10 reasons why you need thrown in your life

April 18, 2025

Words:: James Hickie
Photo:: Aslak Junttu

To paraphrase William Shakespeare: some bands are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. It would appear that thrown are in the first camp. This quartet’s trajectory has been an impressively steep one, since arriving on the scene in 2019, seemingly as the finished article, before stepping things up with their assured assault of a debut album, excessive guilt, released last August.

Predominantly hailing from Stockholm and the surrounding area, thrown’s M.O. was creating a thoroughly modern version of metal, so not the death metal historically associated with their native Sweden. It’s a goal the band – Marcus Lundqvist (vocals), Andreas Malm and Johan Liljeblad (guitars) and Buster Odeholm (drums) – have achieved with their fast and furious blend of hardcore’s unbridled energy and nu-metal’s undeniable grooves.

“We grew up listening to everything from Slipknot to [Brighton hardcore punks] Dead Swans,” explains Marcus of the musical diet responsible for thrown’s heady, hefty output. “We spent years at the shows of UK and U.S. bands, and absorbing any music we could find, trying to figure shit out and always looking for something heavier.”

This led thrown to heavy music all their own, and the busy touring schedule that comes with capturing the imagination of fans across the world. How far? Well, they’re currently 8,364 miles from home, preparing for a show in Perth, Western Australia, as Marcus talks K! through 10 reasons his band has become one of rock’s hottest commodities.

“Offers keep coming in that are too hard to say no to,” he says. “We’re touring full-time with no downtime. But we’re not complaining!”

1The band really hit the ground running

While some artists falter with their early efforts, thrown struck gold almost as soon as they started

Marcus Lundqvist (vocals): “The first song we released, grayout, is also the first song we ever wrote. When we wrote it, we knew we had a blueprint for the other songs on that EP [2022’s Extended Pain]. We did actually have a lot of other riff ideas early on, but if they didn’t vibe with the good songs we knew we were writing, they were scrapped. I’m not going to exaggerate, we’re not that productive. All artists can relate to the fact that when it comes to being creative, we could all do more. I’ve learned not to force things if I don’t have any inspiration. I let the ideas come to me, however pretentious that might sound.”

2They’ve got a simple ethos when it comes to writing

thrown’s sound is far from formulaic, though they do have a straightforward filter for knowing whether what they’re creating makes the grade or not

Marcus: “If it feels good, it feels good. If it sounds sick, it sounds sick. We’d all been in multiple bands before, but when we started thrown, or thinking about the idea, we wanted to make something that felt rooted in the scene but fresh at the same time. We wanted to take inspiration from the bands that got us into this music in the first place, like old Slipknot, but combine it with the heaviest kind of hip-hop that some of us are into now. But at the same time, we never focus too hard on making specific parts sound like anything or anyone else. We just write.”

3They dig nu-metal

It was not just thrown’s gateway to where they are today, it taught them valuable lessons about the importance of making earworms

Marcus: “It’s a big influence, and it’s how most of us found heavy music. It was certainly the first heavy stuff I ever listened to – early Slipknot and Korn. I think it’s aged really well. The great thing about nu-metal is there were so many bands that came under that tag but they sounded so different from one another. The thing they had in common is that they all wrote catchy songs with a strong musical identity, which is something we’ve taken from them.”

4They have a skilled producer in the ranks

As well as keeping time, drummer Buster Odeholm (Humanity’s Last Breath, Vildhjarta) has skills behind a console, allowing thrown to be creatively self-sufficient

Marcus: “It makes things a lot easier, as it means we can work when we want to, rather than having to fit in with the schedule of another producer. The only downside is that you can change stuff constantly, which means you’re in danger of changing things one too many times and making it hard to commit to anything. We’re not paying for studio time so we don’t have to think, ‘When it’s done, it’s done,’ and instead we could be redoing vocal takes endlessly.”

5They’re not afraid to call out other people on their bullshit

bitter friend doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to articulating disappointment

Marcus: “It’s not about one specific person, but about being let down by multiple people at once. It’s about those people you thought were close friends but who ended up taking the easy way out when that friendship got put to the test. These are people in my personal life, rather than in my musical life. Have those people recognised that the song is about them? They might have, hopefully, but all of these songs are about people who would never have the balls to confront me about them.”

6Their songs aren’t always necessarily about what you think they are

backfire garnered a lot of attention for lyrics that seem to allude to a toxic relationship. But things aren’t what they seem

Marcus: “A lot of people have commented on that song and seem to think it’s about a relationship. I can see why people would assume that, but it’s actually about this random hater. This isn’t someone on a message board, this was before that – someone who just has a major problem for no apparent reason. There are hints in the lyrics that it’s someone who doesn’t know me, such as the line, ‘It’s so pathetic how you keep pointing out all the things that you think I might lack.’ Their opinion is not valid because they don’t know me, plus they have a bigger problem with me than I do with them. There’s another lyric that says, ‘I’m living inside your head / I never intended to but I am.’”

7They write short songs

The 11 tracks on excessive guilt clock in at just 21 minutes. Which is harder than it sounds…

Marcus: “When people criticise a song for being short, they seem to forget that writing a good short song isn’t easy, as you have to pack a lot of stuff into it. Now we’re known for being the band that writes short songs, but when we write a song, we never set out with that intention. Some songs have been longer than the final product ended up being, but we scrapped a part or two because it didn’t fit or lost intensity. The heaviness of a short breakdown, for instance, is because of how suddenly it hits. If it were to drag on, it wouldn’t be so impactful. The songs often take a long time to write. When we wrote the song guilt, for example, we knew it would be the first song on the record that became Excessive Guilt, so we really took our time with that one. I wanted to write a song that was about self-blame but there was still some hope in there. It’s about being at a low point in your life but you don’t want to be there.”

8Although longer songs are on the way!

Just don’t expect 10-minute odysseys anytime soon

Marcus: “We’ve already got a good mix. Many more short songs are coming, as well as some slightly longer ones. I’m not going to lie and say we’re going to produce long songs, as that’s never going to happen. But we might break our own record with a three-minute song, something like that.”

9They’re seriously tireless tourers

Given the workload, the band admit that they need to start writing on the road

Marcus: “Since the album dropped, we’ve been on tour non-stop. It wouldn’t be our preference to write on the road, but we’ll need to start doing it at some point to be able to write new music. Finding a quiet space on tour to be able to write can be very difficult, though. For me, nothing beats playing shows for getting some inspiration. It provides you with an opportunity to think about where you want to go next, as well as what your live show is missing. We want to be a hard-touring band, so a lot of the stuff we’re writing now is about making the shows better – that’s our focus.”

10They make their records like their gigs

thrown treat a tracklist like gig setlists – never letting the momentum (or interest levels) drop

Marcus: “The people who like your music the most are the ones who are going to listen to your album all the way through, from front to back. When you really fuck with an artist, you listen to their album like you’re at a show, taking them on a journey they want to pay attention to the whole time, musically and lyrically. The dynamic of keeping the listener interested is so important. You wouldn’t allow the energy to drop during a live show, or waste a moment, so why would you when making a record?”

excessive guilt is out now. thrown tour the UK from April 22. This interview originally appeared in the spring 2025 issue of Kerrang!.

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