Ronnie Atkins is the Real deal

As previously reported here at Stargazed Magazine, Danish vocalist Ronnie Atkins (Pretty Maids, Nordic Union) will release the solo album “One Shot” through Frontiers Music Srl.

“One Shot” will be out on March 12, 2021 but a first taste has now arrived through the track “Real”. Hear it here:

“I initially had no intention to do a solo album to begin with”, Atkins said, “but for various reasons and in particularly my own personal health situation I finally decided to have a crack at it. Around Easter 2020 and only some six weeks after I was told that everything seemingly looked very positive for my health, I was unfortunately diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and told it was incurable, which was devastating news for me”. With the global pandemic shutting down touring for the foreseeable future, Atkins also knew a tour promoting the latest Pretty Maids album was not going to be in the cards anytime soon. Suddenly, the timing for working on a new solo album seemed to have presented itself. “The whole world was on a lockdown and the future prospects of concerts were very uncertain and still is to this day! Basically, that meant that if I was gonna carry out the idea of a solo album, it had to be now since I don’t necessarily have all the time in the world. I had all these ideas recorded on my iPhone that I felt were too good to never see the light of day and I was writing a lot at the time to help ease my frustrations,” tells Atkins.

“Not being able to handle the recordings myself since I’m old school and a complete idiot when it comes to IT, Pro Tools, etc. I hooked up with my Pretty Maids friend and firesoul Chris Laney, who literally cheered me up and convinced me to go ahead with it. So, I decided to get moving and literally recorded my ideas on either piano or guitar and with a mellotron click to keep the beat and the accompanying vocal. Then I would send these along to Chris, who did the instrumentation in Stockholm and would then send back demos to me. Then, I recorded the vocals first, which is totally the opposite of what you’d normally do, but based on the uncertainty of my health situation, I wanted to get them down. After that we did the basic tracks, drums, guitars, keys, backing vocals, etc. Odd way of doing it, for me at least, but it worked. And so, this procedure slowly moved on during the summer and finally turned into an album of 12 new songs,” explains Atkins. “I wouldn’t have been able to carry out this project without the enthusiasm of Chris, who has been my constant partner in this project from day one. On top of that, I had the pleasure of working with a variety of great musicians/singers such as Pontus Norgren, Kee Marcello, Olliver Hartmann, Pontus Egberg, Linnea Vickström Egg, Björn Strid, and at last, but not at least, my PM relatives Allan Sørensen and Morten Sandager,” continues Atkins.

“Musically and lyrically this album has been a different process for me, considering everything going on. Musically, it could have gone in various directions. It’s always a question of what you want it to be. A good song is a good song, so it’s really a matter of how it is packaged. But I decided to make it appeal to the fans, the supporters who’ve been following me for almost 40 years, so this is basically a melodic rock album with a heavy twist. Lyrically, it also has a different approach. I found it hard to write about sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll, etc. due to the situation I’m wrapped up in, so I guess it turned out a bit more personal and maybe melancholic at times. But it reflects my thoughts at the given time these lyrics were written,” concludes Atkins.