Corrosive Sweden

A few weeks ago I told you about the Swedish band Corrosive Sweden and their new single ‘Devil Of Mine‘.

If you want to know more about the band please read the interview I had with the band.

Can you tell something about the history of the band? When was it
established?
Corrosive Sweden was formed in 1997 and have since then released a number of
recordings and performed on a number of clubs and festivals mainly in Sweden.
We have had the opportunity to play with bands such as The Hellacopters,
Amaranthe, Engel, Dead By April, Corroded, Freedom Call, The Kristet Utseende,
Smash Into Pieces, Art Nation, Eyes Wide Open among others The band was
also invited, as special guests, for a gig with the Backyard Babies.

Tell something about the name of the band. Does it have a certain meaning,
who came up with it?
Our band name is inspired by a Paradise Lost song, Just Say Words I think it’s called. In the verse he sings “You get high with your corrosive instinct”. So our name was originally “Corrosive Instinct”, but eventually we decided to go with just “Corrosive”.
After a couple of years we discovered that this band name was taken by some guys in the states so we finally opted for Corrosive Sweden.

Introduce the band members. Instruments, musical backgrounds etc.

Johan Bengtsson (Vocalist)
My cousin showed me Accept and Twisted Sister. Then I bought my first
electric guitar. That’s how I got into music.

Peter Fors (Rhythm guitarist)
I grew up in a home with a dad who plays guitar and a big brother who plays
drums, so the music has always been there. I started my first band with some
friends.

Christer Ulander (Lead guitarist)
I heard Kiss – “Dynasty” when I was six years old. Then I was sold for life.

Daniel Hedin (Drummer)
My brother got me into music.

Alexander Cundell (Bassist) I originally started out singing just for fun, but eventually took the opportunity to perform on stage during my pre-teen years. In my teenage years me and some of my classmates decided to start a band and that’s when I discovered
my love for playing the bass.

Are you professional musicians or do you have other jobs also?
We all do have side jobs and we use a large amount of our precious free time to
gather up and make music. We take what we do very seriously, but the fun of it is
what has kept us alive through all these years. 23 years to be specific, and along our journey we’ve gathered a lot of experience and created many valuable memories.
Surviving on music alone is something many professional bands can only dream of, as do we.

Are there band members who play in other bands also?
Perhaps! There have been a few instances where some of our members have in fact appeared in cover bands and side projects.

What can you tell us about your music?
We have been described as a hybrid between old school Trash and Melodic metal.
The five band members all have different backgrounds when it comes to personal musical influences. It is a wide range from Classic Hard Rock, Trash Metal, Punk, Power Metal and Modern Metal. This makes the sound of Corrosive Sweden unique, but with recognizable fragments.

Is there a message in the songs?
We want people to think for themselves, to create their own interpretations of our music. For us music is a way of expression, a place where we can release all of our thoughts, pain and anger.

Who is responsible for the music and the lyrics?
The lyrics are entirely written by the singer himself, Johan.
The process of constructing material has differed throughout the years. Nowadays. Christer has been the main engine, he is the one who gets an idea

What can you tell us about the last single ‘Devil of Mine”?
Devil of mine is about a disguised female devil. A video is important but does not
mean much without a good song. A good video can reinforce the message in the
lyrics. In general is everything you do as a band important. If you do not work and show your stuff in public, it does not exist for your audience either.

Is your music influenced by artists or bands? + Which bands do you like?
A lot of bands. Kiss, Iron Maiden, Metallica, Megadeth, Helloween, Slayer,
Meshuggah, Deftones, among others. We have an influence playlist on our Spotify page.

Follow that one
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/78fgIu0Ll9S61ZpdX2bXGS?si=zOfydaonTq-hAOBRo cYWgQ

What was your most remarkable gig so far?
A small festival in Sweden called Metalpark. Great response and a fantastic crew.

What can you tell us about the metal scene in Sweden?
We are very happy to live in a country where the metal scene is big and growing.
Bands like Meshuggah, Ghost, In Flames and Arch Enemy all have their roots here.
In our town however metalheads are very few, so we’ve taken several opportunities to travel far only to play a show, we’ve even gone abroad. Sweden is a pretty large country and there’s been one instance where we traveled as far as 2000km (back and forth to Kiruna) by Van. 😅

What’s the difference between Corrosive Sweden and other Swedish bands?
We are better 😉

What are your future plans?
We are currently working on the new album. The first single ‘Devil of Mine’ was
released in October. As many other colleagues in the music industry, we had to
cancel the tour planned for 2020. “We are really looking forward to Covid to cease.
Meanwhile, we are spending time with our families and creating music” The recording of this album, is as the previous album, made in our own studio Dark City Sounds.
The vocals are recorded by P-O at POL Studio.

Is it easy to plan gigs in Sweden?
Live shows are very important for us. It has always been a challange to get
opportunities to play, and it has been literally impossible since the pandemic hit us.
Our plan is to continue writing music in 2021. After this covid-19 shit, we are hitting the road again better than ever. We have had a couple of offers for online shows but have decided to record new stuff instead. We have a lot of new music to record so that’s our plan right now.

Are you coming to Holland?
Unfortunately we haven’t got anything scheduled as of now. Be sure to hit us up!

Are there bands you want to go on tour with?
There are a lot of bands we would like to play with. Honestly it’s very hard for us to choose between specific bands.

Why should Dutch metal fans listen to your band?
If you’re into heavy metal and you’re looking for something unique, give us a listen!

You can follow the band here:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CorrosiveSweden/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/corrosivesweden

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/corrosivesweden

Twitter: https://twitter.com/corrosivesweden

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/1aATbWf28sY3VGcSQgdRre?si=_w4GB4AySxWOGKz0y_lfBg