About 40 years ago, to this day, at age 12, Victor Broden got his first bass. He was already playing the piano and his synthesizer, and quickly fell in love with the left-hand portion of the synth, the bass. Mastering the art of the slap and the producer’s cap, he started the supergroup, Transatlantic Radio, and now, they are ready to show the world what they are truly made of.
“I’m feeling pretty great about it,” expresses bassist Victor Broden. “It sounds a bit dramatic, but this album took six years. The first song has been out for a while. ‘That’s What You Get for Falling in Love,’ I started that in March 2020, right when the world shut down on us. We are six years into these nine songs, and it’s taken a long time. The fact that the release is here is a surreal feeling.”
As Broden was growing up in Sweden, before moving to the United States at 21, he found his love in Springsteen and Mellencamp, stealing his heart, but quickly after Def Leppard and other pop melodies over heavy guitars hit his ears, the love skyrocketed. Since then, AOR really cemented itself within him, never letting go.
“A lot of heavier rockers will give you shade for that,” admits Broden. “But, that’s the very key that made me, in my late teens, fall in love with AOR. The incredible melodies from all these almost boy bands, right? But, they’re kicked in the ass by rock. That’s the magical combo that led me to AOR more than hair metal, or heavy metal, even though I love those genres too.”
Fast forward a little bit, and Transatlantic Radio’s debut album, Midnight Transmission, is out now, via Frontiers Music Srl. Broden says it’s a love letter to the music that shaped his life. He is largely inspired by producer Matt Lang from the ’70s and early ’80s, and the first two albums from Danger Danger. His hope was for listeners to feel how much fun they were having in the studio, calling AOR escapism or romance novels for guys.
“These songs are built slowly and meticulously, and made in a way where they’re not organic at all because the production style of the late ’80s that we obviously love so much was pretty artificial. There’s real playing on there, but there’s a lot of techniques of production to make it sound and feel. As cliché as it sounds, these songs come from a very pure place. They come from their love letter to AOR.”
This whole project is a love letter to music in general, as well, with a star-studded lineup of Broden, Mattias Osback on vocals, Rj Ronquillo (Ricky Martin / Santana / Stevie Wonder / Stone Sour) on guitar, Fred Kron (Jimmy Kimmel Live! Band / Anchorman 2 / High School Musical) on keyboard, and Chris Reeve (Filler / Avril Lavigne) on drums.
“I like to brag on these guys,” laughs Broden. “They’re just the top of the top guys who can take a simple song and make it dipped in gold. Many well-known people have paid them handsomely for doing so, but in this band, we are just doing it for the love of it. The fact that these guys are involved, I pinch my arm every day that we have this level of talent involved with what is largely a hobby project.”
Transatlantic Radio is excited to get back on stage in front of fans, saying AOR fans are the best fans on the planet; they are nerds. They don’t care what’s popular and don’t care about what other people think about the cheesy music. It’s just unashamed love. Over the years, Broden has viewed himself as a pretty damn good bass player and a decent producer, but nothing compares to being in a band with his best friends.
“It’s a wild ride. One of the reasons it’s so fun is, if you have a band with guys in their 20s, a lot of people have a chip on their shoulder, as they should, as I did. Everyone in this band has sort of made it, you know. It’s not like we’re famous, but we have done really fun things in the industry. It all sounds too good to be true, but it is.”
Leave a Reply