Månegarm

It all started in Norrtälje, Sweden, 1995. Three old friends began to talk about starting a band. They had all played or growled in different constellations before. The main direction with this project, was to play as fast and primitive metal as possible, and the lyrics had to be in Swedish. No question about that. To get the massive and raw sound they wanted, they only had to find a second guitarist and of course a drummer.

Against all odds they soon found Mårten Matsson, who played guitar in a local metal madness called Scab. He thought the idea sounded interesting and joined up. Mårten also knew a guy who had been playing drums for some months so he brought him along too. And so the first line-up was complete. It was Svenne (Duva) Rosendal on vocals, Jonas (Rune) Almquist and Mårten (Karbylundssvingen) Matsson guitars, Pierre (skägget) Wilhelmsson playing bass and Erik (Jurken) Grawsiö on drums. With the temporary band name, Antikrist, they started to rehearse their very first song "Månljus" in November ´95. A month later they changed their name to Månegarm.

In May ´96 they felt ready to put some of the material on tape. After three days in Underground Studio a four-track demo called "Vargaresa" was created. It was an over average demo with good sound and material. It was sad that so few labels and ´zines received it.

In the middle of the summer, a line-up change was done. Some of the members had become tired and didn't care so much anymore. A new guitarist and vocalist got involved. The Guitarist, Markus Andé, was an old friend to Grawsiö and suited well in the band. Same thing with Jonny Wranning, who had been vocalist in earlier bands with both Wilhelmsson and Almquist. With some fresh blood and new ideas, Månegarm entered the second chapter of their development as a band.

After several months of rehearsing and work with new material, a date was set for the recording of the second demo. Everyone was excited to enter the studio cause the new stuff was the best they´ve done this far. Suddenly a day Wranning calls and quit the band. The only thing to do was to cancel the studio and try to find a new vocalist. They tried a guy from the same town a while after, but it didn't work at all. After talking to Wranning again it was decided that he would do the vocals on the demo anyway. A date was set and the hunt for a vocalist continued.

Two weeks before the recording Månegarm got in contact with a vocalist called Gogge, sadly the time wasn't enough to let him participate on the demo. At last in February 1997 the long awaited demo; "Ur nattvindar" was brought out of Studio Sunlight. It contained three tracks and intro/outro. This was also the first time the violin and female vocals were used. It gave the whole thing a nordic feeling and was a perfect complement to Månegarms music. Compared to the first demo, "Ur nattvindar" reached out to more labels and magazines. The response couldn't have been better. Some months later Månegarm decided to sign for Displeased Records.

After the release of the demo, Goggan took the place as vocalist. It lasted some month but in the end it didn't work out, so once again the hunt began. It ended late the same year when Viktor Hemgren took the role as a firm vocalist. The work with the first album started and ended up as "Nordstjärnans Tidsålder", recorded in Studio Sunlight and released in June 1998. They were very satisfied with the result at that time and the response from the listeners was very good. Janne Liljequist´s violin filled the music along with the voice of Ymer Mossige-Norheim. After the release they all took some months off before the work with the second album started.

In the summer ´99 the recording of "Havets vargar" began. The studio belonged to a friend of them and all went quite good at first, until the studio owner and Displeased couldn't get along. It all ended with a five-month break in the recording. In December they went to Underground studio and finished the album. During the break Hemgren got fired because his lack of interest and Grawsiö took care of the vocals. The five-piece band became a quartet, which turned out to be the best that had ever happened to Månegarm. They finished "Havets vargar" at Underground and released it in late 2000.