The Mushroom River Band

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The Mushroom River Band

Origin	Värnamo, Sweden
Years active	1996–2004
Genres	Stoner rock
Members	Christian "Spice" Sjöstrand Anders Linusson Alexander "Saso" Sekulovski Chris Rockstrom
Website(s)	The Mushroom River Band Official Website The Mushroom River Band at BNR Metal Pages

The Mushroom River Band was a stoner rock group founded by guitarist Anders Linusson, bass player Alexander "Saso" Sekulovski and drummer Andreas Grafenauer in 1996. This line-up recorded one demo tape with Christian "Spice" Sjöstrand from Spiritual Beggars as a singer. In 1997 16 year old Chris Rockström took over on drums and Christian "Spice" Sjöstrand joined as a full time singer yet still being frontman in Spiritual Beggars. A vinyl EP called 'Rocketcrash' was released in 1999 on the band's own Tea Pot Records label. In 2000 the first full length album, 'Music For the World Beyond', was released and the year after Spice left Spiritual Beggars to concentrate solely on The Mushroom River Band. After the sophomore release 'Simsalabim' in 2002 and the European tour that followed the band was put on hiatus.

1 Biography
2 Members
3 Former Members
4 Discography
5 External links

[edit] Biography

The Mushroom River Band was founded in 1996 by Anders Linusson, Alexander "Saso" Sekulovski and Andreas Grafenauer. In their hometown Värnamo in Sweden they got together in June and borrowed another band's rehearsal room to jam. Between June and August they wrote songs and rehearsed occasionally without a singer.Since Anders was going for a trip to Australia in September and Andreas had decided to quit playing the three decided to record the songs they had made before they finish. Christian "Spice" Sjöstrand, who was originally from Värnamo, that time playing in Spiritual Beggars, was asked to join them as a guest singer on the recording. Still, this constellation didn't have a name but after some brainstorming they decided to use The Mushroom River Band as a name for the group. After one rehearsal with Christian "Spice" Sjöstrand the band went into Studio Milou at the end of August to record the songs. When mixing was finished The Mushroom River Band was no more. Later, a cover was thrown together and the recording was released as a demo tape and a very small amount of copies were sold or given away. In March 1997 Anders and Alexander decided to continue playing together using the same name as before and asked the at the time only 16-year-old drummer Chris Rockström to join them.Again they were a trio without a singer. After failing to find a singer in Värnamo Christian "Spice" Sjöstrand was once again asked to join the band on a permanent basis yet being a frontman in Spiritual Beggars. The debut live appearance took place at a local festival in October. In January 1998 The Mushroom River Band entered Soundscape Studio in Halmstad to record what would later become the Rocketcrash EP. It took the band almost the whole year before sending out the promo CD then again, a homepage had also been made and in November the EP was on the Internet for the first time. In 1999 The Mushroom River Band had started gaining recognition. That was mainly because of the attention received when the first EP was being sent to media and labels. Because of the upcoming festival gigs in the summer and a scheduled recording of a new promo CD the band spent the first half of the year rehearsing.In April five tracks called The No Quarter Recordings were recorded in the No Quarter studio in Halmstad. The 500-copy edition was released in August on the band's own label name Tea Pot Records.This is the first year that The Mushroom River Band got the opportunity to play at festivals outside their area and meet a new audience. In the fall of 1999 MeteorCity and The Mushroom River Band began dicussions for a recording deal but since Christian "Spice" Sjöstrand was contracted with Music For Nations it took nine months to make a deal which all parts could finally agree on. However, the recordings for the debut album Music From The World Beyond started in April. The band used a studio in Halmstad called No Quarter and in which they'd done demo recordings previously.On The concert section things were very slow in 2000. Christian and Spiritual Beggars got a little breakthrough with their Ad Astra album and toured a lot . This resulted in only two live appearances for The Mushroom River Band that year. However, in 2001 the band went out on their first European tour. After the recording of the second album, "Simsalabim", in 2002, Chris Rockstrom left the band. For the European tour the same year Robert Hansson filled in on drums. After that tour The Mushroom River Band was put on hiatus and the following year Christian "Spice" Sjöstrand left the band. In 2004 The Mushroom River Band, with Chris Rockstrom back on drums, went into a studio to record one last song with another singer before finally putting the band to rest.