Nicke Andersson

Nicke Andersson - Quick Facts

Profile Overview of Nicke Andersson

Anders Niklas Andersson (born 1 August 1972), also known as Nicke Andersson, is a Swedish musician best known as the singer and guitarist for the rock band The Hellacopters and drummer for the death metal band Entombed. Besides his work with the Hellacopters and Entombed, Andersson currently plays and writes songs for the soul band The Solution, the death metal band Death Breath, the hard rock band Lucifer, and rock band Imperial State Electric.

This profile of Nicke Andersson covers Career and Rise to Fame, Entombed, The Hellacopters, Scott Morgan collaborations and Death and Legacy.

Andersson has been involved in over a hundred official releases with different bands, done work as a producer, contributed instrumental and vocal parts, and created artwork for most of the bands he has been involved with.

Anderson has been quoted by contemporary artists as saying "Death metal for me is probably how composers of horror scores see their music to the movies."

Career and Rise to Fame of Nicke Andersson

Andersson's interest began early in life with Kiss as his favorite band. He soon discovered his childhood friend and future bandmate Kenny Håkanssons's father's record collection and bands such as The Ramones and Sex Pistols. His interest soon turned towards heavier music, trading cassettes and vinyl and writing for fanzines. It wasn't long before Andersson started playing music and was soon playing drums and guitars in rock and metal bands such as Brain Dead Bodies, The Breaking, Belsen Barnen, Parodi, Maximal Skandal, Sons of Satan, Blasphemy, Nihilist and several other bands.

Entombed of Nicke Andersson

Andersson formed Nihilist after answering an ad in Heavy Sound, a record store in Stockholm. When Nihilist broke up in 1989, the same musicians formed Entombed with a different bass player. Andersson was predominantly the drummer in the band but also contributed to bass, guitars and vocals. Entombed derived influence from various different genres, but mostly from death metal on the band's first two albums Left Hand Path (which was recorded when he was 18) and Clandestine. With their third album the group started incorporating more traditional influences from hard rock and heavy metal and the album Wolverine Blues is consistently rated to be the origin of death 'n' roll.

The Hellacopters

In late 1994, Andersson formed The Hellacopters as a side project with Dregen, Kenny Håkansson and Robert Eriksson, all of whom earlier had been roadies during Andersson's time in Entombed. In January 1995 they released their first single Killing Allan on their own label Psychout Records. Their first full-length album Supershitty to the Max! Was released in 1996 and was recorded in 25 hours. It was awarded a Grammis in February 1997. The group recruited Anders Lindström and supported Kiss on their Scandinavian shows in 1997. The album was followed up the next year with Payin' the Dues. Due to the band's success, Andersson left Entombed to focus full-time on his new band. But the next year guitarist Dregen left The Hellacopters to focus full-time on his other band Backyard Babies. With their third record The Hellacopters changed the direction of their music to a cleaner sound than the early garage/punk rock style. The band continued to tour with temporary replacements before Robert 'Strings' Dahlqvist joined the band as their full-time guitarist. The band continued to release albums and tour extensively in Scandinavia, Europe and other parts of the world as well as opening for The Rolling Stones on two shows in 2002. In 2006 The Hellacopters joined forces with The Hives, Backyard Babies, The Soundtrack of Our Lives and Millencolin and embarked on a successful tour throughout Sweden. The band broke up after the release of their seventh full-length album, Head off, a collection of cover songs, which was followed in 2008 by a last tour through Europe and Scandinavia.

Scott Morgan collaborations

While on tour in USA with The Hellacopters, the band played several shows in the same venue as the former Sonic's Rendezvous Band singer Scott Morgan. This led to the formation of The Hydromatics which went on to release their first record Parts Unknown in 1999. Andersson and Morgan teamed up once again in 2004 this time under the name The Solution to release Communicate, which was followed by Will Not Be Televised in 2007.

Death and Legacy

In 2005 Death Breath was formed by Andersson and Robert Pehrsson. Soon Scott Carlson and Erik Wallin joined, making the band's lineup complete. The band plays metal music inspired by some of Andersson's favorite early extreme metal bands such as Venom, Autopsy and Celtic Frost. The band released Stinking Up the Night in 2006 and Let It Stink in 2007.

Cold Ethyl

After the breakup of The Hellacopters, Andersson formed Cold Ethyl along with Thomas Eriksson, Tobias Egge and Dolf De Borst from The Datsuns, who opened together with "Demons" for The Hellacopters during the later part of The Tour Before the Fall. The band states that they have no interest in recording or releasing any material at this time and that the only way to experience the band is through their live shows. The band played their first show at Debaser Slussen in Stockholm early 2009 and held a short tenure at the club Fanclub.

Imperial State Electric

At first a Nicke Andersson solo recording project Imperial State Electric soon evolved into a touring band with the same members as Cold Ethyl. They toured Scandinavia and Europe during 2010–2011 on the back of the first self-titled record (released Jan. 2010). I.S.E played mostly headline shows and festivals but there were also support act slots to Kiss and Guns N' Roses. For the recording of the second album "Pop War" (released 9 March 2012) Imperial State Electric was declared a band proper. The "Pop War" tour was unofficially started with two gigs supporting The Hives, one "by invitation only" secret gig on 28 March 2012 and one official The Hives gig three days later. The Imperial State Electric Pop War tour officially started on 4 April at Katalin in Uppsala, Sweden.

Lucifer

In March 2017, it was announced that Andersson had joined the band Lucifer as drummer. He had started writing songs with his now-wife and Lucifer vocalist Johanna Sadonis in 2016, when two of its members had left. As he is a multi-instrumentalist, Lucifer recorded their second album, Lucifer II, in Andersson's home studio without a complete band, only the addition of guitarist Robin Tidebrink. The band's third and fourth albums, Lucifer III (2021) and Lucifer IV (2022), were each nominated for Best Hard Rock/Metal at the Grammis awards.

Source: adapted from Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicke_Andersson), text available under CC BY-SA 4.0.