My HeadBangers please welcome from Hudiksvall, Stockholm — Sweden the Rock Band:
HORSE OF TROJA
“Night Ride”
“Leaving”
That is my favorite song. It does take you back to the 80’s. I love it.
Now for the interview with Pertti, who commands the drums. A big thank you for your help. As always mine in blue his answers in black. Let’s get to it, I’m excited, I always am to do an interview. You can find out so much more when questions are answered in writing than speaking live. It always takes more time to think about what you want to say. Here we go…
The band started in 2020? What brought you all together and why did you want to start a band?
Horse Of Troja : We can thank a man named Leonardo Hernandez Solorio, in 2020 he sent a message to Pertti (The Drummer) on messenger and asked if Horse Of Troja would be interested in doing a live streamed concert to Mexico. He had heard us on the radio in Mexico and thought we were good. So I, Pertti managed to get hold of Håkan (Voc) Johan (Guitar) and asked if they were interested in this, and they were, But unfortunately the original bass player was not (Per Berlin) and Keyboard Player (Mikael Johansson) Interested in this but at the same time the pandemic came so nothing happened with the Live Streaming Concert to Mexico. But in Aug 2021, the Horse of Troja met for the first time and since then it has only rolled on….
I always ask this question, what does Horse of Troja mean to you and why did you choose it?
Horse Of Troja: The Name Horse Of Troja came up back in 81-82 when I, Pertti played with another band. In English it is The Trojan Horse but in Swedish we change that to Horse of Troja. When I started to play with Johan (Guitar) and Håkan (Vocals) we had a lot of different band names when we shifted band members. Then we split up and year 2000 I sat down with all my demos and recordings we had made with different members and made this CD with 9 songs, I brought back the name Horse of Troja as a compilation for all band names under all those years and sent it to Sweden Rock Magazine and got great reviews. Was compared with Rainbow (The Song Night Ride) and Phenomena (No Mercy).
You guys have that great 80-90’s rock and roll sound, what made you choose this genre over the rest?
Horse Of Troja : The band stopped playing at the early 90s. This may sound a little strange, but a flood in our rehearsal studio destroyed, among other things, my entire drum kit, and we were young (Between 20-25), so I, as a drummer, could not afford to buy new drums. So you could say that just ran out into the sand with the band. And then came girlfriends, family, children, and so on.. And when we got that question about Live Stream to Mexico. See Question 1, so we kept the original sound when we are out playing and people seem to like it.
Have any of you played with other bands?
Horses Of Troja: Yes we have. But none of them are know outside of Sweden.
What is the band’s process for creating songs?
Horse Of Troja: Most of the songs are made in the rehearsal studio jamming, but “Leaving”, is mostly Johan’s song from the start to finish. “Instant Drug”, I wrote with 2 others, Peter Boon and Christian Baraldi. The rest is mostly done when are jamming and someone finds a cool riff. Watch Out is a song that maybe took 10 minutes to make, maybe a little bit longer 🙂
Do you play locally in Sweden? Have you done any gigs outside of Sweden yet?
Horse Of Troja: Yes, we have played in Poland and Germany. We were there in March 2023. And after that we had 3-4 gigs in Stockholm. We have gotten questions if we want to come back and play in Poland and Germany. So we did something good.
I think you really have. Now let’s meet the band:
Håkan Rudberg – Vocals
Johan Easy Isacsson – Guitar
Pertti Tikkanen – Drums
Riccardo Riva – Bass
Edward Nordberg – Guitar
Pertti: there is a lot of things that could be included in this but it would have been a very long story because Pertti, Johan, Hakan have been playing together for 5-8 years and a lot of things happened in that time.
My Thoughts:
What can I say, you know I love a band with history. I could listen forever to stories that a band tells me. I want to thank Pertti for taking time to answer my questions and give us all some background on Horse of Troja. If you are invited back to play in Poland or Germany you most definitely are doing it right! I love the sound this band has, and I was surprised to find this sound in Sweden. I’ve done a lot of bands from Sweden and you know most are black death, thrash, etc. It was really nice to hear a different sound. I especially like the vocals, it really sound like I was listening to a big band from the 80-90’s. Keep and eye on these guys, I have no doubt they will be touring in other places. Check them out on FB, Instagram, they have more pics and more songs.
Well my HeadBangers that’s it for this week. Join me Wednesday for Hump Day and next Saturday for the weekly band. Until then don’t stand to close to the fire if you can’t handle the burn…..
Please feel free to leave me a comment or question, I appreciate it HeadBangers: