Petter Karlsson

Petter on Meinl Website
NEWS
2008-04-18
Therion is now history
Last week I had a band meeting with my fellows in Therion.
We have now decided to go separate ways.
Christofer Johnsson will continue with Therion and Me, Johan and Kristian Niemann will perform our music in other bands and projects.
I’m sure that this is the best decision, when it’s clear that we have different goals and visions for the future.
I have a lot of interesting projects coming up, and I will definitly do something together with Kristian and Johan.
To all Therion fans
Thanks for your unbelievable support. I hope I’ll see you in the future.
Cheers,
Petter
2008-04-01
Just realized that this clip is rather cool ;)
2008-03-09
Looking forward...
After a long year with alot of touring, I can finally sit down and do some other stuff.
I just finnished mixing the forthcomming Therion DVD.
It looks like alot of interresting projects are comming up. Among others I'm composing and recording material for a solo project, more info will follow shortly.
2007-11-12
America/Japan tour is over
Would like to thank all of you who came to see us. You're the best!
2007-08-14
New mySpace layout
This page has a new layout. Hope you like it.
Also check out the new photos taken by Tobias Fischer.
A medley of what I think kicks most ass on Gothic Kabbalah is now available.
2007-08-09
What's up?
Been quite busy the whole summer. Last weekend we played at Wacken with Therion, 40 000 people in the audience :)
Have been doing some studio jobs in juli-aug. First I recorded one song with my old fellows in Master Massive. I engeneered everything, mixed and played the drums.
Also recorded drums on five songs for a band in Gothenburg, more info will come on this one.
At the moment I'm preparing for a long tour in America and Japan, practising alot and working out.
At the momentI'm also mixing fivbe songs for a band called Tremblebee.
http://www.myspace.com/tremblebee
On saturnday I'm going to take som promo photos of my beautiful face and drums :p
Cheers
2007-02-19
European tour finished
I would like to thank all of you guys watching us. You rule!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agZUL7qOSkw
2006-12-15
For those of you who know swedish
There's an interview at: http://www.crafton.se
Go to menu Trummor/Percusion - Meinl Cymbals.
2006-10-26
The new Therion album Gothic Kabbalah is finished. Release January 12.
It's mixed by Stefan Glaumann (Rammstein) and will include guests such as Snowy Shaw and Ken Hensley!
Biography
I was born in Karlsborg 31 May 1977.
My grandfather on my father’s side was a fiddler, my grandmother sang, played the piano and the guitar, grandpa on mother’s side played the saw (!). I enjoyed singing much and I learned to play my first melody on the piano when I was two years old.
I got my first drum kit when I was nine.
It was 1987 and I started, together with my brother (Axel) and a friend (Exo, now Beyond Twilight) a band called Fuzz Box. We played a bunch of own songs with the fantastic titles ”Brain Metal”, ”Kill someone in Egypt”, ”Lick Pussy” and ”Flashing nights”.
I started in the municipal music school 1988, where I played military music in the school orchestra.
1989 - my sight of hard rock and drum playing really changed when I heard King Diamond’s ”Them” with Mickey Dee on drums. A new era began and bands like Anthrax, Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer and Annihilator became my main sources of inspiration.
1991 Exo and our band got (thru a guitar contest called ”Guitar Battle”) the opportunity to contribute on the CD Guitar Heroes of Sweden. We changed the band name to Conspiracy. Conspiracy played on a local festival called ”Ungt forum”. I was (only 14 years old) appointed in the local newspaper SLA as ”The musician of the year”.
1993 I joined Master Massive that was something of a cult band in the area of Skövde. The music was generally considered as advanced metal performed by high skilled musicians. The same year I started at the music gymnasium in Skövde. ..
Bengan Andersson was my drum teacher and he had been working as a freelance musician in Stockholm playing with a big number of established Swedish artists like Lena Philipson, Cornelis Wreswijk, Sussies orkester, Style and Lillie & Sussie. Bengan opened a totally new world of drum playing for me. For the first time I got a drum teacher who could show me the secrets behind ”real” drum technique. He introduced me to paradidles, double strokes, flams and ghost notes.
During the gymnasium I found a lot of new influences, especially within fusion and jazz rock. I started listening to drummers like Dave Weckl, Steve Gadd and Terry Bozzio.
Frank Zappa and Chick Corea is music that I listened to a lot too.
Around 1994 I started taking singing and guitar playing a lot more seriously. I borrowed a portable studio and made a lot of recordings, both covers and own songs, in which I played all the instruments myself. As I did that, I realized that I not only was able to become a good heavy metal singer and guitarist, but also had talents for sound engineering and recording.
As I recorded myself, I tried to sound and do the same stuff as my idols Stevie Wonder and Eric Adams (Manowar), I learned a lot about singing and it was a great way of developing my voice.
I started working as a teacher at TBV Skövde. Both drums and guitar, and also had an open class drum clinic at TBV.
I joined the Västerhöjd School Big Band.
Did also a couple of shows with a funk group band called JB Band.
In 1995 my brother was awarded on second place in TV4’s “Sikta mot Stjärnorna” as Gene Simmons and his cover band called PUSS. I joined the band and we toured for about two years, with full make up, in Sweden.
From 1996 to -98 Master Massive recorded a self financed album, which unfortunately never was released.
During the same period I worked as a freelance drummer and contribute on records together with Swedish cult rocker Eddie Meduza and the metal dance band “Flintstens med Stanley”.
I also did some demos with the local acts Finger (now Jellychoppers) and Floodhorse.
In 1996, I and some friends (Exo among others) started the band Kajarr. It was in the beginning just as a ploy band, but competed in a contest for young talents, Musik Direkt, and before we knew it we ended up in the finale, playing live on Swedish national TV twice. This was the first project I sang and composed songs for.
1997 I did a short turn in Iron Maiden cover band “Only Maiden”. Just a couple of gigs and a demo tape.
On the year of 1998 I started at a music school called RML, and I moved to Stockholm.
At RML we played all rock related music there is from the 1940’s to modern time. This was a very instructive year and I got the opportunity to widen up my musical views. As a true metal-jazz-fusion freak it was very healthy to play some ”soul” for a while. The drum teacher there was André Ferrari (Väsen, Nordman).
1999 I did some choir vocals on Morifade’s Possession of Power.
The same year I did a number of gigs with Cupcake, the band of my brother back then. We recorded one song together in which I played the drums and produced the female lead vocals. The song was called “Place for love” and appears on the album Maximum Rock 1.
In the year 2000 I joined Master Massive again, but as a singer. Unfortunately the band was disbanded a little later because of differences of opinion.
2001 I hooked up with Exo and Kalle Nyhlin and formed the band Argento. This was a great new start for me. I was really inspired and wrote a lot of good material. But as time went by it became more and more as a one man’s project (I made all the songs and played all the instruments), and later I decided to disband this project as well.
In 2004 I was asked to join Therion as a session drummer for their world tour. I accepted and shortly after that I became a permanent member. We toured in South and Latin America, USA, Canada and Europe, all together in 35 counties, 110 shows and later on the DVD Celebrators of Becoming was released.
In the spring/summer 2006 we recorded our new album Gothic Kabbalah. On this record I got the honour to compose not less then 40% of the music. I also play rhythm and melody guitar on five songs, lead vocals on two songs and contribute to the choir on all of the songs. The album was release worldwide on January 10th 2007.
In September 2006 Therion performed a show with a full symphonic orchestra and choir in Bucharest, Romania. We repeted this great event in Miscolc, Hungary 2007. This show was recorded and is planned to be released on DVD 2007. Jan-Feb 2007 the Gothic Kabbalah world tour started with 30 shows all around Europe. The one in Warsaw was recorded and will be released on DVD as well.
Later 2007 we also played in Russia, Greece, Graspop Festival (Belgium), Hellfest (France) and Wacken (Germany). (where we had over 40,000 people in the audience!), Turkey, Norway, Ireland, Israel, South America, Canada, USA, and Japan, and did another European tour.