The Bittersweets started as a surplus project by John Martinsen and Arne Thelin in 1995. Both John and Arne were in other bands at the time – John playing rhythm guitar in The Yum Yums, and Arne doing lead vocals and leading The Kwyet Kings. Both had songs which didn’t quite fit in with their main bands, so they decided to join forces and get the songs released. John said he dreamt the band name, and The Bittersweets was born in the fall that year.
The template for The Bittersweets’ music was pop punk along the lines of Ramones, The Queers, Riverdales and Hard-ons among others. Tomas Dahl (ex Abusers, The Yum Yums, later Vikings, Wonderfools, Turbonegro and Caddy) joined on drums, Kåre Pedersen (ex-Kåre and The Cavemen, Abusers, The Kwyet Kings, later Gluecifer, Rejects, Euroboys and Cavebones) on guitar, Bjørn Haukaas (ex T-Zers and Fuck Ups) on bass and Lars Dehli Johnsrud (later Mensen and The Good Bad And The Zugly) on organ.
The album was recorded over two weekends during spring 1996 at Athletic Sound Studio in Halden, Norway with Kai Andersen as engineer and co-producer. The recordings were released on CD in the summer of 1996 on That’s Entertainment Records.
Kåre quit right after the recording and was replaced by Mads Husvik (ex The Basement Brats, later The Nuggets) on guitar and the band played two gigs during winter/spring in Oslo and Halden respectively. Bjørn was then replaced by Lars Kristian Gulbrandsen – Zugly (ex Abusers, later Wonderfools and The Good Bad And The Zugly) on bass. The plan was to record a second album, but Arne left for work in Asia and the band faded slowly away.
This reissue is remastered and for the first time on vinyl.
