Sterbhaus is a Stockholm/Sweden based outfit dealing in Metal bordering between Thrash, Black, Death, Heavy, Progressive........

..........Yeah....... Well, You all already hear where this is heading, right?

All these genres and labels and to get a fair idea of what the band is about we have to toss around four or five of them. So why not settle by describing Sterbhaus as honest (and we dare say it - real!) Metal that is timeless - neither retro or modern - with all the aforementioned subgenres tucked in there and spiced with a heavy dose of charm, humour and topped with a spittingly fierce lyrical agenda., Oh, and since there are two many sublabels anyway - and since the world of Metal surely won't need yet another label, let the irony reign supreme – and let’s call Sterbhaus Metal Deluxe.

Sterbhaus started out in 2007 as a five piece but began climbing it's own solitary peak at least from the time of the bands reformation into a quartet around 2012. And by solitary peak we refer to the fact that even though the band has little interest in "reinventing the wheel" or trying to embark on new - by no one exploited musical grounds, it seems Sterbhaus is strangely unique in its expression. That uniqueness lies in being both weirdly accessible while keeping one foot in the ever exploring genres of Extreme and Progressive Metal. Blending the wit and humour of Nuclear Assault, Martin Walkyier (Skyclad and Sabbat) and Marcus Hammarströms own somewhat singular mind and creative story telling with obvious musical prowess, slight whimsiness, blistering tight and technical songwriting, charm and just pure love for honest Metal Sterbhaus manages to offers something fresh to the ever growing smorgasbord of Metal. 

In 2012 Sterbhaus released their debut “Angels For Breakfast …And God for Lunch” after two demo releases with a different line-up. The band toured extensively throughout Europe twice (supporting Vader, Melechesh and Shining), toured Chile, played several prestigious festivals and released terrific videos. The latter which actually became a trademark for Sterbhaus, and if You haven’t already – You simply must check out videos such as “Absolutely Do Not Die!”, “Bloodbarf” etc. In 2015 a sophomore album titled “New Level of Malevolence” was released followed by a strange period of unwanted live-inactivity (of which is elaborated upon in greater detail further below) partly leading to Marcus Hammarström joining Swedish Extreme Metal masters Shining and Erik Röjås joining Ondskapt.

A Christmas EP titled “Krampusnacht” was recorded as a sweet treat for Sterbhaus fans as it was first released as an annual free give-away EP during Christmas time but then eventually got its physical release in 2019 followed by a live album in 2021. The live album “Necrostabbing at Göta Källare” managed the impressive feat of reaching position #1 in the physical sales charts in Sweden the week of its release and also #9 for all Metal incl all formats. The show the album was recorded from was filmed professionally from the album-release show for “New Level of Malevolence” in 2015 and this show was streamed in full the day of the live albums release in 2021.

The current status of Sterbhaus is somewhat unknown and quite confusing at this point. While the band announced in 2019 that it would dissolve in 2020 there has been quite some activity since then with the culmination of an announcement in 2024 that the coming album “Next Akin to Chaos” was officially finished recorded in July that same year. After more than two years in the studio and after several years of preproduction the full retirement is obviously delayed and there will be quite a few golden nuggets revealed and lot of activity alongside the album release. When this will be exactly - is not quite certain either...

The album is not yet signed

If this really is the end - it will be an ending like no other! Because "Next Akin to Chaos" is like no other album.

You haven't seen anything yet....

Oh… And btw… Did someone say “Most underrated band ever??”..........................

Check out the full Sterbhaus history below

Now it’s important to keep in mind when looking back that the Sterbhaus of the early days had quite little to do with what the band would grow and be reborn into at a later stage (by the time the first album came out). And this is pointed out not in malice or with ill will, but rather to make sure one keeps in mind that even humble beginnings can spawn truly great things, that eventually almost seem completely detached from whence it came. And it is not pointed out in shame - On the contrary! It’s impossible to not look at the early days with the fondest of memories. The band was a click of people who hung out constantly, shared the same jokes, laughed at the same stupid puns and partied whenever a chance was given (which probably was more or less constantly). So it’s not surprising that when the bond was so strong and the idiocy so tangible, it poured into everything that was Sterbhaus. Songtitles, lyrics, stage shows and even riffs all stemmed from poor inside jokes and a fantastically good time. And the band certainly didn’t need more in those early couple of years. Eventually- that bond made the band realize they had something others possibly just dream about having, and the inevitable evolution was set in motion.

So yes, Sterbhaus was spawned from rather modest aspirations in 2007. Even though the genres the band might belong to today are hard to define, it wasn’t really the case the first few years. The only idea in 2007 for Daniel Lungren (vocals), Niklas Skogqvist (drums) and Fredrik Hammar (guitar) was to start a band playing the Thrash/Death Metal of the Gothenburg scene and to have an additional band apart from the two-three bands they all respectively were part of at the same time where they could try out other instruments from what they were used to. Niklas Skogqvist for instance, had never really played drums before the first rehearsals with Sterbhaus. The line-up was completed with Robert Dunberg (guitar) and also with Marcus Hammarström (bass/additional vocals) who was new to the troupe and social setting and was at that time finishing up his fourth and last album with the one-man project Elvira Madigan. For Marcus the easy going attitude of this new act was just what was needed after having been couped up alone for a decade doing Avant-Garde artistic music.

The first Demo and "Hits for Dead Kids"

Sterbhaus soon recorded a first selftitled demo, replaced Fredrik Hammar with Simon Olovsson on guitar (as Simons wizardry in the field of riffs were greatly sought after - as well as his personality) and then recorded a full length demo album called “Hits for Dead Kids” in 2008 – both in studio Abyss with Tommy Tägtgren. The band was – as previously mentioned completely content at this point in time with the approach they had to not take anything (least of all themselves) too seriously and never shyed from putting up rather audacious, fairly ridiculous but enormously entertaining shows in the Stockholm area. Pulling larger and larger crowds along the way while mixing chili on stage to the song “Chiliconcarnage and the Tex Mexecution”, drinking wine from the neck of a headless infant doll to “Babies deserve to Die” (a song which incidently was penned musically by the only member who actually had a kid at the time), inviting people from the crowd up on stage for tea parties or throwing out Ice Cream Boats with a spread of goat cheese to the song “Goatboat”…. Well, suffice to say, there was a lot of weird things going on and it was all fantastically fun.

Sterbhaus soon seriously started discussing upping the game a bit though, and it first started with the direction of the music as there were certain aspects of previous songs that needed to go – and we're not actually talking about the welcome spurts of Jazz, Country or Death ’ N ’ Roll that could and would infuse both songs and live shows for many years to come.

Even though the band got sent to the festival Metaltown (with lineup including Marilyn Manson, Slipknot, Opeth among many others) after unknowingly having applied with “Hits for Dead Kids” for a demo contest held by Close-Up Magazine, Sterbhaus started cleaning up their act for the coming album wanting to leave the demo days behind. Prior to the Metaltown festival show Robert Dunberg was replaced with Jimmy Ahovalli as a first step to change, and this swap would show to eventually enabled the band to grow significantly regarding the level of playing. Jimmys entry also opened a door to – if not depart from, then at least evolve away from that Gothenburg Thrash/Death sound that some of the initial members had been hell bent on pursuing. This wasn’t obvious at the time but as Marcus and Jimmy started writing more material this was the way things were inevitably heading.

Shortly before the recording of “Hits for Dead Kids” Marcus Hammarström took on a management role for the band which led to a merch line being produced, elaborate websites being launched and later down the line also more prestigious shows being booked (including the formation of Sthlm Thrashfest which in essence became Sterbhaus own event as Sterbhaus were the only reocurring booking). Also, music videos were now being recorded as well and the importance of these videos for Sterbhaus can’t be stressed enough as it would become the perfect medium for the band for many years to come. At this time though, two songs got videos from the “Hits for Dead Kids” demo of which the video for the song “House of the Dead Dwarf” is the most noteworthy. It boldly sports the bands trade mark nonsensical humour in guise of sock puppets in shape of the band members in a low-budget innovative setting and it became an instant underground classic. Let’s face it – who can resist Sterbhaus as sock-puppets thrown into a nightmarish story?!

The “House of the Dead Dwarf” video was to be Marcus’ production debut as video maker as he was responsible for most of the whole affair (props, storyboard, visuals etc). The video even got the attention of a music journalist Mattias Kling of the largest Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet who made a feature of it in his blog. For Sterbhaus at this point – this was certainly a big deal.

Preproduction, accidents and line-up changes

During the years 2009-2010 while playing live as much as possible Sterbhaus simultaneously wrote the next batch of songs that would make out their coming debut album. In full agreement all members had decided to fiercely focus on more intense and original songs and to leave the naïve demo days behind, while at the same time holding true to that charm and originality that made the band so special. There is a certain nonsensical humour in all things Sterbhaus and up until then it had been overwhelming. It was still welcome at this time but it would come to show later on that even this ingredient would have to be toned down and/or changed somewhat as well.

This whole period of making what would become “Angels for Breakfast… And God for Lunch” would prove to radically alter the band both in lineup, image, music, lyrics and general approach – yeah, basically everything that a band is. And one of the most obvious events that sparked this and set it all in motion was a severe accident that actually put Jimmy Ahovallis career as guitarist in legitimate jeopardy. It all started at one of many preparties the band engaged in – this time at Halloween. Jimmy while dressed as Fred Flintstone had a chance accident involving a broken beer bottle in his hand falling down a set of stairs resulting in severing all tendons and nerves in his left ring finger. After surgery Jimmy was hurled into months of rehabilitation and this forced the band to postpone the already booked studio recording indefinitely. Jimmy was completely vital to the band at this point and there was no alternative.

However – as macabre as this might sound, this all proved to be a blessing in disguise and set in motion events that lead to the complete rebirth of Sterbhaus that is more akin to what the band represents today.

The hiatus Jimmys rehabilitation resulted in provided Jimmy and Marcus with a perfect opportunity to spend more time on the pre-production that was already under way, and during these sessions some very disturbing facts were suddenly evident. The first and most obvious one was that the lyrics and vocals of Daniel Lundgren was now completely out of place as the music had changed and evolved so much. Daniel had during these years of intense song writing and rehearsal been forced into a more passive and observing role as he had to take care of lyrics (of which he until this point was solely responsible for) and try them out only when the band had finished tinkering with arrangements – and this usually took forever. When the songs were finally finished written musically the band had heard very little with actual vocals apart from a few exceptions (such as “Insecticide” which at that time was called “Jürgendwarf” and had different lyrics than today) and if anything had been heard it had been through the murky haze of a rehearsal space. So no one had thought much about it until now.

The preproduction gave the band the chance to record some vocal try-outs, and it proved to be a mild shock for the instrumentalists… However - not for Daniel who performed much as he had wanted and intended to do. At the same time Daniel explained that he most likely would like to focus on one of his other bands Skitarg which was a band that took the nonsense Sterbhaus had and amplified it by about a million (or one could argue that Sterbhaus was for Daniel a heavily diminished version of Skitarg as it now had come to show that most of his song writing material and now also lyrics didn’t fit the bill in Sterbhaus and ended up in Skitarg).

So naturally Daniel quit. It was somewhat of a shock, although secretly everyone probably knew it was the only solution, and certainly the right move as Skitarg made it quite big in Sweden at about that time. Sterbhaus now had the terrific opportunity to explore much needed new grounds and could toss aside some aspects of the bands image that up until then had been a representation of Daniel, and to do it in good conscience.

But things didn’t end here...

Due to Jimmys accident Sterbhaus couldn’t rehearse. The momentum the band had built up was something especially Marcus didn’t want to lose. So the solution was that the band focused on the blogging they had recently started and doing basically anything to try to remain as much in the lime light as possible. One can’t really say “social media” here because the social media expression culture of today

wasn’t as developed back then as it is now. MySpace was the main

forum (MySpace that is sorely missed btw!) and blogs.

At this time Niklas Skogqvists interests in life changed rather abruptly and unexpectedly as he now wanted to focus on family life in stark opposition to his many years of devotion trying to pursue music with Sterbhaus among other bands (Niklas was an accomplished songwriter and guitarist). He also expressed annoyance with the blog and by choice drifted socially further from the remaining members after Daniel had quit. And when a new date for recording the album was finally set – he failed to show up for rehearsals, preparations etc which led especially Jimmy and Marcus to worry whether he would pull off recording the album at all, and also whether he would actually show up to do it. This suspicion was so well founded that Marcus even ensured a replacement in Erik Röjås in case Niklas decided to opt out. And as suspected, Niklas quit five weeks prior to the band entering studio Abyss. 

Recording the debut album and getting to know Germany

Marcus, Jimmy and Erik got in their cars on the 8^th of May 2011 and travelled up to Tommy Tägtgrens studio Abyss B to record “Angels for Breakfast… and God for Lunch” (actually named after a song from the first Sterbhaus demo). Simon tagged along later on. The album was being recorded by the band themselves and was scheduled for mixing by Jonas Kjellgren once finished. And finished it was – after a first run of three straight weeks and another two unscheduled additional weeks spread out during several 3-4 day weekends when Jimmy and Marcus went back and forth to finish guitars, bass and vocals.

People who run studios and mix albums deal with all sorts of characters who either do a half assed job because they haven’t practiced enough or because they’re probably drunk off their feet most of the time while recording. Marcus recalls:

“Jonas Kjellgren - whom we had never met prior to this, told us rather uncouthly on the very first day that we’d better play tight and well or he wouldn’t mix it. At the end of the second day recording guitars we needed help sorting some issue with the software while recording “Absolutely Do Not Die”. Sitting at the mixing desk listening - He soon forgot the issue he was there to fix and instead muttered to himself (although loud enough for us to hear) “Damn… This is some bad ass Megadeth riffing …”. And it was tight… tight as a nuns sphincter. From then on he popped in every now and then because he really just wanted to hear more of what we did… Because he liked it. That was high praise. And that was a first hint that we were on the right path – finally. We had busted our hides reinventing the band for two years, just lost two members prior to recording, postponed recording once due to injury and Jimmys rehabilitation was still an ongoing thing. And we all heard that what we put on tape was just something spectacular compared to what the band had done officially up until then. Something we honestly thought sounded bloody great”.

By this time – due to Marcus having started a mini gig/festival of sorts called Sthlm Thrashfest, Sterbhaus established a working relationship with a German promoter and an agency aptly named Metal-Promotions based in Bremen. As Sterbhaus was completely unsigned and the new album was finished mixed the object was to start courting labels to land a deal to have the album properly released. On advice from Metal-Promotion the courting was to be put on hold a bit in order to focus on rubbing the German scene the right way to create a buzz of sorts. That meant promoting and playing live as much as possible so that once labels were interested – the dialog would be more advantageous for the band. Sterbhaus were completely unknown in Germany and the outlook on attracting a label at this point was deemed almost impossible – with or without an awesome first album under the belt. So the promotion wheel started turning and Metal-Promotions got Sterbhaus their first proper festival bookings in Germany kicking off with “Way of Darkness” (alongside Morgoth, Sodom, Benediction, Entombed etc) in October 2011.

Although this was an extremely exciting time – it was also enormously frustrating....

One have to remember that a reinvented Sterbhaus totally killing it live with an awesome setlist of mostly new unheard songs – only had a mediocre demo album in the form of “Hits for Dead Kids” in the merch stalls, on the shelves and on the web. No videos of any new songs or even snippets were available as it wouldn’t be a good idea to release anything if a label was to release it officially later on. And the demo album one could get ones hands on sounded very little like the band that was active by this time playing live shows to larger and larger crowds who all took notice… went to the stalls to buy a smoking hot Sterbhaus album… but yeah; only got an irrelevant demo.

South America 2012

During this (frustrating) period in time Sterbhaus travelled to tour Chile in South America on the invitation of local act Breakdown. Departing an unusually cold Sweden in January of 2012 for a summer season on the other side of the equator and eight blistering shows in front of notoriously insane South American crowds – was of course an experience of a lifetime.

This journey across the world provided the band with a unique opportunity as an unsigned act to record a video for “Insecticide” with famed local high-end video producer Carlos Toro who is responsible for video productions with Rob Halford, Helloween, Therion to count a few. The video was filmed at an old abandoned slaughterhouse where the band also made a terrific photo shoot (courtesy of Ricardo Toledo).

Upon returning home to Sweden again the focus was then of course on getting the album out – with or without interest from labels. Not only did the band have an awesome album just lying in wait – but now also a visual monster in form of this new video to go with it!

"Angels for Breakfast ...and God for Lunch" and Touring Europe

After almost a year of activities there were actually very little interest from the industry. This was during a period where labels in general were struggling immensely due to downloading taking expected revenue from album sales (streaming was not really a thing yet –though streaming never really offered extensive wealth for anyone except the technical platforms that provide them, not when it came, and not today). Not even the older label channels having released Marcus´ previous entity “Elvira Madigan” bothered.

The solution was to finally release “Angels for Breakfast… And God for Lunch” through Marcus’ own label Killhead in collaboration with Black Lodge and Sound Pollution Distribution. There just wasn’t any point in prolonging the wait.

"Forgboiler" and "Absolutely Do Not Die!"

For the album “Angels for Breakfast… And God for Lunch” three videos were made. The first being for “Insecticide” and the second for the song “Frogboler”. The “Frogboiler” video had been released at pentecost prior to the tours and was a terrific take on a dinner party with one gag per served meal/member by a dubious character (later dubbed “Hellvis” through a naming contest) while the whole set itself was controlled by some sort of clock or contraption that governed reality.

Although the video was quite a hilarious and tasty offering it had actually been a rather arduous affair to film and produce as the film/production team (which incidentally also had been responsible for the successful “House of the Dead Dwarf” video as well as the very first video for the song “Sinister Neckgrip”) just didn’t seem to have the heart or interest in doing this production at the time. And in some aspects – when viewing the video today, it is fairly obvious in the storytelling towards the ending – which fell short compared to the initial vision. Budget and time restraints were obvious limiting factors as well. The furry goat-guitar creature in the end - aptly named “Hellmut the Goatard” (which actually made it on stage on a couple of occasions as it is fully playable) for instance, was supposed to have quite a more obvious purpose.

Needless to say,, the experience left the band uncertain on how a third video could be produced and released. Martin Strandbergs entrance into the folds of Sterbhaus as a video creator was just awesomely timed.

The video became an instant classic upon its release and just sky rocketed in number of views within a short time. and it was a perfect way to end a terrific run for a debut album that had reaped overwhelmingly great reviews and even nominations (album of the year, best artwork, video of the year etc) of which some had actually been won. It all put Sterbhaus in a great mood for focusing on the next album. And alongside the pre-prod etc the band and management outlined a very ambitious promotion plan leaning heavily on continue touring… since it was obvious that touring and playing live was the strength of the quartet.

Part Two coming soon.... (2014-present)

Photographer credits:

Sandra Thulin

Viktoria Popova

Soile Siirtola

Ricardo Toledo

Emely Vollertzen