history

the band was formed around the end of 1994 beginning of 1995 in kiruna, Sweden, by Janne revonniemi, jonny Eriksson and Fredrik Andersson. The band entered a song contest in Swedish radio in the spring of –95 with the, not so original, name “no name jet”. (They used a jet plane as logo mr. “You spelled that wrong”) but later they changed their name to k.g.b. (knarkaren med guran och bananes dansorkester).

 

they did their first performance at the tt-tolvan festival in Kiruna, august –96. in the beginning they played cover songs mostly but did some own punk rock material as well. After a while they had made them selves a reputation as a good live band and became some kind of local celebrities to the kids who frequented their shows with songs like “stillsam ballad I c-moll”, “välfärdssamhället”, “sanningen som vapen” and the cover song “iron man” by black sabbath.

 

They played a lot of shows during 1996-97 as k.g.b. but in the spring of –97 they decided to change both their name and musical orientation, from k.g.b. to nihilist (Fredrik is a huge entombed fan and came up with the name as a tribute to them) and from punk rock to old school death metal.

 

The band had constant problems with keeping the line-up together and during fall –97 jonny Eriksson, talented guitarist and one of the founding members, left the band. Only some weeks before, the bassist hannu marttala, had left the band and the future didn´t look to bright for the band… but, “you shouldn’t give up until you’re dead and buried” someone said. And that’s true, short after the band almost split up Fredrik and janne found Ronnie björnström to grind the bass which showed out to be the most stabile and tight line-up since the band started. 

In may 1998 the band released their first demo-tape “demon” with three own songs and three cover songs.

 may 1999, exactly a year later, they released their second demo tape “rotting flesh” with six own songs.

 

The band had finished recording their debut album “destined to burn” in the end of 1999 and things were going really good for the band but the final mix was delayed and in june 2000 the guys graduated from school which meant trouble for the band as usual, janne was called to do his military duty for ten months, Ronnie and Fredrik moved back to Kiruna after three years of music school in pajala and started looking for jobs.

 

In august that year Ronnie decided to move to umeå with his girlfriend and left the band.

Once again the band was on the edge of break up but Janne and Fredrik decided to, at the least, record music and continued playing without ronnie. They placed ads to find a new bass player but none of the musicians who answered could match the line-up they had with Ronnie.

December 2000 they released their debut album “destined to burn”.

Still, the band continued their search and found martin “master” pudas who played guitar (incredibly well I might add). This was a drastic move, forcing Fredrik to pick up the bass but it kept the band going during the winter of 2000.

 

may 2001 the bands luck turned and Ronnie agreed to get back with the band and pound the bass like before. He still lives in umeå but 65 swedish miles isn’t that far if you’re passionate about what you’re doing…

 

And that isn’t the end, the best is yet to come…