OVERDRIVE (SWE) (THE HAMMER #2, 1983) TRANSLATED

The Hammer was a Swedish fanzine, written in Swedish, focusing on traditional metal and hard rock. Here’s an article/interview translated to English for you. Music link added by me.

OVERDRIVE 

Overdrive is:

Pelle Thuresson – vocals

Kjell Jakobsson – guitar

Janne Stark – guitar

Kenth Eriksson – bass

Kentha Svensson – drums

And they are proof that good hard rock doesn't necessarily have to come from Stockholm. They are from the small metropolis of Karlshamn, and have been around since 1980.

But Kjell and Kentha have played together for many more years than that, and they have some influences from the early hard rock years. Unlike many other hard rockers, who have been around for a while, Kentha doesn't think that "it was better before", he believes that hard rock has developed and become better over the years.

OVERDRIVE is a band that invests heavily in marketing themselves, you have to do that if you are going to get anywhere, says Janne. Among other things, they have sent demo tapes around to all sorts of, and even impossible, record labels.

One of them was Virgin, (that's right, the Sex Pistols' old label) who showed interest. It was decided that Virgin would get in touch, so the guys would come over and audition, but nothing happened. After a while Overdrive got in touch themselves, but it all fell through.

But they have been over and played in England in other contexts, and also got to know some guys in English groups, including in "Mercyful Fate" and "Tygers of Pan Tang". OVERDRIVE was also supposed to be the opening act for Tygers when they came here. But that tour was cancelled, because Phil "Lizzy" Lynnot and his guys stole Tygers' guitarist, J. Sykes.

The first thing OVERDRIVE released on vinyl was a "5-track maxi Ep". They paid for it themselves and pressed 600 copies. Unfortunately, it didn't look like it was a hard rock record on the cover and the name, Reflexion, didn't give any indication of that either.

It was a small mistake, the guys say, but for the LP that was released recently, they have fixed this. It is called Metal Attack and the cover is full of hard rock.

However, the group did not have to pay for Metal Attack themselves, as they managed to get a contract with Planet Records. The idea from the beginning was to release another "5-track" story, but it all dragged on (not OVERDRIVES' fault though), so when the time came, both the record company and the group thought it was just as good to invest in a whole LP, all at once.

Here in Sweden, they have played a lot, but not as much as they could have done if they had a booking management. Without one, it is always difficult. Their music has also been played on the radio.

Metal Attack is a HM vinyl with class, since the members like both new and old hard rock, their music is very varied, the sound is quite British. The undersigned seems to notice a certain, albeit distant, similarity to Iron Maiden as well.

The group's two main songwriters are Kjell and Janne. Janne is also responsible for the imaginative lyrics, which are worth listening to.

According to the band, Planet Records has high hopes of being able to sell the LP in the rest of Europe, mainly in England and Germany. Watch out then Scorpions, because here comes metal from Sweden (again).