Mats Wester

Swedish musician, songwriter, producer, studio technician and national fiddler (nyckelharpa (key harp)), born September 1, 1964 in Botkyrka, Stockholm County. Now lives in Midsommarkransen, Stockholm. Has run the company Wester Produktion AB since 1994 with the record label folkpop.se and the studio Rosehip Alley Studio. Also builds key harps. 1985 Wester started a folk pop group together with Swedish and Chilean musicians, the group was called Folk Synth Orchestra. They released an album in 1986 on the record label Amigo. In 1993, Wester started the band Nordman together with the singer Håkan Hemlin. He wrote most of the music and also produced the records. The group's first album "Nordman" was released in 1994 and sold over 500,000 copies (5 x platinum). During Nordman's long radical break in 1997-2004, he formed another group called Rå together with Py Bäckman (lyrics) and Eleonor Ågeryd (vocals). Wester has also written a song for the group Garmarna, "En gång ska han gråta", with lyrics by Py Bäckman. The song participated in the Melodifestivalen in 1997. With Nordman, he has participated in the Melodifestivalen also in 2005 and 2008 and the band went to the finals both times. Mats Wester has played with Eric Bazilian from The Hooters, together they wrote and produced the album "[m772043]" in 2012. In July 2012, Wester toured with guitarist and singer Joe Bonamassa in Europe. One of the concerts was at the Vienna Opera House, it was recorded and later released on DVD. After that, Wester participated in extensive tours with Bonamassa between 2013 and 2015 in the USA, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.