By Jim Barber
Mad Invasion is what happens when a group of long-time musician pals, each one with an impressive pedigree and extensive musical background, with reputations for excellence and kicking proverbial ass in both the studio and onstage decide to join forces.
Based in the Swedish city of Malmo, the quartet of vocalist Pete Sandberg, bassist Mats Jeppsson, lead guitarist Bjorn Dahlberg and guitarist/keyboardist Hal Marabel released their debut album Edge of the World back in 2021, just as the global COVID 19 pandemic was starting to slowly subside.
With pent up demand for more new music from the group became louder and louder, they re-entered the studio last year, completing what can best be described as a bad-ass, vintage sounding hard rock album, which features a modern sonic landscape and a true, epic story to tell.
Crack in the Sky was released on April 25 through Border Music, after anticipation and interest was stoked through the release of five videos throughout late 2024 and into 2025 for the songs ‘Welcome to my Show,’, the incendiary ‘Voodoo Queen,’ the powerhouse “Heat Of the Night,’ ‘Flesh & Blood,’ and the exceptionally cinematic title track.
The list of musical influences of each band member reads like who’s who of rock music, which makes sense, since all four of them have been playing music in various original and cover bands for decades. With Mad Invasion, there are definite elements of everything from Deep Purple to Queen to AC/DC. UFO, Rush and Bad Company.
Marabel talked about the importance of the varied influences, experiences and creative points of view brought to the band by each member, but also how they are united and in complete lockstep with one another when it comes to the power, potency and originality of their interpretation of the vintage hard rock milieu.
“We’ve all known each other since the late 1980s. Even if we weren’t playing together, we each had our different gangs way back when there were a bunch of bands out on the circuit, you know, meeting up and partying with one another. And we would engage with one another at certain points in time and always thought that maybe we should do something together one day,” he said, adding that the embryo of an idea for what would become Mad Invasion began when he and Sandberg first started talking a little more seriously about collaborating in the early 2010s.
“Pete has been in loads of bands. But at the time, he was in a band called Alien. And I was in a Swedish band, which I still have a bit on the side, called Bad Habit and we were both signed to the Virgin label at the time. We met through that and we decided to try and do something together. But it took a while. Pete and some of the other guys actually did get together around 2012 and released a single, and did a gig just to test the waters, and the response was really great, but their other projects, and life in general, happened. A few years later they started talking about writing for a new album and that’s when I got involved, in 2016. But, as I said, we all knew each other so it was quite a natural coming together.”
Sandberg is original from Gothenburg, on the west coast of the country, 270 or so kilometres north of Malmo, which is on the southern tip, almost directly across from Copenhagen, Denmark. Marabel said he has been an admired singer for many decades, playing in Swedish bands as well as other European acts.
“It was really great to have him on board because, one, he’s a great singer. But what we wanted to do in this collaboration was to utilize a different side of his vocal talent. If you’ve heard any of his previous stuff, you’ll notice the range is a lot lower now, the pitch is a lot lower, and there’s more of a focus on the blues influences here. And that fits for him because he is like David Coverdale [Whitesnake, Deep Purple] and Paul Rodgers [Free, Bad Company] and we wanted to have that come through in our songs,” he said, laughing about the fact that not only is Sandberg an old school vocal stylist, but is rather old school in his daily life.
“He’s interesting in this day and age. He is non-digital. He has a cellular phone, a mobile phone, but it’s not the smartphone version, it’s the simple version where all you can do is call and text. He has no computer, no social media, no nothing. So we’re the ones that take care of that sort of thing and try to show him stuff. He still listens only to CDs and vinyl. But it’s interesting to have him around because we can get the different perspective from someone who isn’t in to all of that.”
Bjorn is the initiator and the riff master of Mad Invasion, according to Marabel.
“He used to have a studio in Malmo where we all used to record, so he got to know everyone. So, he’s coming from being more of a studio guy, a producer and engineer. But he’s always been a great guitarist but was concentrating more on his studio work until we switched him to being more of a guitar player and songwriter. I come into it as the co-producer and arranger, but he is very good at riffs. He is really influenced by old Deep Purple and Black Sabbath and we wanted to make sure that influence is coming through, because we’re really proud of it. It’s not that we’re copying it, it’s just a strong influence that we want to pay homage to but put it into more of a modern context and a modern framing,” he said.
“Bjorn is the person who prefers to be in the background and orchestrate things, which I am too, but I am a bit more of a people person because my daytime job, I have to be more of an extrovert [he works in I.T for IKEA … doesn’t get much more Swedish than that!] but I think we complement each other really well, both from the perspective of guitarists but also as individuals. We work very well together with the arranging of songs and production. And then Mats is the joker in the band. He brings a lot of humour and is quite the extrovert. He’s the excited one when we get together. You need to have someone like that in a band or in any situation where you’re working closely with people. He’s a great complement to the rest of the personalities in the band.”
It is this group of talented and driven creative personalities which put together a conceptual collection of music that weaves a compelling, fantasy-based story accompanied by soaring melodies, crunching riffs and masterful musicianship.
The narrative thread woven between the songs on Crack in the Sky relates to the battle between a Fallen Angel and her nemesis the Dark Lord – the stuff of fantasy-oriented fiction writing and video games, but with an application for the everyday struggles we all have to fight off the demons within and without.
“It was initially Bjorn’s idea to have this character of the Fallen Angel as part of all the videos and all the visual storytelling for the album. But there wasn’t really a narrative around it. We had the image of the angel dressed in white, and we have the angel dressed in black and they’re sort of against each other but still supporting one another because they’re the two sides of the same thing,” Marabel said.
“For this new album we decided to take the story further and really create that framework of a narrative around it with all the background of how the white angel was once sitting by God’s side and then she got lured a little bit to the darker side. And then we developed it further by actually recording introduction segments to eight of the 11 songs that really tie the story together. But we’re saving that for the next version of the album, which we hope will also be vinyl.
“We decided to go all in with the story because we liked the idea of a concept album and there aren’t that many anymore. We want to bring it back to the kind of [Queensryche’s] Operation: Mindcrime sort of projects where there’s a story and where you’re trying to lure the listener in to pay attention to more than just the songs. You want them to look a few layers deeper.”
In a sense, it’s a tested and true story that goes back millennia – the iconic struggle between good and evil which, if reinterpreted slightly as intimated above, can apply to how we all have an internal struggle between the good and evil of our own nature.
“You can take the songs and the story as it is, but it’s much better if you can personalize it. We want people to read into it what they want to – that’s what making music is all about. If they feel something’s connecting them to the song, there’s no right or wrong interpretation. So, yes, it is the overall theme of good versus evil in the sense that one needs the other. You can also look at it as a reflection of how things are in society now,” Marabel said.
“It’s becoming very polarized and it’s always these two sides digging in stronger and stronger against each other. But, even if it can be quite extreme at the most polarizing points of it, these two perspectives need each other. Now, you can argue that it’s too extreme and it can’t just be black and white, but it is okay to have different sides of the same story, different sides of the same coin, because that’s where the compelling part comes into the story, that’s where the interest and the excitement and how you get people more engaged in what you’re trying to say.
“I think it’s interesting, because there is that borderline where you say this side of it is good, this side is evil. But that borderline isn’t always a straight, thin line. It’s actually quite a broad line. There is a crossover area within which you start drifting to one side or another and it makes you really think about the dilemma of now being in this gray zone. So that’s a bit part of the neighbourhood.”
Writing an album with a relatively tight narrative, where the lyrics and music and overall sonic nature has to be more consistent and relevant to one another is definitely more of a challenge then just concocting 10 or 12 songs that are more or less independent of one another. But it was a challenge Marabel, and his bandmates were up for.
“There are more things to think about in the lyrics and the way that the songs are put together. Also, the order of the songs on the album becomes a lot more important. But that was the compelling idea that goes along with having a conceptual theme. Not only does the listener need to engage a bit more to get the full picture but we as the writers need to do that in creating it, of course, and to keep our heads straight on, you know. We kept saying to ourselves, ‘how do we keep the connection? And how we make sure to come back to the right point in the timeline.’ So, yeah, it was quite interesting,” he explained.
“We weren’t as focused on the music aspect as far as the riffs of the songs all being kind of connected like the story is. We felt a bit freer and more flexible there because it was more about the story, the lyrics and the overall sort of storytelling and making sure that all fit in with the actual narration that is going on. But we had more flexibility on the musical side, for sure.”
As for the songwriting process, which is much the same as for the band’s 2021 debut record Edge of the World, it usually starts with Dahlberg, who Marabel refers to as “the captain of the ship” creative-wise, although he himself acts as a co-producer once the creative ball gets rolling.
“He is the one that comes up with the main guitar riff, and the songs are guitar riff based. And then well build off that. So, he will start with the riff, and we will then meet just to discuss the format and things a bit more casually. After that he goes back and starts to actually record the guitar rifts properly with a click track. Which I think it’s a bit usual, because there’s no other production or any back tracks – it’s just the guitar and a click track,” he said, adding that most of the five band members live in Malmo, while guest drummer Mikkey Dee (more about him in a second) lives in Gothenburg.
“What happens next is him and Pete, our singer, get together and they start working on the lyrics and the vocal melodies to the guitar riffs and click track. So, there’s nothing else guiding the singer; Pete never has any back tracks for the chorus, which he likes. Her prefers it that way because we want to be totally naked, and it also allows him to hear everything perfect.
“So, I have my studio, which is kind of a mix of a pre-production and parallel full production studio and my own gear. So, I bring my laptop into the studio at Bjorn’s house, and I record over those tracks that they recorded onto my laptop, and I go home and continue to build the track from there. That’s where I draft the initial drum parts, percussion, the keyboards and also start thinking about the background vocal arrangements and add in my guitars.”
One the demos are complete, the entire band circles back and has a good listen through, which is often the first time all band members hear the near arrangement, which leads to more honing, and filtering and adjustments until everyone’s happy.”
Understanding the world the way it is today, with so much ‘content’ being ‘consumed’ on so many different platforms and forms of media, even the most proficient and talented of creative acts has to put extra effort into the non-artistic side of what they do – otherwise know as the ‘business’ side of the music business.
Mad Invasion have doubled down on marketing and promotional material, issuing a stream of singles and accompanying videos for songs from both of their albums so far.
“There’s so much noise and so much going on in the world that people, you know, their attention span is quite limited. And you have to have something special to stick out. We wanted to make sure that we had a lot of visual representations, like in the videos. And we wanted to make sure that everything is at a good, professional level because we are all well seasoned, older guys. We’ve been around for a while and we wanted to have that experience and professionalism reflected in the material and the way we do things to promote the music,” said Marabel of the group’s attention to detail.
“We’re from that generation where we used to be the young guys who would appreciate it when our favourite bands put a lot of effort into it; had all the lyrics with the album and the covers were all nice and the pictures were well done and everything was well thought through so that you felt that you were getting a lot of value for your money. Even if it’s mostly the streams now, some people still buy a CD and the ones that do, they should get good value for the money, and the ones that come to visit our YouTube channel should get good quality digital products so that they’re time is well spent. And that goes for vinyl too. We haven’t done a pressing of vinyl yet for the new album, but we are hoping to be able to do that when we do the next run. When that happens, we’re going to have all the special links in between the songs that help you follow the concept. When we did the vinyl for the last album, we made sure that it was a double fold out, so we put a lot of time into designing the covers and things like that.”
Mikkey Dee performed in the videos, as he does on the entirety of the Crack in the Sky record. Hard rock and metal fans know his incredibly impressive and prodigious pedigree, first with Danish metal master King Diamond, then for more than 30 years with the iconic Motorhead, and now bashing the skins for German rock legends, The Scorpions. The music community in Sweden, much like Canada, is relatively small, so even the biggest names are still card-carrying members of that community, staying in touch with old friends and past bandmates from along their musical journeys.
Such is the case of Dee and members of Mad Invasion.
“Pete is from Gothenburg and he’s known Mikkey for ages. They were around the same hoods, the same music communities back in the day. And they also know each other through sport. I think they both played hockey at the same time. But then they went their separate ways and Pete was in his band and Mikkey was doing his thing and so on. When we did the first album, we actually recorded that partly with another drummer, but we parted ways soon after finishing laying down the tracks. We wanted to do some videos but how do we visualize that without a drummer, when Pete said he knew Mikkey. He said it wouldn’t hurt to just call and ask if he’d be in the videos. And right away we knew we had to bring him in, because he’s quite well known and has his own profile. We didn’t think he’d do it, but Pete said maybe he’s game,” Marabel explained.
“And he’s in three of the videos from the previous album. But that was the staring point with Mikkey. And he loved the songs. He loved the approach of taking the old classic vintage rock and putting it into a modern format. So when we were discussing the new album, we actually just asked him right away. And we discussed how we wanted to continue to have him involved in the band as, you know, obviously a special guest still because he’s a band member of the Scorpions. He said yes. We arranged it so that he could record the drums up in a studio in Gothenburg and then we transferred he files and integrated them into the production down here in Malmo. And it was a great addition to the sound because he obviously has his own style of playing that really lifted these very basic rock songs onto a different level. And of course, he’s appeared in a bunch of the new videos for this record too.”
Marabel also said that there is a chance, if just a tiny one, that if Mad Invasion were to play live shows in Europe, that Dee might be able to play with them.
“We’re juggling things trying to make the calendars work because obviously there’s a lot of work for him during the summer with all the festivals and everything. And he even has his own Motorhead cover band too, and another side project besides The Scorpions. So we’ll see what opportunities there are on the calendar and how we can fit him into somewhere that’s a good place and a good time to play,” he said, adding that they also have a backup plan to bring in another drummer if things don’t mesh with Dee.
“Ideally it would be Mikkey because he’s the one on the album. And we all get along so it would be fine with him joining us. So, we’re working to see if we can make it happen.”
A trip to North America to perform is also a possibility, slim, but not completely off the table.
“We have our promoter that we’re working with and of course he has a lot of connections both to radio and festivals and things over there. So that is part of the discussions we’re having to see if there’s an opportunity there. It’s a bit tricky now, though, with all the bureaucracy and paperwork. When you come over from Scandinavia there’s a lot of administrative things to take care of. And it’s also not cheap. It’s something we need to look into and see how we can make that work practically. But that is the ambition to get to America and Canada,” he said.
For more information on Mad Invasion, visit their social media channels or https://madinvasion.com.
- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, Ontario, Canada, who has been writing about music and musicians for more than 30 years. Besides his journalistic endeavors, he works as a communications and marketing specialist and is an avid volunteer in his community. Contact him at jimbarberwritingservices@gmail.com.
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