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Swedish hopefuls Screamer started out in Ljungby, Småland, in early 2009, with Christoffer Svensson, Martin Hallberg, Anton Fingal and Henrik Petersson. Henrik had just quit his band Erottica (nowadays known as By My Fear), and instantly joined forces with the other three as they needed a competent drummer. About two months after forming the band, Screamer recorded a demo called "Never Going Down", which got airplay on national radio, local radio and a whole lot of internet stations. The demo opened some doors for the band, and soon Screamer became one of the hardest touring demo bands in Sweden, determined to get out on the road as often as possible (they played over 60 gigs in just 18 months). In late 2010 Screamer entered the studio to start recordings for their debut longplayer "Adrenaline Distractions". Soon after that guitar player Martin Hallberg decided to leave the band. The replacement was found in local talent Dejan Rosic. When you listen to songs like "Screamer", "Can you hear me" (with its galloping rhythm and dual guitar tapping) or the album's superb title track "Adrenaline Distractions", the energy and the superb guitar lead work reminds me quite a bit of a youthful Iron Maiden (circa "Killers"). However, drummer Henrik Petersson likes to describe Screamer's style as "Full Throttle Heavy Metal 'n' Roll". Of course Maiden is one of their influences but the band does not like to get pinned down too closely when it comes to inspirations: "Accept, Motörhead, Judas Priest, Scorpions, Rainbow, Dio in general, Nazareth, Metallica - to name a few. Of course, since we are four people in the band we can name drop until we sober up, but what's the point of that? The Motörhead influence in our sound is not a coincident though. Our singer had listened to one Motörhead album day in and day out for three weeks when he came up with the idea for our song 'Screamer'." Matthias Mader |