By Kenneth Bremer.
Recently Michael Ruff toured in Scandinavia together with the original "Michael Ruff Band". This tour was organized by Niels Estrup from Owit Music Europe, he was the man behind the idea, and he did also at the same occasion help Michael Ruff to release two new albums, that was released as a part of the Scandinavian tour. Blue Desert are having a talk with Niels Estrup about the project.
- Niels, your friendship with Michael Ruff goes far back, how did you team up with him?
I met Michael through a mutual friend, Lars Danielsson, who have played with Michael throughout the years. Needless to say, after first having experienced Michael and his music, I was captured by the energy combined with beauty in Michaels compositions.
- Michael Ruff has been touring a lot in scandinavia, with different band setups etc. You were the man behind the idea of making a reunion of the 90-94´setup, why?
Well... I've been doing tours with Michael with different line-ups. All good in each their way. I was tricked by the thought of bringing together a band with so skilled and talented musicians. I also had the feeling that there still was a huge following for the line-up that started it all in Scandinavia. Lars Danielsson and I worked hard on finding a period where each musician had a gap in their schedule and finally we succeeded.
- As promotor of Michael Ruff´s music you are also working with him as an recording artists and several of his albums can be bought online on your "livemusik" website, now you have released two new albums with Michael, what can you say about these?
The albums are acutally released by Michael, we just worked with Michael in solving all the practical matters, cover, printing, distribution etc. Our online webshop is meant as a service to the more than 12 000 people who daily visits our website, and having a hard time finding the music.
- Michael Ruff is always active in studiosessions and earlier this year he did a tune on the "Peter Friestedt" album "The L.A. Project". When Michael Ruff were in Copenhagen you had some studio sessions with Soren Reiff Jr., can you give us an update on this, will there be an album with Michael Ruff song on from Soren Reiff Jr.
Reiff Jr. is also a very good friend of mine, and it all started when Reiff Jr. asked me to help him have Mike Stern do a session for his new album. When Mike next visited Copenhagen we got it all set up and he played some fantastic guitar. At that session Reiff Jr. told me about a song he wrote in Italy, and after having listened to it a couple of times, Reiff Jr. found the tune very "Ruff-ish". As we at that time were planning the reunion tour, and Michael listened to the track, we spent an offday in Reiff's studio and did the tune. The tune "Relaxing" will be on Reiff Jr.'s new album "Funky Flava" which will be released August 15 - I think. Oh - I am sure it will be available in our webshop.
- The scandinavian tour with Michael Ruff was a big success, many people came to see the reunion band. What was your reaction to all the positive vibes about this project?, and will we see the same setup again in the future?
You know it is always great when people respond to what you do. I must say that we all were overwhelmed by the huge attention this tour caused. I think there were only 1 show out of 11 not sold out. So...naturally I feel great. If you will see the same line-up again.....hmmm...I really don't know. The hard thing about this band is that all musicians are first call, if they're not peaking their solo career as Nils Landgren. Nils is constantly working on his own projects and is very very busy. By the way Nils is an artist you should write more about on your great site. Per is working with AHA and playing a lot of sessions, Lars is touring with Thomas Helmig, Sanne Salomonsen and also doing a bunch of sessions. Hank is composing and arranging major hits for major artists. Michael is busy with his gospel project and Leslie is working on "American Idol".... so there you go...
- Michael Ruff is doing some live recordingsession in Los Angeles at the moment, will there be a new album out soon?
In the end of April, Michael went back to L.A. to record a live gospel CD. I have not heard the recordings yet, but I spoke with both Michael and Marco Mendoza and both were very thrilled about it. The album features really top musicians such as: Joey Heredia, Marco Mendoza, Renato Neto, Andrew Gouche, Alex Acuna, Maxayn, Leslie Smith, Bridget Bryant, Will Wheaton, Alex Brown, Tata Vega plus a lot of special guests. Acutally they played some of the new songs on the reunion tour, and songs like "Got me on my knees" and "Faith" went right into the audience. So yeah, I am looking very much forward to that album.
- Niels, you are one of the few promoters working with west coast music artists in Europe, are you a old west coast rocker and how did you come into this west coast world?
Well west coast is one of my fav genres, but I am not a fanatic about it, you know what I like to promote is quality, great songs performed by great musicians. The more tight - the better. I have built a good network on the american westcoast, and as a agency we do try to gain the max benefit for all involved. Just as a footnote we do not work as promoters but as agents.
- You have been doing tours earlier with David Garfield and other artists, and now Michael McDonald is coming to Europe frequently, do you have any future plans to bring more artist over to Europe? to follow up the good trend?
You know, we're in LA at least once a year, and on my last trip we hooked up with Keith Barrows who is now setup as our US office. We are not involved in the Michael McDonald tour - unfortunately- but I am sure that you will see great westcoast artists coming in through Owit Music Europe. Especially as the entire record industry is struggeling to survive they focus on mainstream only. This means that if people wants to experience the "not-so-mainstream" music they will have go to the venues to see it live.
- In 1997 there was a west coast festival in Paris with Ambrosia, Stephen Bishop, Peter Mayer, Firefall, Marc Jordan, Robbie Dupree, do you think that this can happen again somewhere in Europe?
I am sure it would - undoubtly. We would love to be a part of this, but you would need to find a promoter to pull it off.
- No doubt, that are many west coast fans in Europe that look forward to your next projects, and right now you have written about a new tour with Straitjackets at the Owit website.
I am glad that many people appricate our works with gettin´ west coast music artists to Europe, and we look forward to get the guys from Straitjackets to perform in Europe again. Also our close coorporation with Blue Desert is brilliant for us, and together we can help to keep the west coast music alive.
More information about Niels Estrup & Owit Music Europe here.
