All you need to know about Floodgate, and a little more… The story of Floodgate starts somewhere in the fall of 1999, but let's take it all from the very beginning.

Ola moved to Malmö, Sweden in 1994 to study at the Music University. When Daniel moved to there in August 1996, he began every now and then to hear about this Ola, "the great pianist", without getting the chance to meet him. Then Daniel started his studies in the fall of 1997 at the same school that Ola already had graduated from. Now Ola started to hear rumors about this Daniel, "the singer". They even saw each other a couple of times without being introduced to each other. And when that joyous day finally arrived, sometime in the fall of 1998, neither of them could imagine the journey that lay ahead of them.

They started to play together in a band called "Big Brother" (yes, it was before the TV-show), and also, by what you could call an accident, to play tennis on Friday mornings. When "Big Brother" split up, the tennis games kept going. The tennis was often followed by lunches that tended to be longer and longer. The friendship developed as they started to share each other's lives in a deeper way. Many issues have been discussed, many visions, dreams, laughs and tears have been shared and many songs have been born out of it.

By the end of the fall of 1999, they decided to start a band just the two of them. They started from scratch and dedicated the first year to just write new songs & didn't have any thoughts at all of going live before they had enough great songs to fill a concert. From the beginning, the name of the band was Hood. However they found out the name was taken, they changed it to Flood, only to discover it was also taken. At that time, they had a team from California visiting their church, and one member of that team (he didn't know Daniel was into music at all) one night prayed three times in a row over Daniel: "Your words are gonna go through the nations like a floodgate". And, oops, there you go. Touched by the prayer, they found Floodgate a great name for their band.

The first demo was recorded in the spring of 2000, named "Will you", and contained four songs. In the summer, Daniel and his wife Emma went to the USA on vacation. While in Nashville, he tried to meet with people in the music industry and visited different record companies to leave demos. Not very much came out of that effort though. Later that same summer, the first concert took place. It was at the festival PARK-00 in Alingsås, Sweden, and it was like most premieres: chaotic but a lot of fun. Two guys alone on the stage can't make enough noise, so this was also the first time with supporting musicians. Two of the musicians who were asked to join them live are, as long as they're free, still supporting on stage when it's time for a concert. Jaime Salazar on drums and Flemming Lund on bass. The other two on stage that very first concert were Sebastian Lilja, guitar & Martina Wämmerfors, background vocals, what a great band...

Demo number two was recorded in November 2000, named "Let the flood run", and contained three songs. In February 2001, a package with a CD & a presentation folder was sent out to about 30 record companies and booking agencies in the US. Eight companies gave feedback on the package, and it lead to further interest and some talks with a couple of the companies. In March, Daniel went over to Nashville again to do some student teaching at a High School in the area, and met with some music industry people at the same time. No specific result, but more successful than the first time, some feedback & encouragement to keep on working. During all the time, they both kept writing new songs, and during spring and summer 2001, they made some successful concerts.

"Not about us" is the name of the third demo, which was recorded in June 2001, and was sent out to a lot of different record and management companies, and the work continued with more strength and inspiration than ever. At the end of September, Floodgate performed one of Olas songs in the final of Melody 2001, a nationwide Christian Song Contest in Stockholm, Sweden. It resulted in the 5th place and it was a great show to be a part of. Then October 2-9, Floodgate went to the USA for the first time together to perform live. They performed three successful concerts during the week. Later in the fall, they performed a couple more live performances.