BULLET - SWEDEN
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Bite The Bullet – 2008 - Black Lodge Highway Pirates – 2011 - Black Lodge Full Pull – 2012 - Nuclear Blast Storm Of Blades – 2014 – Nuclear Blast Dust To Gold – 2018 - SPV Live – 2019 - SPV Kickstarter - 2026 - SPV |  |
Members Vocals Breakers>>DAG ‘HELL’ HOFERGuitar Breakers, Hypnosia, Birdflesh, Jigsore Terror>>HAMPUS KLANG>> Birdflesh, Jigsore Terror – Talion, Amon>>Erik Almström>>Nicke Borg Homeland – Brutal Noise, Morbid Grin, Nominon, Ambush>>Alexander Lyrbo>>Morbid Grin, Ambush - FREDDIE JOHANSSONBass Nominon, Hypnosia, Funeral, Devil Lee Rot, Pagan Rites, Incinerator, Church Bizarre>>Lenny Blade>>Funeral, Pagan Rites, Incinerator, Church Bizarre - Path Of No Return>>Adam Hector – GUSTAV HECTORDrum Lelldorin, Nataz, Reaping Chaos, Talion>>GUSTAV HJORTSJÖ>>Talion |
History & Biography As with all Swedish heavy metal bands this bunch also simultaneously serve in a minimum of a dozen other bands. Hell Hofer and Hampus Klang shared an Accept covers’ band. Not to be confused with the older ‘80s Bullet, this group was formed in 2001 and issued the Heavy Metal Highway 7” in 2002 (a later album was called Highway Pirates). Agonia Records issued the group’s Speeding In The Night EP the year after. Black Lodge signed the group next. The debut was due to be issued by a British label, but those plans were nixed. The second album, Bite The Bullet, took a pretty woman and turned her into a tattooed harlot per the video. The group opened for AC/DC in Sweden in 2010. The band next toured with Hardcore Superstar. Swedish hard rock band Bullet would release a new album, Storm Of Blades, through Nuclear Blast on September 5th 2014. This was the first album featuring new guitarist Alexander Lyrbo. Sweden’s Bullet signed with SPV in 2016. An album was due in 2017. Bullet released a new album, called Dust To Gold, through Steamhammer/SPV on April 20th. A tour of Europe for the spring of 2018 was also announced. Live was a two-disc set. It captured three shows from 2017 and 2018. The band hit Japan in February of 2020. Australia-based The Babes opened. The band organized its own Bullfest in 2021. Guitarist Alex quit in 2021. Erik Almström returned to Bullet for two shows with the first to commemorate the 20th anniversary for the Heavy Metal Highway demo. There was a Spanish tour in 2023. The band was conducting a mini-tour of Australia’s east coast in April 2024. The band was booked for Nordic Noise in Copenhagen, Denmark at the Kometen venue in May 2024. The group was booked for Mediterranea Metal Cruise in 2025. Eight years after Dust To Gold, Bullet announced a new record called Kickstarter, which was scheduled for the 9th of January 2026. Freddie Johansson was the second guitarist since 2024. The band announced Swedish and Finnish dates and a video for the song Chained By Metal. Bullet had early 2026 appearances at Rock Hard Festival warm up and Logo Hamburg in Germany and Romania's Odyssea festival in June of 2026. Reviews BULLET - KICKSTARTER - STEAMHAMMER Interviews  Metallian got a hold of Bullet drummer Gustav Hjortsjö upon release of the band's 2026 album, Kickstarter. The disc is an impressive slab of hard rock and heavy metal the likes of which are becoming more and more scarce. The rest of the group is singer Dag Hell Hofer, guitarists Hampus Klang and Freddie Johansson and bassist Gustav Hector. Let's dive in - 11.02.2026. METALLIAN: Gustav, thank-you for your time and availability. Kickstarter is Metallian's Album Of The Month for February, 2026. Obvious question, given the years between Kickstarter and its predecessor Dust To Gold, what took so long? GUSTAV: Well, sadly the pandemic hit just about when we started touring for the Bullet Live album, and that brought everything to a halt in a way. Even when the lockdowns ended, there was a lot of aftermath with clubs closing and so on. When things finally started to clear up, Alex (Lyrbo - guitar) decided to quit the band. I guess that was kind of common at the time and not just for bands, but for people in general, to redirect their lives a bit. It took us a while to find a new steady guitarist. Not being able to tour and not having a full line-up was pretty hard on us. We’re not some kind of studio project or a band with just one or two real members. We need to be a full group and we need to be out on the road to really function. 
METALLIAN: Speaking of which, the band now features a new guitarist, Freddie Johansson. Where did you find him and does he have any previous band experience? Did he contribute to Kickstarter? GUSTAV: We found him through loose job connections between him and Hampus’ dad. I think Hampus’ dad was driving trucks for some theatre production where Freddie worked. He’d been playing in various small groups, nothing famous. Born way out in the sticks in Värmland and working as a cleaner when we got to know him - a real unpolished diamond. A great musician, way too good not to be playing big stages. When it comes to playing style, vibe and general preferences, he contributed just like the rest of us on Kickstarter. As for the songwriting, though, we didn’t really have time to fully integrate him this time. Things went pretty fast once we were a full line-up again. But we’re already working on new stuff together. METALLIAN: Kickstarter leans into vintage and true sounds of metal, but the production values are all contemporary. Does Bullet deliberately try to sound authentic, i.e. are there parameters, or does this organically come out of the minds and speakers when the music is written? GUSTAV: I never really liked the idea of 'vintage' or 'retro' any more than chasing trends or trying to be modern, actually. And you can’t really try too hard to sound authentic. That would be like deliberately trying to be genuine. The harder you try, the less you’ll succeed. I think we just lean into the preferences and references we’ve always had since the beginning, and yes, a lot of those are what people recognize as classics. But in the studio we also focus on getting the most out of our gear and our playing, using tools that are available today and that we see fit us. I think that’s probably what creates the mix you mentioned. 
METALLIAN: I think that is a clear description of your mindset and pertinent point, Gustav. The titles for the band's releases all come across as being in motion and on the move. Will there one day be a title that is sedate or motionless? GUSTAV: Never say never, but I don’t really think so. It just instinctively doesn’t feel like Bullet is a band to do that kind of thing. It would most likely end up feeling flavourless more than anything. METALLIAN: Putting aside the quality of the new release, part of the joy of Bullet and Kickstarter is how the band is obviously metal and what it says it is. In contrast, anything and everything is called 'metal' nowadays. From In Flames and Limp Bizkit to Babymetal or Linkin Park all things are called 'metal.' How do you see this situation? GUSTAV: I seem to care less and less about it, and these days I don’t even keep track of all the weird new genres or what’s considered metal and what isn’t. But early on in the band’s history, we probably did act as some kind of counterforce to all that, even if we never really articulated it that way. It felt like being a black metal head in ’98 still meant you had your roots in Iron Maiden, Kiss, WASP and so on, but after the millennium there started popping up genres and bands that seemed to have absolutely no connection to the classic stuff at all. I think that’s why we just dropped the idea of trying to be unique and instead went all in on old-school. METALLIAN: Well, proof is in the pudding as they say. The results speak for themselves. Speaking of actual metal, it is known that Hampus and Dag were in an Accept covers band. Would you tell us what the name of that band was that time has forgotten? GUSTAV: I think they were called Breakers. They never really released anything, as far as I know. But Hampus himself probably has more details about that band than I do. METALLIAN: Appreciate your filling in the blank nevertheless. A rumour on the scene - admittedly started by us - has it that Dag is the secret son of Messiah Marcolin. With this being revealed here for the first time, care to comment? GUSTAV: I also read in a review that Hell Hofer sounds very much like Messiah Marcolin, and it seems sometimes people can’t really tell the difference between their eyes and their ears. However, anyone who’s heard Hell sing with his regular voice, without all the grit he uses in Bullet, knows that he would actually do a convincing Messiah impersonation. METALLIAN: At this point, I am not sure whether my joke landed or not (laughing here), but let's move on. What is next for Bullet? GUSTAV: With a brand new album out, we’re going to focus on touring for the next year or so. Hopefully we can get outside of Europe more this time. We did a couple of shows in Tokyo just when the pandemic broke out, but there are still a lot of countries we haven’t been to yet. And hopefully it won’t take another eight years before the next release. New songs are always in the pipeline. METALLIAN: Looking forward to both. Final question, every metal fan in every galaxy agrees that Metallian is the best source of metal bar none. Why does Bullet agree? GUSTAV: Well, I saw that the band I started when I was 13 - the one where we recorded a single cassette demo in my high school studio - is listed in my bio, along with the name we used for about a month or so before that first demo. Can’t really say that’s not some seriously well-done research. Cheers 'n beers! Kickstarter is available through Steamhammer now. Bullet's website is at https://www.bulletrock.com. If you enjoyed this, read Mad Hatter
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Bullet