"Sunshine Reggae", "White Horse", "Hight Society Girls" and other extremely popular songs of the Danish duo will be played on May 2025, 23 in Palanga and on May 24 in Compensa concert hall in Vilnius.
The band broke up, the musicians stayed together
John Guldberg and Tim Stahl met in the mid-1970s in a group called The Starbox Band, which disbanded after a failed tour opener for rock masters The Kinks. However, the musicians decided to continue performing together.
John Guldberg founded a small studio in the center of Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, where the two musicians began to explore the possibilities offered by new technologies, multi-track tape recorders, synthesizers and drum machines.
Their debut album "Laid Back" was released in 1981, and the single "Maybe I'm Crazy" became a number one hit in Denmark. True, the first album did not bring the group great popularity, and it became famous only in its homeland, Denmark and South America.
The group received great international recognition after releasing the album "Keep Smiling", the single "High Society Girl". And, of course, in 1982. not only their super hit, "Sunshine Reggae", which lit up all of Europe with sunlight, which took the highest places not only in Denmark, but also in Germany, Austria, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and other countries.
A holiday superhit in three hours
The idea for the song "Sunshine Reggae" was born during a honeymoon in the Caribbean back in 1981. The carnival took place in a place where many "metal bands" performed. I immediately liked that consonance. When I returned to Copenhagen, it happened on a sunny afternoon, Tim and I met in the studio... - John Guldberg remembers the story of the birth of the emotional super hit that sounded with summer, sun, swimming and all the pleasures of vacations from the lips of the members of "Laid Back" for the first time in Lithuania. - ... The weather was perfect, just to try to record something in our Danish reggae style. I already had a few memorable chords playing in my head and we started working with great pleasure.
The electronic sound was created using my new Roland synth guitar and a vocoder. Tim went to a nearby music store and rented a steel drum. He had never played it before, but he got the hang of it very quickly. We had a little toy accordion in the studio that they used in the intro. After that, Tim used a real accordion. But there was still no vocals.
The wall of our small toilet looked like a collage, full of all kinds of notes, postcards, photographs from magazines with images of all types of massages. We used one word from there, one line from here, mixed it all together and started singing, coming up with a melody. As I recall, Sunshine Reggae took about three to four hours to write and record.
And a few days later, legendary Norwegian drummer Frank Marstokk added drums, and finally Peter Hansen played bass. The song was finished and was as you know it now. Fortunately, we had no idea what we were doing, but the result was a realness that exuded a wonderful mood!”
Americans were impressed by "White Horse"
Another super hit of "Laid Back" "White Horse" gained great popularity and JAV. "White Horse" was quite heavily promoted in the country's discos, reaching the top spot on Billboard's National Disco Action and number 26 on the Billboard Hot 100. Admittedly, the relatively low placement on the Billboard Hot 100 was likely due to the track's controversial lyrics, including the word "bitch," which prevented it from receiving radio airplay in much of America.
And for the musicians themselves, unexpected success, like the rays of the summer sun or the waves of the ocean, suddenly flooded the Danish duo.
Their uniqueness, unlike many Danish groups, is that the lyrics are written in English, and most importantly, although they used only electronic instruments, the works sounded according to pop music, which was unusual for that era, when there was a widespread passion for the New Romantic style of music that originated in Britain.
The hit music video was created by Lars von Trier
1985 and 1987 they released two albums, Play It Straight and See You in the Lobby, and the singles Abu-Dhabi and Tricky Kind of Thing.
In 1989, the duo, with the Danish singer Hanna Boel, made a noisy comeback on the world music map with the new single "Bakerman", which became a hit in most European countries. The song was heavily promoted on television and thanks to an unusual video clip shot by the famous director Lars von Trier, in which the band members jump out of a plane and play musical instruments during free fall.
Later, "Laid Back" released several more albums, in 2002 they created music for the film "Flyvende Farmor", for which they received the "Robert" award - one of the most important in the Danish film industry, the so-called Danish Oscar.
In 2010, the duo returned with the single "Cocaine Cool", later released several more music albums - "Healing Feeling" (2019), "Road To Fame" (2023).
Palanga and Vilnius
The Danes are still popular all over the world: concerts and participation in festivals in Denmark are replaced by Germany, trips to Sweden are replaced by concerts in Mexico and, although Copenhagen to Palanga is only about 530 kilometers away, in 2025, for the first time in history, the Danish "Sunlight Regis" will be performed live in Lithuania as well!
"We believe that we have and will have listeners of our music in Lithuania as well," says John Guldberg. - So we invite them to come, relax and experience positive emotions."
The popular Danish duo "Laid Back", coming to our country for the first time, will hold two exclusive concerts in our country: on May 2025, 23 in the Palanga concert hall and on May 24 in the "Compensa" concert hall in Vilnius. Tickets are distributed by kakava.lt
