The Sacred Sailors are:

Manne Olander – Vocals

Christopher God – Guitar

Olle Hansson – Guitar

Sebastian God – Bass

Magnus Delbratt – Drums

We’re a rock band from Gothenburg (Sweden), celebrating our tenth anniversary this year. With three full length albums in our baggage, we’ve been touring around Europe quite a lot during these 10 years, mostly in Germany.

We started out 2001 when we were around 15-17 years old. We practiced our instruments in Mannes parents basement, playing cover songs of Stooges, Flaming Groovies, early Alice Cooper and Bob Seger. First line up was Manne, Magnus, Chris and our former bass player Arvid Sondén. We all loved the sounds of the sixties and seventies and wanted to do our own thing inspired from vintage rock but in a modern way. Olle joined after a few months and the TSS was formed. The name was taken from a old Egyptian book who tells stories about a mysterious group of sailors that where called The Sacred Sailors. It was actually the Godbrothers cousin Lucas (who now a days lives as a monk in a temple in India) who came up with it, and we thought it sound cool so we took it.

We like a lot of different kinds of music, but what brings us together to build The Sacred Sailors is besides from what I already mentioned: anything from Detroit now/then… Seventies-rock like: Roky Erickson, Damnation of Adam Blessing, Tom Petty, Fleetwood Mac, Outlaws. Late seventies garage punk like Radio Birdman, Death, Damned, Ron Asheton’s New Order. sixties psych, soul and rhythm and blues.

The B side of the first single was a leftover track from the recordings to the first album. Love Sound as the b-side was named, is heavily inspired by the psychedelic sounds of the late sixties. It was only released in 500 copies so it’s pretty rare these days, the album is not to easy to find either(1000 copies).

The We Gave It All to You it all to you album was recorded in two sessions, we recorded five songs only to send out to different labels as promotion. It didn’t take long until Lonestar records got in touch with us and wanted to do a 500 CD/500 LP deal. We didn’t expect anything at that time so we where very pleased. We got back to the studio which was called Riffrecordings and was located upon a Libary in Guldheden (the most beautiful part of Gothenburg). It was run by a guy named Sami Miari who use to play in a nineteens doom-band called Stillborn. He sometimes brought his one year old son around to the studio and I remember that when we almost where finished with the last mixing, he one day gave Magnus a call told him that his son had gone loose with all the buttons on the mixing table and we had to remix some of the songs haha…

The studio used to be a old Radioprogramme recording studio with only one small recording room and a even smaller engineering room. We wanted to record everything live except the vocals so we put drums in the recording room, one amp in a wardrobe, one in the kitchen and one in the bathroom. Some of the songs was written in the studio. I remember that I wrote some of the lyrics in the recording room while singing the lead. We put a lot of our teenage skills and love into that album, we didn’t plan anything, everything came straight from our hearts nothing was meant to be anything else than just good, groovy tunes. We where very serious but we didn’t care that a song was 5-6 minute long or didn’t have any chorus. A tragic incident happened during the last recordings of the vocals. Arvid was very quiet all day and I got a little mad because I thought he wasn’t supportive enough. When I was finished recording he told me that one of our friends had died the night before in a tragic car accident. So every time I listen to the album it brings me back to that day, it’s filled with different emotions. Definitely a great all round album if you ask me. It’s a party rock album but with some darker sides.

We got more and more into sixties garage, psych and wanted the album to sound more produced than the first but with the same kind of attitude. At that time I was in a deep psych-era and listened only to early Pink Floyd, 13th Floor Elevators and rare psych collections. I was a big fan of reverb and delay but the other guys wasn’t too pleased with the idea of having too much effects, so you can hear some sound-difference between the songs on the album. Anyway, it was supposed to be released on the american cult garage label Dionysus records but we got a bad contract and after months of negotiation we decided to go for a small french label instead. Sadly, the album was never released on vinyl.

We recorded it all by ourselves. We brought Christophers computer and recording material to a abandoned recording studio in Gothenburg. We had only time to record drums so we recorded the rest at Christophers apartment. We mailed a demo and got in contact with another french label called Bad Reputation records. We where a little bit tired of the lofi sound and wanted a bigger, more modern rock sound so we put a lot of energy into the mixing of the drums etc. We wanted to reach a bigger crowd and do more tours so I guess it got more natural to write 2.5 minute long songs with a melodic chorus than 6 minutes of guitar solo and wailing. But still it’s a rock n roll-album and if you would ask a Coldplay-fan they would probably call it very vintage.

It has been pretty calm for a while, we had a thing going on with a Swedish tv-commercial but it didn’t gave us as much as we had hoped for. We’ve had some incidents these past years since the last release as well. Magnus almost died of a overdose one and a half years ago, he’s much better now but it took a lot of energy for everyone of us. We have no new record deal and no cooperation with any booking agency what so ever. We never get tired of touring and we really miss it. We’re a live band and we love to perform. Many funny stories to tell but it takes too long to write down everything, we always hook up with strange and funny people when we’re on the road. I guess we’re a little bit naive and sometimes don’t know how to say no. But during shows… I remember the first tour we did, a guy at a bar in Ulm started a huge fight with other people in the audience and some guards, only because he wanted us to play more songs.

Yes, we have a lot of new songs. I think this next album probably will be the best. We are far away from finished but we are working on some really good stuff. We still haven’t got anything settled with labels or bookings for this new album, but the wheels are in motion.. I think we’ve learned that the most important thing is to have fun, not over think too much and go with the flow.