The thought behind this Moodists area is not to present a final analysis of how important the band was. You've guessed that already. It's all too pretentious. Instead, what you find here is fragments from a short period. An early, creative time slice, musically speaking. Dave and Clare are still at it today, mind you...

Nylin and I made an early start constructing the network in our jobs at Schlager just to be able to cover the fast evolving independent music scene. It just so happened that I got the steadiest contact with The Moodists when we explored Australia. The band members were really nice people, our contact became almost instantly informal and we tried to call and meet as soon as it was possible.

Since I already liked their music before we met, it was not a professional problem for me to keep my judgment fresh when writing or reviewing The Moodists. Even if the members would have been scumbags, I still would have loved the feeling within their musical expression. But what the music stood for, was also to find in their personalities - they we very open and honest people in private.

Moodists was with the Red Flame label when we met, switched to Creation and then to Abstract. If you're interested in the unstable route, change of members etc, I for starters recommend a small selection of press releases I put up here. Songs like "Justice and money too" and later "Someone's got to give" are perfect expressions of how Dave all the time kept a healthy distance to both the record industry and the way to handle it.

There was no doubt that the band really was serious to survive this battle in the swampiest parts of indieland - they were not alone - but they were the only band that lost Chris Walsh when he was needed the most. When his metal plectrum and heavy bass returned to Australia The Moodists at the same time lost a lot of its soul, Dave later confessed to me.

As a logic step to make this obvious Dave change the name of the band and musical direction so it's more like his own project now.

On the right a letter from guitarist Steve Miller during this hard time. Steve that also had a closer relation to Sweden since part of his family lived in Västerås...