Marcel Jacob´s bio

I once was accused of trying to be cool using a so called "artist name", and that my real name supposedly was Marcus Jakobsson. At first stunned by this accusation, thinking I could have done "better" coming up with some sort of pseudonym, after a couple of seconds I burst into laughter realizing this person obviously had been in some sort of heated discussion or other with people about me...ludicrous. But then again, that's what you get for doing this sort of thing.

Education: finished regular state school (9 years), tried the equivalency of high school for a year, dropped out. The past five years I've attended Stockholm University studying psychology, can titulate myself "candidate of psychology". I never studied music, whatever I know on the subject is either self-taught or picked up from the people I've worked with over the years.

Other professions: Hmmm... I sold shoes for a couple of months, did two years at the biggest (only) national distributor of domestic/int'l papers and magazines ( where I got acquainted with people who played in a bunch of bands-Treat, Red Baron, and the guy who got me that gig was Christopher Ståhl who played lead guitar on the first Talisman album), delivered morning papers, and for a whopping 11 days worked for Burger King (-84). After that I've either composed, produced, or otherwise performed music professionally or, the past couple of years, also been a student.

How did I wind up being a musician: age 13 I was at a rehearsal some former class mates held in the auditorium of my old school, when they had a "heated argument" with their bass player, who promptly left them in a huff. When the rest of the guys chilled down and became aware of their predicament, one of them suggested they take me as their new bass player, stating he thought I looked the part. They made me take home a bass and practice a couple of parts ( being a sort of tribute to Rainbow/Deep Purple-band I was starting with "Smoke on the water", of course). It took about a day for me to realize that this was my calling.

All the bands I've been in: Well this is rather difficult. How to compress over twenty years of experiences and encounters with so many brilliant musicians? When I was 15 I hooked up with Yngwie. We worked together for a couple of years. In 1982 I joined Force, what was later to be Europe. But that lasted only a couple of months, it was too much for me to travel outside of Stockholm and not rehearse because the guitar player John Norum didn't show. Only a couple of months after I quit, they won that damn competitionAfter that I struggled for a while, until I joined a band with Mats Dahlberg and Patrik Appelgren (who both at various points were in Treat) and Christopher Ståhl which was called Power. And in 1984 Yngwie wanted me to come to the US to be in his solo group after he left Alcatrazz. I already knew Anders and Jens Johansson a little bit ( let me tell you, those guys are for real, and if I had to pick one player I've worked with who I would put on top of the list, it's Jens ) and met Jeff Scott Soto for the first time. We rehearsed and recorded "Marching Out" and toured extensively in 1985.

Unfortunately Yngwie had terrible management, which led to difficulties in all areas including getting paid (nothing's changed there over the years apparently ! ) and I got disillusioned and left in November... I think. I had nothing to do for a while, until renowned Swedish drummer Åke Ericsson called and asked me to do a reunion tour with -70's nationally acclaimed jazz rock group Wasa Express in the summer of -86. The singer they got to replace the original one was a guy I knew from school, Matt Alfonzetti. At the end of the year John Norum called me up after he left Europe, and we started working together on what would become his first solo album "Total Control". I had written a lot of music over the years, and because of John's fledgling song writing skills he wound up using mainly my material including the hit-single "Let me love you". We made a deal, he would get song writing credits if I got royalties from the album. Economically it made no difference, but perhaps it was a mistake artistically. It was a success, and we did some touring early -88.

Unfortunately John didn't have proper management (most guitar players I know are more or less nave in some of their attitudes towards the world) so he suddenly decided to work with Glenn Hughes. This put me and Göran Edman out of it for a while, which gave me the incentive to work hard at writing songs. Since Glenn wasn't functional at that period in time John had to let him go after a while though, and he had a tour booked in the summer that he had to do or lose money. This meant that Göran and I were back for the tour. However, our relation was a bit damaged by the turn of events, and when I played John my latest songs and he said they sucked, I wished him the best of luck with writing for himself and managed to land a solo deal based on the strength of the songs.

In the meanwhile, Göran Edman who was supposed to do the album managed to mess things up with not being sure what band to be in, eventually he joined Yngwie. So, I had a deal, but no singer. But when I accidentally met Wasa Express guitar player Cary Sharaf he told me to call Jeff Scott Soto who wasn't too hooked up in the States. Which I promptly did, and I got him to come over and stay for a couple of weeks in early -89 while we were recording the first Talisman album. We hit it off famously, and kept in touch on a regular basis.

Unfortunately the label went bankrupt, and it would be 'til the end of the year before a new one was found. During that wait and uncertainty the band Jeff was working with in the States, Eyes, got signed (their deal was more than a little hokey, but it was something, and Jeff certainly wanted it to work out). This was probably the one thing that's behind Talisman never getting to be what it deserved.

But anyway, Jeff got me to come over and participate in the arrangement of their songs in pre-production, and also to play on the Eyes album. Early -90 the Talisman album was released, and in a matter of weeks we had a big hit with "I'll be waiting". We toured Sweden in the summer, and we were something like number four on the list of top drawing artists.

During this time Jeff had to go back to the US to work with Eyes and the label we were on went bust. But because of the success of the album in Sweden I got signed to Warner. So I had to find a new singer. This meant looking around in the States as well as the Uk, talking to amongst others Tony Martin. In the end I got Matt Alfonzetti to do the gig late -91. It was while he was with us that we auditioned and found Freddie Åkesson, brilliant young player. It took some time though, and unfortunately Sanji Tandan who signed us to Warner got a top executive gig in the UK, and the person who replaced him didn't want somebody else's signing on his desk. So we were out of there, and since it took most of -92 to find a new label, Matt found some other project. Strangely enough, Christer Wedin who was doing promotion for the labels that were behind the Talisman album landed himself a job as executive for a new label in Sweden and signed us. We've been doing Talisman together ever since. As Eyes were history, Jeff was back.

We recorded "Genesis" in December, and it was released early -93. Drummer Jake Samuel left us to in the end pursue a singing career, and replacement was found in Jamie Borger. A tour of Japan and Europe commenced, with one show in Japan recorded and released as "5 out of 5" (the title humorously derived from the fact that nobody but ourselves would come up with that kind of rating for it!).

In the fall of -93 Jamie, Freddie, and myself rehearsed for two months music that would eventually become the album "Humanimal". It was the first time that I tried composing while simultaneously teaching the other players the parts, it was great fun- highly recommendable. Jeff came over in January -94 I believe, and we rehearsed with him a week ? And then we recorded and mixed some 23 tracks in about 20 days, probably the best and most fun recording I've participated in. Thanks to Ronnie Lahti, who was of immense help. The different versions of the album were released early summer.

Unfortunately we just couldn't get any touring to support the album. In -95 we released the album "Life", with poor results. Jeff got his famous gig with the Boogie Knights organization, and since he was nice enough to ask me if I thought it was ok for him to do it since it would in effect mean no touring chances for Talisman, I said sure. The gig put good money in his pocket for quite a few years. And I let Freddie go, telling him to start a band of his own. It was time for him to stop being my "pupil"?? I just couldn't sit idle, so I came up with a scam to get some cash. It was the idea of using Jeff Scott Soto's home studio capacity to record very cheaply, and we decided to do "ripoff" sort of covers on the style of some favourites from growing up. I would program drums and perform all the instruments except keyboards (Jeff was the culprit, just listen to "Vows in Stone"!) and it was the first time I handled most of the lead guitars on an album. Earlier I've had to do a lot of rhythms on the albums simply cause it sounded better with my bass. In the end we had a couple of guest players, Brian Young and Yngwie. The album was called "Human Clay" and was released in early -96. We did the whole thing, writing and recording, in 10 days.

It cost us 2000 USD and we expected maybe 10-15 000 USD in advances for it. We were amazed to receive some 70,000 USD in various advances for that album ! So naturally we decided to use our options and do a follow up, this time with Jamie Borger on drums and myself doing all guitars. "U4ia" was released in -97.

For a long time we waiting for some contracts with Talisman to expire, and in -98 we could travel to Los Angeles to spend two months rehearsing and recording the album "Truth". Mainly an excuse for me to get a paid vacation, maybe a lot of the stuff on the album wasn't as good as some expected it to be since we'd been away. But my summer in LA was killer! At one point we actually did a couple of shows in Sweden opening up for Yngwie, and we got Pontus Norgren to do them. So when we did the Truth album, we got him to come along. Nothing much happened until one day in the fall of -00 when I was sitting in Pontus kitchen drinking coffee and the manager of the label that released Pontus "Damage done"- album called. I asked to speak to the guy, and told him that Pontus and I were going to record an album and would he be interested in paying for it. He would not get to hear any material before the finished product, and we had no name or any other players enlisted for the project. He agreed! Eventually after a lot of work, getting Jeff onboard as well as drummer Tomas Broman, and getting help once again from Ronnie Lahti, we finished the album "Humanimal" which was released earlier this year.