How I made my profile:
I used Dave & Jay's amazing myspace editor .
Formed in 1982 by bass player Micke Andersson and guitarist Peo Axelsson under the name of Poleaxe. Micke and Peo already knew each other well from playing together in a punk band named Blackmail . The brothers, Swempa and Raffe Wernborg , joined the Mark I line-up a few months later. First rehersals took place in the brothers parents garage with no drummer.
In that small garage typical Sabbath-ish kind of style songs like Witchcraft and Black Night Woman took form. In the summer of 1982, drummer Erca Lindesvärd was asked to join the band. Polaxe had two gigs that year in Ödeshög and in Tranås.
Peo left the band in 1983. Guitarist Stefan Rosell , who at the time lived in Stockholm, took his place. Mark II line-up was born. New songs were crafted and the sound was more powerful, more guitar riff based -- yet more melodic. The guitar duo Swempa and Stefan really took advantage of each others skills and techniques. All five members were involved in the process of writing and arranging songs.
The members thought it would be a good idea to change the band name. The new band name Vanguard was originally Micke's idea, when he and Erca was brainstorming one day, inspired by books, in order to find some good name candidates.
Vanguard played warm-up act for bigger swedish metal bands like 220 Volt and Heavy Load . Heavy Load invited the guys to join them for their 1985 tour in Japan. Everybody celebrated the idea, but the group couldn't afford it, unfortunately.
Vanguard wrote, rehearsed, recorded and produced four songs* (up-loaded above) for a mini LP in 1984, together with sound engineers Lennart Wass, who is currently known for managing swedish music industry's show Grammisgalan, and Claes B Drangel, in a mobile recordning studio in Jönköping. The record went to market in 1985 in Sweden, France and the UK, thanks to collaboration with promotion company RDC. It was probably a bad deal though, for the band never saw any money coming in.
The mini LP is listed in journalist Janne Starks impressive collector's book Encyclopedia of Swedish Hard Rock and Heavy Metal . The songs were heard several times in swedish radio shows, like "Studio Skrän", "Rockbox" and "Rockdepartementet".
The Vanguard band also participated in Rock-SM 1987, a swedish rock competition, where they won the first two finals, performing two songs; All Night Long and a re-arranged version of The Archies well-known hit "Sugar Sugar". At that time, the band took in keyboard player Per-Anders Forsén, to create a thicker rock sound.
After the breakup in 1988 the members split into two bands; Lone Ranger and Deja Vu which included Martina Edoff on vocals.
They band was never signed. Reunion gigs took place in 2004 and 2006. In 2007 the members of the band celebrated their 25th anniversary.
All band members are still musically active. Some of them are related to MySpace profiles and bands like Skrot , Christer N Peterssons , Pseudo Sun , Guranisten and Limetreesword . Hope to see you there!
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*) All songs written by Vanguard except HM Paradise written by Peo Axelsson and Vanguard.