There is more than one artist with this name: 1) Sweeper is a Serbian pop punk band 2) Sweeper is Czech indie/pop band. 1) Sweeper is a Serbian pop punk band.As it usually is, two guys from a small town decided to put their thoughts in the air (actually all they wanted was to have guitars around their necks). So, pushed by their favorite bands and playing skills, they wrote a few songs and found comrades with similar likes to jam along. First, they called themselves Titty Twister?! and had a few shows in their home town. They got their first fans on those shows also, and it was enough to start thinking “hey, this thing could become serious”. Soon after that, the name changed into Sweeper, there were some member changes, and they finally recorded their first demo “Made in War”. It was compiled out of 5 songs and was released by the internet label MP3 records. And it was unusually successful; many kids from around the world heard the songs, and one U.S. band even did a cover of the “Best Friend”, the best song of the EP. And there they were, playing more and more shows, getting recognized and respect by the fans and fellow musicians. It was great. All those hours rehearsing in all kinds of basements, on crappy equipment actually paid off. “Hit the Road” was the title of the second record. It was DIY job that went just fine. The sound got heavier, the beat got faster, lyrics were more pissed off, and the whole record was probably the reflection of the situation that was really bad in the country in those few years. Fortunately, the things were getting better, and so were the new songs. The themes became lighter, looser and more love oriented. The punk scene was getting more mainstream, and the band booked more shows. They had their first out of country gigs; they did a mini tour in Croatia that was great and pushed guys to work really hard, to write more and to rehearse harder. It paid off also. In 2006, Sweeper played on the popular Exit festival, and they caught much attention from the audience, as well as the label records. Their latest record, “Duhovi u Sobi” is coming out in a few days, and it is the material that the band is proud of. It represents all those years that they went through together, and is one big thank you to all those great people and kids that were jumping and dancing on the gigs and appreciated all the effort the band have shown. is Cz 2) Sweeper Sweeper was formed in 2003 when Rodriguez, guitarist, and Dave Karpoff, drummer, founder members of the Southpaw band, left their mother ship and set for their own way. Following, there was a long period of searching a new musical base and musicians who would complete the band. “I guess, this was the most difficult time in the history of the band,” Rodriguez recalls. “Actually, we started again, from the scratch. But the important thing was that we had a clear vision of what we wanted to create and achieve. It wasn’t easy to find a base for the new band because the rooms like musical studios are rather scarce especially in Prague. So we had been a kind of musical ‘homeless’ for some time. But eventually, after a half-year, we found a studio and started to work on the repertoire. Roughly in a year we had material that later made the basis of the current repertoire of Sweeper.” At the beginning of 2005, Rodriguez and Dave Karpoff started to look for other musicians to the band through ads and friends. Being a great musician was not the only criterion, mutual relationships were also very important. “The band is a bit like a football team,” says Dave Karpoff. “It is also a group of people who had to pull together and this is often much more important than their musical achievements.” The first to join the founder members was Bootch, keyboard player, at that time leader of the pop-rock band Sextet Orange. “I longed for achieving something in music and in Sextet Orange I felt that the others didn’t share this with me. I guess, that was the main reason for replying to the ad and joining Sweeper,” remembers Bootch his beginnings in the band. A month later the band found a new singer. It was Mike F. who had gained experience during his long-term stay in Great Britain and his one-year-lasting featuring in the Yelfish band. “When this guy sent us his recordings, we were sure that he was the one we were looking for,“ comments the singer’s arrival Rodriguez. But for quite a long time the band failed to find a suitable bass player. Luckily, at the beginning a friend Tom Key helped the band and they played together also their first concerts – festival in Hustopece near Brno, where they supported the non-profit organization of Podané ruce (Offered Hands) by their participation, and the Coca Cola Popstar contest where they placed 5th in the Internet poll. At the beginning of 2006, the band finally found a bass player – Pete Clementis, a musician with an abundant professional history. He recalls his beginnings in the band, “The offer to Sweeper came at the time when, after taking part in a purely commercial project, I had been looking for a new band where I could find both professional co-players and a group of people who get along well together. After a couple of rehearsals it was clear that we would stay together for some time.” At that time the first EP entitled “Total Loss Of Ego” was released. The EP was recorded in autumn 2005 also with the help of a former member of the Ohm Square band Dušan Lipert. This EP got Sweeper a unique face and the band joined the Indie pop bands. Songs from the Total Loss Of Ego are still aired by several Czech radio stations. Thanks to interviews on the radio, Sweeper became better known by the public. In August 2006 the band won the Wave Chart hit parade on the Wave radio station with their single Ecstasy. In the second half of 2006 Rodriguez met Mário Tachecí who stands on the position of the band manager. He came with an idea of a multisensory project which the band would accompany by a musical collage. Sweeper opened new files in the popular Logic Pro and prepared material for this project. The musical vision gradually transferred into new material which was confronted with the author of the visual side of the project, the well-known “comics guru” Dario Gulli. During the autumn Sweeper moved to London to shoot, together with Karolína Žalabáková and Lukáš Gargulák, a video to the song Ecstasy, the shots of which combine material shot in London quarters with colour calculations made by a special animation programme written for this particular purpose. The programme was designed by students of the Faculty of Informatics, Masaryk University in Brno. Just for your imagination – the final calculation of the whole video proceeded several days on powerful machines and then every shot was manually coloured. By the end of 2006 the band launched the EuphoryTour project where within the “all year tour” it gave a chance to bands from the Czech republic as well as abroad to take part in concerts and festivals held or sponsored within this project. After finishing the video the band returned to work and gradually finished individual songs. Shortly after that, in December 2006, the keyboard player Bootch left Sweeper so that he could work on his own projects. At the beginning of 2007, Sweeper chose six tracks which later formed a soundtrack to the comics by the above mentioned Dario Gulli entitled Wall After Wall. After the material was sent to Italy, the band gave several concerts and started to prepare their first LP. This LP features tracks from the first demo and also from the soundtrack Wall After Wall supplemented by new things. A short intermezzo was recording the single entitled like the mentioned soundtrack, i.e. “Wall After Wall”. Following the studio work and arrangement and recording string parts (Filip Jelínek – J.A.R.), the single got to the hands of Jan P. Muchow who did the production. Mix was done in Prague Soundsquare and mastering was overseen by English engineers. This single was accompanied by a video, shot by the American team “Pickle” lead by a director of Swiss origin Cedric Larvoir, which should also air in the Czech Republic. First promo E.P., called Total loss of ego, was released in 2005/2006. In the year 2006 one of inculuded tracks became popular among youth indie-generation in Prague and won the chart on Radio Wawe, one of few progressive Czech radios. Disco: ~~~~~~~ Wall After Wall 2007 · AFFL Recs 1. Brainchild 2. N.Y. Bridges 3. Razorblades 4. Thousands for the Phone 5. Wall After Wall 6. Brainchild [RMX] Total Loss Of Ego E.P. 2006 · AFFL Recs 1. Naive Song 2. Ecstasy 3. Friends & Lovers 4. Blind Conclusions 5. Half of Me Starving 6. “12”