Sweden is a birth place for lots of lesser known and world renowned metal bands and artists. This ensures that a wide variety of metal music is been brought to the block and released to the public. Bands like Sabaton and Hammerfall have conquered the world whilst others are working hard to accomplice the same. In this second category we can place Pressure.
Hailing from Stockholm, Sweden Pressure was founded back in 2018. Simon and Emil started things off at a big barbecue whilst drinking booze. Simon told Emil is was time for the latter to go on stage and play guitar. Emil played saxophone and Simon was giving him lessons in how to use the guitar. The invitation was declined at that moment, but the seed was planted. When a couple of weeks later the opportunity arose for Emil to fill in a vacant position as a bass player in a band that Simon was part of at the time, he took it. Within two weeks Emil had to learn how to play 60 songs different songs on a bass guitar. That made Emil part of the band and they had two guitarists all of a sudden.
For over a decade before, the band played covers of well-known songs turning them into metal versions. The name of the band at the time was The Crow Show. But they felt they wanted to be more than a cover band so they started auditions for a good lead singer. Up until than Simon did most of the leadvocals but he felt he couldn’t do it justice the way it should. Whilst holding auditions a bearded man showed up, convinced he was doing auditions for a cover band. Olof Jönsson entered the band and the definite line up began to take shape. “When Olof came home after his audition he told his wife that this audition was either the worst of the best ever in human history!” After a good night sleep Olof concluded it must be the latter and he joined the band.
The guys renamed the band into Pressure, wrote some new material and started playing on stages and in front of growing crowds. Pressure hit the ground running and the agenda was filling up nicely with a lot of shows and gigs. That was until the Covid-19 pandemic hit. Like all and everything in the world this brought everything to an abrupt hold. It closed the opportunity for Pressure to perform live on stage but also opened some new opportunities for these energetic Swedes. One of those opportunities was to bring in a vocalista in to the band. An advertisement was made on social media wich caught the eye of Olli Violet. “I saw the advertisement on social media that a Swedish metal band was looking for a female singer to add to their line-up. After some initial contact I did an audition with the guys, which turned out to be the longest audition ever!”
Simon adds: “We took advantage of the opportunity so we led her sing each and every song of our catalogue. Some in Swedish, others in German or English. I don’t think that was truly needed, as we all knew Olli would be a great fit, but we had a hell of a lot fun doing it! HAHAHA”
With the line-up completework resumed on writing new music.
When Pressure started of the released a lot of single’s without putting out an E.P. or a full album. The general idea was to create their own subgenre of Heavy Metal namely “Story Metal”. We don’t want to pinned down into one genre but we feel the story we tell sometimes craves different styles of metal. Simon adds: “We got some reviews where people told us to find our genre instead of flying all over the board. But that’s not our intention at all! We want to able to bring the music that fits best with the lyrics and the general feel we want to create with the music. We always write down the lyrics first and after that we discuss what music (and thus style) fits that story best. So one song can be Thrash Metal whilst the next is Hair Metal or Power Metal. It all comes down to the fact is must tell the story we want to tell in the best possible way.”
Like more artists and bands Pressure seized the opportunity to make the best of a bad situation when the pandemic hit. Songs are written by Simon Forsell as he sees himself as a “story collector”. And he had a perfect understanding on how to translate everyday issues and personal experiences into music. As stated before the lyrics choose the genre of the music and that makes that the music Pressure puts out is very diverse and that is perfectly reflected on their first full length album. Path of a Shadow was released in the middle of the pandemic, on the 7th of May 2021, features 15 songs and has a total airplay of almost 70 minutes!
Because of the ongoing pandemic Pressure didn’t had the chance to go out and play their brand new album in front of large crowds, it did not hold them back. The relentless pace and energy that is found throughout their music, is also reflected in the love and effort they put in creating new music. That is perhaps best said by founding member Simon Forsell as he states “how can you tell a story about life if you haven’t dared to live life to its fullest and chances so you can say you have been there and done that!”
The writing process in the band is a joint venture. Most of the time Simon Forsell makes a demo version of what influences him at a certain time. That can be phrase, and experience or something alike. Than this demo gets “tossed around” between the members of the band to put in their vision of thins and they decide to go on with it, rework it or abandon it. Other than the previous album is that Olli Violet took an active role in some of lyric writing as well. This eventually leads to a brand new album that is up for release in June of 2022.
Emil and Simon about this new album: “This album is going to be a concept album so there will more of a coherent story being told. Fun things about this album is the manure of how the tracks made the album. We put out a survey to people in our closest circle and asked them to rate the songs one by one. Lyrics, composing.. you get the idea! Next to that our producers also had a big say in this because they have a sharp ear and know their stuff!”
One of the key ingredients in Pressure is telling a story tot their listeners. Stories that can be open for interpretation as they seem fit. To add another layer to that Pressure brings some of their songs in other languages than others. Mostly because the story is best told in for example German or English rather than Swedish. To top it all off Pressure has released two brand new singles on April 1st ! It tells the story from both the female and male perspective as it comes to being successful but still have dark desires that they do not dare to share with each other. A perfect showcase of what Pressure is up to!
PRESSURE IS A METALBAND HAILING FROM SWEDEN. FOUNDED BACK IN 2018 AND QUICKLY BUILDING A NAME FOR THEMSELVES. A BRAND NEW ALBUM IS SET FOR RELEASE THIS SUMMER, AND A BRAND NEW (DOUBLE) SINGLE HAS JUST BEEN RELEASED!
On behalf of everyone at Maizter Underground, we want to wish PRESSURE all the best with all you guys take on in the future!
IF YOU DONT WANT TO MISS ANYTHING PRESSURE ANNOUNCES OR RELEASES, PLEASE FOLLOW THEM TROUGH THE FOLLOWING LINKS!
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IF YOU WANT TO LISTEN TO MORE PRESSURE PLEASE CLICK THE FOLLOWING PLAYLIST!
