Ronnie Atkins reveals there is no dialogue within Pretty Maids and band is kind of in limbo

Ronnie Atkins reveals there is no dialogue within Pretty Maids and band is kind of in limbo

Pretty Maids frontman Ronnie Atkins was recently interviewed by Henrik Halvardsson for Metal Central. Atkins was promoting his new solo album One Shot, which was just released via Frontiers Music Srl (on March 12, 2021).

With respect to Pretty Maids‘ status, Atkins indicated (as translated from Swedish to English by Halvardsson): “The band… We have not seen each other since September 2019. Partly due to the pandemic, but to be perfectly honest with you, the atmosphere in the band was not completely fantastic at the end. We have not split up or anything. We made a new record, “Undress Your Madness“, but we have not played a single song from the album live. A couple of things happened when I got sick and people made some stupid decisions. But it is what it is and I do not want to go into details about what happened. Today there is no dialogue within the band. We’re in a kind of limbo, but I’m sure all members have a desire to come back if possible. Unfortunately, time is not on our side given Corona and my health situation.”

In terms of the advantages of making a solo album rather than a Pretty Maids album, Atkins stated: “The period when I went public about my illness was a frustrating time for everyone, not just for me. We had a whole tour booked around the release of the new record. We didn’t announce it but it was booked. That’s why I went public and told everyone about my situation because so many people wondered why we did not tour. Working with this record has been a lot easier for me than it is with Pretty Maids. There, it was normally always Ken Hammer and myself who wrote the songs. However, a lot of diplomacy was always required because we were two alpha males. In fact, the band has been around for 40 years with two alpha males at the helm. But I did not want that kind of cooperation and it would not have been possible if I had wanted it for that matter either. Ken lives in Sweden, I live in Denmark so we could not even meet. I had a lot of ideas for songs that were more pop orientated and I did not want to start discussing things like what key the songs should be in. I wanted to do things my way and Chris Laney was on the same page as me.”

You can read the rest of the original interview with Ronnie Atkins in the Swedish language at Metal Central‘s website.

Ronnie Atkins‘ “Real” video (from One Shot album):

Pretty Maids‘ “Serpentine” video (from Undress The Madness album):