The Skellington Saga: Their history so far, so what...!!!

By Harry Hammerhead

              

SKELLINGTON, as you may or may not know, is a damn nice and hard rockin´ heavy metal act from Stockholm, the capitol of Sweden, where the band was founded in
the year 2000 A.D. by old high school pals Jac Rytterholm (vocals) and Göran
Lundgren (guitars).

   SKELLINGTON was formed out of the ashes of local act Wasted Breed, from where
bass player, cowboy and longtime friend Tommy Jee were taken.

 

Rytterholm and Lundgren had played with Jee since the dawn of mankind it seemed and they all agreed it was about fu**ing time to make some new noice for the new millennium (and get their sh-t together) once and for all…!

So they started looking for a new drummer and a new lead guitarist and aimed for nothing but the best – alongside a decent personality, which might be added is quite tricky to find – and they found it in drummer Andreas Konradsdal and lead guitarist Bo Karlsson.

 

And…voilá: now the band SKELLINGTON was formed – ready to musically violate the
planet Earth!

 

 

 

For two years the band rehearsed, made songs and recorded a demo at slow motion
speed. Most bands rehearse a lot – but SKELLINGTON are stupid lazy bums and do NOT!
Although, and you may not believe this, but according to most folks the band
still somehow manage to deliver “serious ass kicking music that take no prisoners”...(And yessss - it´s damn true!:-)

Well, actually, the band members are in fact (once again, believe it or not!)
involved with things like “Work, Women & Wine” - and (too) often there´s a lack
of money as for everybody else in this (sometimes shitty) world. So therefor the
rehearsal time for the band sometimes may be put aside. Sad but true – since they don´t
have a record deal (yet!) damn it!!! If they had a record deal they could compose and rehearse their trousers off on a daily basis...and thereby make the world a better place for humankind.

Anyways, SKELLINGTON (we are NOT lazy u freak!/Sk), rehearse once a week (sometimes
two actually u freak!/Sk) and in the fall of 2002 the band played their debut gig
in Märsta outside of Stockholm, close to the international airport. And gosh,
their so called tour poster made quite a mess over there – religious freaks and
weird horny people thought it was going to be a striptease show with naked
ladies rather than a mean lean heavy metal machine! LOL!!!
(Check out that funny cool poster down below…and then maybe you understand?).
 

 

Whatever, SKELLINGTON just laughed about it and did a nice job anyway, played
loud and so on in a true heavy metal spirit etc. This very first gig can
actually be heard on their live home made bootleg CD: “A Fist Full Of Märsta”
which includes the second part of their long show - and lethal kick ass covers as well!
 

 

 

Although, at this period lead guitarist Bo Karlsson had a very rough time in private so he couldn´t join the band on stage for this first show – and he also had a newborn son to take care of! And - guess what – at the same time Bo also got the nice offer to join world fameous black metal giants DARK FUNERAL as their new guitarist - chosen among hundreds! (Yeah, pretty cool huh?:-) So, well, SKELLINGTON just had to move onward without Bo and (of course) wished him good luck with DARK FUNERAL as well as his own experimental project band MORDICHRIST…

Well, hmm, where was I…oh yes! By the way; a quite strange, quite odd thing with the band SKELLINGTON was the fact that they had never ever really let any "media" nor radio listen to their demo stuff (simply called "First Blood, First Demo"), but after a while they decided to give it a shot…

 

...and, just in time for Christmas 2002, the band was getting their very first
published review ever – AND, it was the fameous Scandinavian Close-Up Magazine that
reviwed SKELLINGTON first of all, which was extra cool since the magazine gave the band
really good, nice reviews! A real “honour” for the band since it´s very hard to even
get a chance to get reviewed in that magazine for unsigned band...

 

Their highly appreciated cover of the KISS classic "Love Gun" - translated into dirty swedish words (!) and thereby re-named "Stor Kuk" (don´t ask me what it means! But it means "Big Cock" ;-) also got great response from all over and is now somewhat of a cult favorite among (drunken) swedish metalheads...and definetly among the girlz!                      

(Actually, the great Bruce Kulick, KISS former lead guitarist 1984-96, really enjoys the band´s cover and it´s sizzlin´ hot arrangements! And he like the bands own music as well, so that´s a pretty cool thing to mention, right? At least for Jac, because he´s such a KISS freak and worked pretty hard on that arrangement - all u KISS nutters out there will love it, it´s kicking ass, although I recommend a crash course in swedish language for starters;-)...

Well, well, well, anyways. SKELLINGTON sure did get a pretty nice Christmas present there from the Close-Up Magazine, and started to spread the demo a little bit more. Some of their songs were played at local radio stations and rock clubs - and voilá, a few months later SKELLINGTON earned a pretty good reputation as an explosive live act at Stockholm Musikfest in front of a big audience at the fameous Medborgarplatsen in Stockholm City.

 

In 2004 the band recorded an entire "Album Demo", including 13 songs, LIVE in the studio. It was done in only 17 hours (!) and has a lot of faults and mistakes here and there, as often when recorded live, but no one can take away the bands unpolished talent, raw energy - and of course their timeless songwriting capability!

But, the bands "Album Demo: Live In The Studio" was actually not to the bands full satisfaction, so there´s not many people who´ve heard it so far. The band felt they needed a new lead guitarist to fill out the sound the way it always been intended. After several months and months and months of searching for the right type of guitarist, the band found Joakim Norlander, a young and talented guitarist who appreciated the bands ability to write all kinds of heavy metal songs. Fast ones, slow ones, heavy ones - always dramatic and always melodic, SKELLINGTON got it all! The new line-up, Mk III, started their rehearsals in the summer of 2005, ready to explode...well, "in the future to come"?;)

                

And, in the meantime, while waiting for the "SKELLINGTON Saga" to continue, if you´re being bored or just having a great taste of music, please feel free to keep your (evil?) eye on this “very much likeable website” of SKELLINGTON...

And, always remember: "Keep On Bangin´ folks!!!" (Yeah, go figure...;-)

 
 

Yours truly,

Harry Hammerhead
President, Skellington Metalheads United (Official Fan Club)