Patrik Carlsson has been described as the best guitarist to come out of Sweden since Yngwie Malmsteen and Mattias IA Eklundh! Heavily influenced by Steve Vai, but with a truly original style and a good sense for writing quality songs, on Phraseology Carlsson includes his futuristic tribute to Jimi Hendrix ("Jimi's Tribute"), an ode to Malmsteen ("The Survivor"), a seven-string, rhythmically interesting and creatively melodic slower number ("Still Believe"), a slow ballad ("Aeryn Sun"), his take on circus music ("Epsilon Indi"), an incredibly technical ripper full of tricks ("High Pitch"), a Steve Lukather tribute ("Mosquito"), and even a commercial melody ("Guardian Angel"). If you like wah-wah riffage, heavy shred, and overall intense/terrifying guitar work check out Patrik Carlsson's Phraseology.

Patrik Carlsson was born in 1972 and lived almost his whole life in a city called Norrköping, Sweden. At 5 years old Patrik began to play piano, mostly for fun - but even classical pieces. That was his first contact with music. A few years later he was playing the "real rock-star" in front of the mirror or with friends, jamming with Iron Maiden and other bands.

Shortly after his 10th birthday Patrik was at a place called "Marielunds fritidsgörd", sneaking behind the corners, watching a drummer who hammered fantastic on the drums - in my ears!! Finally I asked him if he could show me some rhythms. Patrik remembers very well how easy he learned to play different parts, right from the beginning.

Reaching his teens he met the great musician Jocke Salinder, now living in Spain working as a producer/studio-musician. He was at the time playing bass in 2 different bands called Kalle Baah and Lady Bianco. On Jocke, Patrik states "He was very important to me in many ways, not only musically. At the time I was a kid with some "private problems around", running in the streets without any meaning in life. Or you can put it like this: I was "sleeping" and he awakes me by letting me inside the world of music".

"Musically he inspired me to learn music-theory (which I did later), write songs and play guitar (like Hendrix). He let me test other instruments and recording my own demos with a 4-channel tape-recorder, very useful at the time. He fixed me out of school, so I had a full time-schedule of music - almost during the high school-period. Yes, that was good times"

When Jocke Salinder moved to Spain Patrik met another local fame guitar-hero, Lars Boqvist. He was at the time playing in a band called Dizziness and later Pole Position. He was also in the magazine Guitar Player among other things...Patrik comments, "He was truly an inspirer when it comes to develop my own skills as a guitar-player. I mean, only see him play was like an education itself, but I took a few lessons as well. Remember his words: YOU MUST PICK EVERY SINGLE TONE WHEN YOU PLAY, SO SKIP THE "LEGATO-THING"!! This was spoken very distinctly, but not loud :-) This line still follows me today, very useful phrase when practice with the guitar".

The major turning point was when Patrik heard Joe Satriani's album "Surfing with the Alien" for the first time and it still remains one of his favourite albums ever. Patrik later discovered Steve Vai through a friend, "At the time I wasn't so excited when Vai played with David Lee Roth. But when he released his solo-album "Passion and Warfare" my world turns upside down. I decided; I want to play like this, I must try!"



Patrik continues, "You can say that these two albums was my own guitar-education. I recorded the albums by pitch the music one octave down. All this in a desperate try to find all the tones you can't hear in a normal tempo. I can say it took a while picking the two albums, but I made it :-) These albums followed me for about 10 years exploring, study each and every single tone, all by my self. When I saw Mr Vai himself at a gig in 1996 for the first time, I complete my education with the word: Aha!?"

Around 18 years old Patrik got a job as a music-consultant at ABF music-house JukeBoxen. Normally when looking for work in Sweden, you have to send your certificates from school and notes about your life experiences. But Patrik just went down an afternoon and talked to the boss Tommy Falkeholm, who later hired him on a f full-time job. The next three years Patrik was working six days a week, together with the staff at JukeBoxen who was specially selected for the job. After each working-day Patrik locked himself inside the large professional studio. "It gave me the experience that you never could find in a normal school. You can say that I was living here".

Since the age of 25 Patrik has been working in different places after JukeBoxen such as a music teacher in regular school and doing private lessons as well. Since this time Patrik has also retaken his certificates from both high school and "public upper school" as well as having done work as a network-technician, software-programmer and so on...

It has been fun trying different professions, but I know the music will keep me going on, rest of my life.

Since 1998 I have recorded about 10 CD's with different projects, in my own studio. Today I'm recording, composing, creating, practice with the guitar. I am satisfied with everything in my life, expect that I don't make any money on my music, I mean BIG money. But you know: I just play for fun and will be continuing with the music anyway!