Folk Metal
Pär Moberg and Björn Stegerling met during their studies at the Academy of Music 1997-2001, when Pär studied folk and world music, and Björn classical guitar. Quite early on, however, they discovered that both, despite their studies in other genres, shared a passion for heavy, riff-based rock. Already during their studies, they therefore for a period played together with some other fellow students in Ensemble Neurotico, which mainly played so-called industrial metal, but sometimes with elements of both rap and ethno.
After their studies, their paths diverged for quite a few years. While Pär became an established name in the folk and world music genre, Björn was increasingly drawn into the metal world. First with success for the band Trauma Machine and later with Thungur.
Somewhat surprisingly, however, their paths met in earnest again in 2022, when Pär was asked to play together with the Ukrainian singer Myroslava Romaniuk. Although the repertoire would consist of more traditional Ukrainian music, she had previously been a singer in one of Ukraine’s more established metal bands. Pär therefore thought it could be fun to bring her together with Björn. Together, the trio (now the quartet) has played several Ukraine-related concerts with Myroslava under the name Kvitka Sniv.
However, the origin of Bergling band did not come until the spring of 2024. Pär needed help with being able to finish a large School music project, and came to think of Björn, who is both a guitarist, bassist, music producer and sound engineer with his own studio. So during spring 2024, based on input from the school classes about how the music should be, the duo wrote and recorded 10 widely different songs. You can read more about the duo’s work with music in schools here.
During this process, they were struck by their ability to react to each other’s ideas, and what interesting results this has been able to produce. That’s how the idea was born to also make “adult music” together, and let their respective musical backgrounds meet in music they call Folk Metal.
Folk metal, or for that matter folk musical elements in European popular music in general, tend to be quite “shallow”. Often just some flute or a bit of percussion is thrown into an otherwise conventional soundscape.
What Bergling band wants to do is bring about a much more integrated meeting between rock/metal and folk and world music, thanks to Pär’s deep knowledge of the world music genre. To create the music based on, for example, traditional Arabic rhythms, drones, ethnic instruments, scales and so on, and then build the metal elements around this.
The project with this music is in its infancy and will emerge during 2024/2025.