Ola Backström (1953-2004) was a painter and a guitarist in the bands Stockholm Norra and Dag Vag in the late 1970s. Alongside his childhood friend Sigge Krantz, he left a significant mark on Torkel Rasmusson‘s first three solo albums. Then he left the stage.
Ola Backström was not one to seek the limelight. The music he created on his own remained within the family. Yet these songs contain something that could have made them Swedish classics in another world.
The recordings on the posthumous album ‘Gråton‘ were made during the 1980s, with one exception: between dropping his children off at daycare, after work and in the shadows of everyday life. They have been rescued from poorly labelled cassettes that were sometimes recorded over by other artists’ albums. If Ola himself dreamed that the songs would one day be released, he did not speak about it openly.
Born in Stockholm in 1953 and raised in Oskarshamn, he learnt to play the guitar at the age of ten. In the late 1960s, he was swept up in the prog wave, forming early bands with Träd, Gräs och Stenar and Gunder Hägg musicians. Upon returning to Stockholm to attend art school, Torkel Rasmusson took notice of him and, together with Sigge, he formed the band Stockholm Norra. On their 1978 album, Ola and Sigge modernised Stockholm prog, incorporating influences from the New York underground scene.
‘Ola played with a tone all his own and a slight sway, yet with very precise foresight in broad sweeps and meticulous attention to detail,’ Torkel writes in his memorial article. ‘He rejected the easy solutions. Instead, he sought out his own personal expression, emotional and ingenious.’
After a brief period with the newly formed Dag Vag and some temporary appearances with Ebba Grön, Ola grew tired of life on tour. The demands of becoming a ‘guitar hero’ conflicted with his temperament. When he became a father in 1980, he left the rock scene altogether.
Painting became his primary form of expression during the following decade, with Philip Guston as his role model. He contributed cover art to Torkel’s third solo album, ‘Dagar, Djur’ (1984), as well as to Trädens’s eponymous album in 2018. However, in the absence of demands, his music also quietly blossomed.
Influenced by Brian Eno, Tom Verlaine, and Lou Reed, Ola recorded his songs in a simple portable studio, but above all, his own voice can be heard, clear and stripped down. Ola’s stage presence was legendary. Guitarist Staffan Helleberg recounts a gig where Ola suffered a blackout and stood silently for twenty minutes while the band continued playing.
In the song ‘In på scenen’ (On Stage), he humorously recounts a disastrous gig at the Tre Backar restaurant in Stockholm.
When the art market crashed in the early 1990s, Ola became a graphic design teacher. Music and art took a back seat. But in 2002, a new longing was awakened. Together with Torkel, Sigge and drummer Werner Modiggård, he started planning a new album. They performed at Ola’s 50th birthday party, but shortly afterwards he was diagnosed with cancer. Things progressed quickly. In December, he played one last time with Torkel at Kafé 44, seriously ill but still creative. Ola passed away on 17 February 2004.
A few months earlier, he had written and recorded his final song: ‘Drömmer om en plats’ (Dreaming of a Place). Ola, who often grappled with the passage of time in his lyrics, knew that he would have to step down. But listen to the bright triplets of the guitar at the end — as if the music continues, even when everything else falls silent.
Torkel Rasmusson sums it up best:
‘For Ola, art and music were a playful adventure, but also a very serious business that he could never afford to take lightly. Those of us who knew him perceived this as being his attitude towards life.’
— Johan Söderbäck