Originally from Middlesbrough, for the past 12 years 71 year old Alan has lived in Sweden with his wife Jude.
‘After school I went to train as a school teacher at Durham University then spent my first seven years in the workplace as a teacher then in business for several years in and around the Northeast.’ explained Alan.
‘The first business was an up market private health and fitness Centre in Yarm. It was called Gym and Tonic. My second business was a construction company renovating properties and building new houses’.
When did you first pick up a guitar?
‘When I was 12 year old and sang my first song at the school folk club. It was Bob Dylans Blowing in the Wind. Like everyone else at the time I joined a band at 16 and played a few gigs around the Teesside area particularly Redcar pubs. It didn’t last. We didn’t get a record deal. But I really did enjoy it.’
Was music in your family, did anyone play an instrument?
‘Yes, my mother. She played a mean piano but she had to have her arms twisted too actually do it. She was a musical one. Most family and friend’s parties ended up around the piano with her playing the hits of the day. So, I guess I got my performing bug from her and from her brother. My uncle was a professional singer all his working life.’
‘Fast forward five decades and songwriting has taken over. There was a song in me called Running Man. I wrote it quickly and we recorded it. Since then, I’ve just kept writing.’
‘Jude and I became involved with a professional football club In Sweden and formed a refugee team called The Mighty Cosmos. The original members of this team had all escaped the 2003 and still ongoing genocide with Sudan and Darfur and had an amazing story to tell.’
‘Over two years, they told me their personal stories and every line in Running Man was a part of one of those stories.
One night at the height of the refugee migration across Europe I saw the Hungarian foreign minister say we will build a fence and send them back and that became a line in the middle eight part of the song. The rest of the song came very quickly.’
Alan’s song has received radio airplay in Sweden and he has been interviewed on several radio stations across northern Sweden.
‘Songwriting came to me late, but I’ve really enjoyed it. I think the early protest singer songwriters of the 60s and 70s especially Dylan, Roy Harper, Tom Paxton, Loundon Wainright along with the amazing Leonard Cohen have influenced the way I write.’
‘There’s a rich pallet of subject matter in the world right now so plenty to go at. I have several songs on Spotify now and a whole load lined up ready to be recorded including an EP of four songs of nostalgia about my home town.’
Songs recorded in Studio 306, Ostersund, Sweden. Produced & engineered by Johan Arveli & Anders Lagroix Kronlund. Available to download on all music platforms.
Tracks include Jamtland County, Monster in the Water, War is Cancelled Today, Darfur Wind, Into the light and Lady Liberty.
Alikivi March 2026
ALIKIVI UK : NORTH EAST MUSIC & CULTURE 