A mixture of styles
About two years ago, singer/songwriter Michael Westerlund and producer/programmer Stefan Fandén began recording the first Playground International songs together.
Michael has a background as a songwriter in the bands Kretsen and Screaming Mother. Stefan has spent a lot of time in his own impressive studio over the years and has recently produced an album with church organ music.
Stefan had made some remixes of a few songs Michael had written before and a common idea of what they both wanted, gave birth to Playground International.
So, what do Playground International sound like? Well, to be honest, it's quite a mixture of styles. Michael tells me:
- We want to be able to stay "free" to each song we make. We don't want to force a song in a certain direction, but let every song grow its own way.
When I ask Michael how he would describe Playground's music and their influences, he gets a bit poetic.
- Like something that creates images, a flow of images, which hopefully leads to other experiences and inspiration, Michael says. Sources of inspiration vary. It can be people, movies, everyday stuff or other music.

Debut album released in April
Their debut album "Swallowed by the Sun" was released on April 26.
- We are pleased with the album, Michael thinks. Both Stefan and me are pretty self-critical, so a few small objections may exist. But on the whole I think we've taken the album where we wanted.
Three singles have already been released: "And Then the Tears Came", "My Woman" and "Blind". But without that much attention drawn to them. Michael:
- The first two singles haven't sold that well, at least I don't think so. The "Hamilton" soundtrack, where "And Then the Tears Came" was included, sold more than Gold, but that's really nothing we can take much credit for, Westerlund explains.

Included in big budget thriller
"Hamilton"?, you may ask. It was a rather successful Swedish thriller movie, made in 1997, with among others Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker), Lena Olin and Peter Stormare.
- Our record company introduced "And Then the Tears Came" to the people responsible for the movie soundtrack, Michael begins. They liked it and decided to use it as some form of theme for the film.
Getting a record contract is often the most complicated phase a band has to experience, but Playground International went fairly painless through this process.
- When we had recorded a couple of songs, we invited an A&R person from the only record company we then thought was interesting. So we never even sent out any demo tapes. The A&R really liked what he heard and managed to convince the record company, Michael says enthusiastically.
The duo is signed to Stockholm Records, home of The Cardigans, Vacuum, Antiloop and lots of other Swedish bands.
Michael is not that fond of the Swedish music scene at the moment.
- Unfortunately it's much easier to say what you dislike. The Swedish variant of commercial R&B, that dominates the radiostations right now is, in my opinion, awful. Really boring!, he exclaims.

Uncertain future
Playground International hope they will be touring later in this year, but nothing is planned so far. It's, as always, a matter of how well the album is received and how big a fanbase they manage to build.
Besides touring, the Playground future is not that carefully planned.
- I've made new songs, so maybe we'll record some soon. But how we're going to do that I really don't know right now. And I don't want to know either, Michael says in conclusion.