The story began 1983 in the old bottle cap factory ”Kapsylen” on Södermalm in Stockholm. Rub-a-dub Studio was built by Tom Hofwander, aka Internal Dread, his brother Bill, Brynn Settels and Stig Vig from Dag Vag. With blessings from legend Dennis Bovell, the studio took its roots from reggae and dub, created a new sound and a placed a star in the audio space for guidance and inspiration.
During the progression of sound quality, minds was trapped by the invasion of digital recording, the cuts of resolution and the seduction of infinite channels, the studio had its ups and downs, but stood tall with its analog equipment. And still does. Not to say that the studio is outdated, on the contrary takes Rub-a-dub pride of being an analog recording studio, and can handle both digital tracks and may provide digital recordings for those who relate to this.
In his early music years Internal Dread played and performed with Calcutta Transfer for many years. Later on he formed other bands and constellations, ”Internal Dread and the Reggaeterians” and ”Internal Dread & Friends?” was the latest ones.
During more than 30 years of producing and mixing, live and in studio, the elite of Swedish and Jamaican artists, Internal Dread released two albums with his 13-man band ”The Reggaeterians” and in 2010 he released ”Melodica Buffet”. Internal Dread did live dub engineer for Linton Kwesi Johnson, Dennis Bovell, Brooklyn Funk Essentials, Papa Dee, Desmond Foster, Swedish artists as Robyn, Veronica Maggio, Salem al Fakir, PH3, and many more. He had a live dub performance show together with Papa Dee or Desmond Foster, and other vocalists, which made every bass element scream for yet another bass line.
A true dub enthusiast always placed itself close by the mixing desk when Internal Dread was in town. The first times you might be hit by the way he works with the whole mixing desk, and all over every channel. The following encounters, you can might actually experience what his movement does with the sound: when the reverb exhales a deep breath and then a couple of short faint gasps, and the crisp sound a stick at the snare drum followed by the tempo of the everlasting delay.
Internal Dread was the foundation of Rub-a-dub Studios & Records and he also arranged concerts at ”Club Rub-a-dub” and ”Dub Week” at Mose Backe for over 10 years and arranged day festivals at Mosebacke Terrassen. The latest concert arrangement was the festival ”Rebel Music” in Enköping that quickly grew from a one day festival to a the 2 day festival. The concert was always visited by friends and family to the reggae scene and therefore always a pleasure to visit, along with the reliance of the best sounding show from the stage.
Internal Dread put his heart and soul in Rub-a-dub and in the recordings in the studio. You can see his unique way of mixing and dubbing here.
Internal Dread past away in august 2012. He’s since forever missing and continues moving in the eternal delay and widest of echoes. Internal Dread – Dub School (feat. Dubadown).
