Hammerfall is a Swedish power metal band which was created in 1993 by Oscar Dronjak, Jesper Strömblad, Niklas Sundin, Johan Larsson, and Mikael Stanne.
After having quite some success in the music contest “Rockslaget” they sent a recorded version of a live performance to the Dutch label, Vic Records. They struck a deal and spent the following year writing their album, glory to the brave, which was thus released in the Netherlands.
Quickly they rose in popularity and soon had a deal with German label “Nuclear Blast”. Strangely enough their promotional single, glory to the brave, was an enormous success, reaching 38th place in the German music chart on the first week of its release. This is remarkable for it had never been done before by a heavy metal album. They then went on tours with bands like Gamma Ray, Jag Panzer and Lake Of Tears to perform to a crowd of over ten thousand people.
Before the release of “Legacy Of Kings”(1998) they toured with popular bands such as Rammstein, Alice Cooper, and Stratovarius.
In 1998 they went on their first world tour but had to cancel a few of the dates after all the band members became sick by a throat disease first caught by Joacim Cans, who was vocalist back then (and still is).
After many concerts and tours they returned to Sweden to start writing new songs for their next album, which was called “Renegade.” A music video was made of the popular song “Renegade.” This video swiftly reached the top of the Swedish parade. Thereafter their album soon reached gold status by selling over forty thousand copies.
After their second world tour in January 2001, they started a DVD called, The Templar Renegade Crusades.” This DVD included live concerts, recorded sessions, encounters with fans, etc…
In 2002 they toured with some extremely popular metal bands among which were: Iron maiden, Slayer, and (again) Stratovarius. However when Oscar Dronjak suffered a motorcycle accident they were forced to take a break in their tour. He did, thankfully, recover from his various wounds with the help of specialists.
Current band member line-up:
Albums: