Broder Daniel was an alternative rock

Alternative rock

Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...

 band from Gothenburg

Gothenburg

Gothenburg is the second-largest city in Sweden and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Situated on the west coast of Sweden, the city proper has a population of 519,399, with 549,839 in the urban area and total of 937,015 inhabitants in the metropolitan area...

, Sweden

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

. They formed in the late 1980s and then consisted of classmates Henrik Berggren and Daniel Gilbert. The band claims they started playing "to gain social respect" and it was decided early on that emotional expression would be more important to their sound than musical correctness.

Musically, they have been inspired by bands such as Eyehategod

Eyehategod

Eyehategod is an American sludge metal band from New Orleans who formed in 1988. They have become one of the most well known bands to emerge from the NOLA metal scene...

, The Sexbums and The Velvet Underground

The Velvet Underground

The Velvet Underground was an American rock band formed in New York City. First active from 1964 to 1973, their best-known members were Lou Reed and John Cale, who both went on to find success as solo artists. Although experiencing little commercial success while together, the band is often cited...

, relying heavily on distorted guitars and simple arrangements. Their lyrics have mostly centered around existential issues and youth angst.

Broder Daniel was largely regarded as an entitative cornerstone of Swedish alternative music during the 1990s, even though the band has proven to be quite unstable ever since the beginning, with members leaving the band every few years.

History

While attending Göteborgs Högre Samskola

Göteborgs Högre Samskola

-Information:In 2006 the school had about 1350 students. The school has students aged 5 through 18 and has a Förskola, a Grundskola and a Gymnasium. The school consists of a series of buildings for the younger grades 1 through 6 and a separate building for the Middle and High school children...

 in Gothenburg, Henrik Berggren was looking for a way to express himself, and decided that the easiest way would be to form a pop band. The first six years of the band's existence consisted of a number of name changes until the band finally settled on the name Broder Daniel - translating to Brother Daniel. A couple of new members joined and they slowly started to find their sound. Swedish music press soon caught on to the hype of the now notorious band featuring charismatic singer Henrik who in a short time had gained a cult following of maladjusted youth, looking for a leader. Journalists, however, tended to mostly focus on the violent shows and Henrik's make-up and out of tune voice.

Music label Jimmy Fun Music, owned by Roxette

Roxette

Roxette are a Swedish pop music duo, consisting of Marie Fredriksson and Per Gessle . Formed in 1986, the duo became an international act from the late 1980s, when they released their breakthrough album Look Sharp!...

 member Per Gessle

Per Gessle

Per Håkan Gessle is a Swedish pop singer-songwriter, guitarist, and harmonicist. He is the lead singer of the Swedish pop group Gyllene Tider and formed Roxette with Marie Fredriksson...

, picked the band up and promoted them until they signed to EMI Music Sweden

EMI

The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...

. In 1995 the band released their debut album Saturday Night Engine which was characterized by its simple songs with relatively low respect for musical correctness. They soon gained a relatively large following of fans throughout Sweden.

After releasing their second album, self-titled Broder Daniel, the band resigned from EMI in 1997 and found themselves without a record deal - something few people in the music industry could understand. While they did not sell many records, the band was indeed a popular act in clubs and on music festivals. One year later they signed to record label Dolores Recordings

Dolores Recordings

Dolores Recordings is a Swedish record label owned by Virgin Records, whose roster includes I'm from Barcelona, Swingfly , Caesars and some releases by The Soundtrack of Our Lives and Dungen....

 and released their most critically acclaimed album so far: Broder Daniel Forever. The new record was dark, with a focus on topics of love and death. Its sound was inspired by Psychocandy

Psychocandy

Psychocandy is the debut album by the Scottish alternative rock band The Jesus and Mary Chain, released in November 1985. Psychocandy combined the concepts of pop songs and searing guitar chords....

, the debut album of indie rockers The Jesus and Mary Chain

The Jesus and Mary Chain

The Jesus and Mary Chain are a Scottish alternative rock band formed in East Kilbride, Glasgow in 1983. The band revolves around the songwriting partnership of brothers Jim and William Reid...

. The popularity of Forever soon took off, and the band reached a larger audience than ever before in their career, much thanks to the inclusion of three Broder Daniel-songs on the soundtrack for the movie Show Me Love which was one of the most popular films in Sweden in the 1990s.

Following the release of Forever, the band embarked on a controversial tour across Sweden, which the band later ended prematurely. A few shows were played in England as an attempt to sign a record deal for international release of their albums. That, however, didn't succeed. After the tour, the members parted ways to recover and did not maintain any contact with each other in the year that followed. In 2001, bass player Håkan Hellström

Håkan Hellström

Håkan Hellström is a Swedish musician. He got his Swedish breakthrough in the year 2000 with the song "Känn ingen sorg för mig Göteborg"...

 released a solo record which hit big and soon after that he left the band, since the other members didn't think his reputation as a spreader of joy would reflect well on the band. Guitar player Theodor Jensen also released a celebrated record with his band The Plan

The Plan (band)

The Plan is a Swedish band created by Broder Daniel-bass player and guitarist Theodor Jensen.Originally the band consisted of four members but after by the time for their second record two of the members had left. For their third record it was only Jensen left...

.

Five years after the release of Forever, the band once again got together to record their new album Cruel Town which was released in 2003. This time around they had a clear focus on the lyrics which were now more complex and less repetitive than before. This album showed a matured Broder Daniel, with themes based around society and nostalgia. Berggren was now singing about the cold society which had made him the person he is today, while looking back at his childhood.

Since the Cruel Town tour, the band has performed only a few times together. Singer Henrik Berggren has performed several acoustic solo sets playing Broder Daniel-songs.

On 30 of March, 2008, guitarist Anders Göthberg

Anders Göthberg

Anders Göthberg was a Swedish guitarist.Göthberg played guitar for Broder Daniel and Honey Is Cool. He lived his latter life in Stockholm with his girlfriend, artist Paola Bruna...

 committed suicide

Suicide

Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...

 in Stockholm

Stockholm

Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...

.

The band played together for the last time at Way Out West Festival

Way Out West Festival

Way Out West is a three-day music festival held in Gothenburg, Sweden, during August that plays host to a variety of popular music artists mainly from the rock, electronic and hip-hop genres...

 in Gothenburg

Gothenburg

Gothenburg is the second-largest city in Sweden and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Situated on the west coast of Sweden, the city proper has a population of 519,399, with 549,839 in the urban area and total of 937,015 inhabitants in the metropolitan area...

 in honour of the late Anders Göthberg. During the concert they played their newly written song "Hold On to Your Dreams", dedicated to Göthberg.

Members

• Henrik Berggren - Singer
• Lars Malmros - Drums
• Anders Göthberg
  Anders Göthberg
  Anders Göthberg was a Swedish guitarist.Göthberg played guitar for Broder Daniel and Honey Is Cool. He lived his latter life in Stockholm with his girlfriend, artist Paola Bruna...
  
   - Electric guitar (Died 2008)
• Theodor Jensen - Bass guitar and Electrical guitar (Left the band in 2003. Rejoined in 2005.)
• Daniel Gilbert - Bass guitar (Left the band in 1995.)
• Johan Neckvall - Electric guitar (Left the band in 1997.)
• Håkan Hellström
  Håkan Hellström
  Håkan Hellström is a Swedish musician. He got his Swedish breakthrough in the year 2000 with the song "Känn ingen sorg för mig Göteborg"...
  
   - Bass guitar and drums (Played drums until his departure in 1994. Rejoined as bass guitar player in 1998. Left the band again in 2002.)

Timeline