Loch Vostok was born out of the ashes of Mayadome with the intention and starting position of ”anything goes”. We were fed up with rules of composition. Hence, Loch Vostok was born.
I suggested we’d keep on working with Intromental Management, and both Claus Jensen and Lars F Larsen, while sad to see Mayadome go, were excited to see what we could do with this new thing.
When we first started jamming, Alvaro (Romero Torres) Svanerö, Erik Grandin, Sebastian ”Zeb” Okupski, Niklas Kupper and me (Teddy Möller), we had no other intentions than to play live as much as possible, and have these long jam sessions with lots of beer and smokes. We really had a blast. Me and Alvaro had been jamming before and I was just tired of drumming so having the freedom of playing melodies & rhythms instead of just rhythms was really cool.
Playing in a somewhat unorthodox band was also liberating, I could infuse whatever style I wanted and with all these awesome influences flowing, writing was so easy. Alvaro was an old school metal dude with a new found passion for fusion jazz and world music. Zeb was a power metal dude with classical training in piano and bassoon. Erik was an old school hard rock Sabbath/Rush/Rainbow kinda gentleman, along with a huge love for Pink Floyd, Genesis and the likes. Kupper was a skate punk, thrash, glam, Kerry King meets Yngwie J Malmsteen shredder whom I’ve met many times before but never really hung out with. I had no idea he was so fucking talented!
Erik left the band after only a few months, he had fallen in love with a beautiful girl who happened to live in the US. I still miss playing with him, Erik was and is an awesome human being and a fantastic, super technical bass player with a groove from hell!
I immediately called my old friend Tomas Tym Jonsson. He was a tight fucking guitarist who I really enjoyed playing and hanging out with (he was a member of pre-Mayadome act Mellow Poetry) so I knew he was gonna be a really good bass player.
With this lineup we recorded our first album Dark Logic (or Dork Logic as an old friend once said) with Daniel Bergstrand. A great experience for the band. Only me and Alvaro had done albums before this so this was a huge task and high point for Kupper, Tym and Zeb.
We did a few shows in Sweden, Denmark and Holland following this album, maybe 10-12, can’t really remember. Suddenly Zeb was tired of rehearsing and wanted to move on and pursue a career as a metal singer (which didn’t happen, he joined a successful cover band instead) and I miss playing with Zeb as well. He is the funniest dude ever, always laughing and joking. Playing the Indiana Jones theme in the middle of songs was a favorite :)
We started working on the follow-up ”Destruction Time Again” when all these shows piled up, so I called Andreas Lindahl and asked him if he would join the band and all he asked was ”Can I play fast as fuck?” What’s not to love about that? We got along great so he joined in for the recordings as well, we recorded most of DTA ourselves with the help of Carl Vikman who also helped me record and arrange vocals. I also asked the infamous Ron Jarzombek if he would record a guest solo, which he gladly did. Me and Kupper were so pissed off! His solo was so amazing we had to re-write and re-record all our solos in a week…but the end result was kick ass!
Soon after that Andreas had to go, only because he lived so far away from the rest of the band and rehearsals were few and far between. Andreas did a killer job and is to this day, the only real musical genius I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. Too smart for the rest of us retarded fucks!
I produced a demo for a band, and the keyboardist and I became close friends, we got an offer to go on tour with King Diamond so I asked him if he would join us to which he replied ”Fuck yeah!” Enter Fredrik Klingwall. For the first time I had a lyrical partner with as big tin foil hat as me, which was very inspiring and motivational. We couldn’t have found a better member even if we would’ve searched for a hundred years. It really felt like we were a real unit again, and we started writing ”Reveal No Secrets”
Later that year we went on tour with King Diamond!
Enough said. You just can’t beat that, there is nothing to add.
Tour was successful, we got back to writing, then went on tour again (with the help of the infamous Hultman!). This time with Danish power metal dudes Pyramaze. A short 3 date stint which totally kicked ass, we were so drunk the whole time it was ridiculous.
The recording of RNS was really fun, we had tons of great ideas and with Klingwalls weird sense of melodies and structures, this was an unusual experience which I totally embraced. We did almost no shows after this release, just a few local ones. I was becoming increasingly busy with F.K.Ü. So there was a lot of dead space during the two following years. We were supposed to go on tour with Helstar (Kupper was on honeymoon so we had the awesome Mano Lewys filling in) but halfway down to Germany, our bus broke down, and with an economy already on the brink of financial suicide, we aborted immediately. This took a huge toll on many of us, and we started drifting apart. We were offered at least three really big tours to which we had to say no because of general lack of interest and funding from Kupper and Alvaros side. We were so sad to actually have to go to such extremes as giving them an ultimatum: In or out? Unfortunately they both decided to leave. I miss Alvaro. A massive groove machine with chops to die for, a super funny drinking partner and all round good guy. Fucking beautiful too… Jeebus, I hate Latinos… They look great, they cook awesome food and they fucking rule as musicians!
Me, Klingwall and Tym had absolutely no intentions of quitting so we started to search for a new drummer. We tried out three kick ass dudes but decided none of them were as good as Alvaro. I was eager to start recording the new stuff I demoed, and thought of a great drummer I had seen live years ago. So I started digging thru my pile of promos and found one featuring Lawrence ”Lalle” Dinamarca. I contacted him and we’ve been jamming ever since. An awesome drummer with a sense of rhythm most drummers don’t have. He’s probably tighter than the click track! Playing with him is an honour. We also enlisted Mr Mano Lewys again, to fill up the void that Kupper left.
We recorded ”Dystopium” with my friend and F.K.Ü. band mate Lawrence Mackrory and then got the offer to go on tour with Therion and Leprous. We said fuck yeah and started preparing/rehearsing like crazy. Tym has through the years had massive problems with a herniated spine for which he’s had surgery three times! His back was giving up on him again so he chose to step down for the tour but insisted we’d get a replacement. I called my old buddy Jimmy Mattsson and asked him if he’d step in and about ten minutes later he had taken leave from work and joined in.
This tour was probably the best learning experience I’ve ever had, and since this was the first tour for both Jimmy and Lalle, they were so hyped up! Their excitement was so contagious I felt like a kid again. We became good friends with Leprous and Therion, and we’d love to do it again.
Back home, Tym said ”Jimmy’s been with you guys for this whole tour and is basically already in the band so I’ll step down” and Jimmy was so happy to be a full member. I missed Tym very much, but not for long. Him and I played together in Detained only six months later and it was great jamming with the dude again (he’s back to playing guitar btw).
Mano left the band short after the tour, I miss him too, a super talented, awesomely good looking Chilean tiger! (did I mention I hate Latinos?) Since we were still friends, we asked Kupper to join us for a local show. We rehearsed a couple times and I immediately felt the magic of his playing and his aura. It was so much fun jamming with the Kup again. After the show Kupper said ”I didn’t want the show to end, when we reached the end of the set I was like, fuck I wanna play more” so we asked him to rejoin the band full time. Kupper is back. The circle is now a fucking labyrinth, but the magic is there, the determination has never been stronger, and the sense of unity is unquestionable.
Later that year we recorded the video for ”Sacred Structure” with super awesome ninja boss chief master Martin Gustafsson, and finally got a deal for Dystopium. This time with the best label ever. ViciSolum is our home for three records now, and we will not disappoint Mr Thomas Hörnkvist. More quality to deliver, more touring to be done.
