then he had his little input here and there, absolutely. It’s been great collaborating with him. He’s got a good set of ears and we are totally on wavelength, we want the same thing. He’s much into 80s stuff and so am I. So I had all the ideas, (I) actually sent them to him and he kind of glued it together. First of all, I’m not a great piano player and it’s great writing the piano or guitar, but I write on guitar as well. I send a verse and bridge to him and he did that and then I send the middle eight and chorus and stuff like that. So it’s my song. That’s based on stuff I wrote while I was sick between September 2019 and the spring of last year when I got that last diagnosis. I had a lot of old ideas in mind but I borrowed a little here, a little bit here, a little bit there, and turned the whole thing into song. A lot of the stuff was freshly written. I would say like maybe 65, 70 percent of the album was written within the last years. 4:09
“Real”
On collaborating with guests on the record – This was a weird thing. Everyone did it on their own ProTools system back home. Maybe somebody did some things with the “Swedish Mafia”, as I call them. Basically, people did it back home because it was a lockdown, I didn’t see Chris and Allen (Sørensen), the drummer, until September when we did the drums. The way this was totally done, the opposite way of what I normally do is normally we do the basic tracks and then some of the last things we do is the vocals normally. But this time I didn’t know how much time I had left. I don’t want to sound like a drama queen but really didn’t know what my future would bring. So we actually did this way. We did a demo, got the songs written, finished them, and did the demo. Chris sent the demo to me and I did the vocals here and send it back to Chris. Then they did the real instrumentation. I only saw Chris, Allen, and Morton (Sandager) the keyboard player on it in September. I think it was September of last year was the first time we saw each other. Otherwise, it was over the phone. So it was a surreal way to do it for me because I’m a little old school. In Pretty Maids, we always used to get together before going in to do the album. We did some preproduction in a rehearsal room or in the studio or whatever, so this was pretty awkward for me. 5:42
“Scorpio”
On the personal nature of the lyrics –I couldn’t really write about anything else at the time. Most of the lyrics were done and the songs were written in late spring or the summer, and particularly those were some of the first songs like “One Shot”, “Miles Away”, “Real”, “Frequency of Love”, “Picture Yourself”. Those were very personal, which some of these songs are, they were written in a certain time. In that song and I was in very, very sensitive part of my life, so to speak. It’s really hard to write about sex, drugs, and rock n roll in the situation I was in. At the end of the day, I really had to try to get get out of the song and write about something else because I mean, I just couldn’t get that topic out of my head, it felt so much more exciting and something I had to get out of my system. So it might be a little melancholic. It’s more emotional and more sensitive, more personal. But overall, it’s honest. It’s very honest…I try to get some hope in it. In a song like “Real”, I’m just saying I don’t have time for bullshit in my life right now because my days may be numbered but I just want to get the best out of life. “One Shot” as well. It was about living in the now. I think it’s a little melancholic, some of it, glad you don’t think it’s too melancholic. It is what it is because, I mean, the situation was what it was and still is. I can’t change that in my mind. My fate is not anymore in my own hands. 9:16
“Hypocrisy” Nordic Union
On working with Erik Martensson in Nordic Union – I refused to be part of the songwriting in Nordic Union, and I didn’t have to because I wrote some lyrics and stuff. Erik Martensson’s a great songwriter and so I just thought it was fun doing it back then. When I got the first two songs from Eric Martensson, I was originally supposed to do another project which Serafino (Perugino) from Frontiers told me about with a different songwriter, producer, but that I didn’t like those songs. I said, “I’ll do it. If I think it’s up to a certain standard if I like it, otherwise, I won’t do it”. When I get those two songs, it was “Hypocrisy” and “When Death is Calling”, from the first album, those were the first two songs I heard. I played it and I played it for my wife, she said, “That’s a fucking good song, great song. Why did you want you to sing on that?” She’s very modest. I thought it was so great that I have to do that. I’m glad I did because it was something else. 11:34
“Little Drops of Heaven” Pretty Maids
On which Pretty Maids records best define him as an artist –In Pretty Maids we did a lot of great songs. I’ve got to say, I’m particularly proud of the fact that in the last 10, 11 years, we started writing really good songs again, did great albums. To keep that standard, we kind of proved that we were still relevant to the scene, which I’m very, very, very proud of, actually and so should everybody in the band be. I would say, looking back, I’ve got to say that albums like Red Hot and Heavy and Future World from the 80s, were the two albums where we kind of defined our sound and found ourselves our style, the combination between good guitar riffs and melodic vocals and the keyboard interplay and stuff like that. So I would probably be those two albums. But I think we’ve done a lot of good stuff. I mean, in recent years, I’ll say Pandemonium and Motherland were great albums too. In particular, Pandemonium, because that was when we got the fire back. I have a certain love for that album because it was such a great time and it’s got “Little Drops of Heaven” (which) is one of the best. We didn’t realize that when the first time we played on the tour, we put “Little Drops of Heaven” as the third song on the set, and the crowd went totally (crazy). What the fuck happened? So after a couple of shows and put that down to the encore. It’s been great, good fun and it’s been 38, 40 years of good fun. 14:07
“Will You Still Kiss Me” Pretty Maids
On consistency over the last 40 years – That’s always been the key thing for me, was good songs and also for us, Kenny (Hammer) and me when we wrote together, which was that we know we weren’t the kind of band that wrote like twenty, twenty-five songs for an album and picked 10 or 11. We wrote what we did, we wrote until we thought we now know we have 10 or 12 good songs so that that’s always been the main focus. The thing is, when you write a good song, two acoustic guitars or a piano, you know, it’s a good song, the melody sticks in your head. Then it’s a matter of how you wrap it up, what kind of package, what direction do you want it to go. What I knew about this album is that I knew I got 10, 11 good songs, actually, I have 12, I saved one. That was one of the first songs that was so melancholic. That’s even worse than any of the others. I could put it on. It was a ballad. So I just knew I had a lot of good choruses I could keep remembering and I had a good feeling about the songs. So what direction it was going to take? I didn’t really know. I just wanted to get the songs out of my system. I hooked up with Chris, who was the 80s guy, so am I, and we’re into that kind of stuff. So we decided on the fact that I’d like to do this album, these songs, to be something that was suitable for the fans and followers that for me put a lot of good in over the last many, many, many years. That I think it is I don’t think there’s a heavy metal album, it’s a melodic rock album. 16:23
On his message to his fans – First of all, I want to say “Thanks” to all the people that listen to this show for all the support and tweets, messages and greetings, and stuff like that on social media in regards to my illness and stuff like that. Second, I hope I’ll be able to play for you live. I hope you dig the new album and then I’ll be very happy. 20:55
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