Pär Wiksten

The Wannadies
Pär Wiksten performing with The Wannadies at Manchester Academy on 9 March 2000
Background information
Origin	Skellefteå, Sweden
Genres	Alternative rock, power pop
Years active	1988–2009
Labels	Cooking Vinyl, RCA, Indolent, BMG, MNW, Snap, National, Hot Stuff
Past members	Pär Wiksten Christina Bergmark Stefan Schönfeldt Fredrik Schönfeldt Gunnar Karlsson Björn Malmquist Erik Dahlgren

The Wannadies were an alternative rock band formed in 1988 in Skellefteå, northern Sweden. The band's initial line-up featured Pär Wiksten (vocals, guitars), Christina Bergmark (born 1 March 1963) (keyboards, vocals), Stefan Schönfeldt (born 5 June 1965) (guitars) and his younger brother Fredrik Schönfeldt (bass) with Gunnar Karlsson (drums) and Björn Malmquist (violin).

The Wannadies played their first concert, a festival in support of the Nicaraguan Sandinistas, in October 1988 and only weeks later entered local studio KN to record the three tracks that would become their debut release—the Smile EP.

Smile was released in February 1989 and managed to pick up several 'single of the week' accolades from national newspapers as well as airplay on indie radio shows such as 'Bommen' despite little or no marketing. Following the band's appearance at the Hultsfred Festival in August 1989, The Wannadies signed a recording contract with MNW Records, releasing their debut single, "My Hometown", in May the following year.

The band's eponymous debut album was released in August 1990 and was supported by tours of Sweden, Finland and Norway. A highlight for the group was 1991s Nordic music festival in Paris where they shared the bill with Finland's 22 Pistepirkko and Iceland's The Sugarcubes.

Second album, Aquanautic was released in October 1992 on Snap Records, MNW's indie label. Not without controversy the album saw videos for the singles "Things That I Would Love to Have Undone" and "Cherry Man" banned by MTV the former for featuring a foam animal cadaver, the latter for the allusions to paedophilia in both the song's lyrics and video which featured a middle-aged man surrounded by young girls and boys.