Salem Al Fakir - Biography

Salem is number four out of six brothers and sisters in the al Fakir family. According to himself he is the least talented of them all. Someone better sign the whole bunch right now… He grew up in Huddinge, a suburb to Stockholm, with a mum from Sweden and a dad from Damaskus. He forced the two to pay for his first violin lessons when he was four years old, about the same time as he started to play around with the family piano.
A few years later he was writing choir arrangements and making music in a group he had with his younger brother Sami under the name of Simon and Simon. Hanging out in Huddinge city was strictly forbidden in the al Fakir family so Salem spent his afternoons with endless practising on the instruments, with inspiration from whatever he could find; mostly his parents classical music and his siblings fairytale cassettes.

At the age of twelve he started studying for a russian art- and violin professor, followed by a tour of Russia as a solo violinist. Salem ditched this career when he started high school, and at the same time he started writing and making his own songs on the piano in the basement of his home. For the five years to come, that was all he did; piano and studying, until he finally got fed up with school and locked himself in the basement to focus on doing something completely of his own.
The result was a demo that turned out to be his first EP “Dream Girl”. On “Dream Girl” Salem plays all the instruments himself, he sings the choir arrangements, and produced and mixed everything at home. When the hard-to-impress swedish top A&R Klas Lunding first heard the demo he got totally blown away. The boy from the basement had created a unique sound – a mixture of swedish folk, timeless soul and contemporary electro - and Mr Lunding signed Salem immediately. Salems own musical preferences? Well if he has to he listens to punk rock.

Debut, and gold selling album “This is Who I Am” went straight to #1 on Swedish album chart, and iTunes (were he also held the #2 and #3 positions with his EP and the iTunes edition of the album!
- The album includes (so far) three hit singles; Dream Girl, Good Song and This Is Who I Am with videos.