“A lot of people have been calling our style ‘pissed-core’,” muses Thrown guitarist Johan Liljeblad. “But we don’t really ever talk about genres, we only listen to ourselves.”
It’s a ridiculous label, but, for these Swedes, it fits like a glove. The music they make is obnoxious, crushingly heavy and obviously angry. Those things aren’t unique in metal, but there’s something about the mix of modern metalcore, skull-busting grooves and hip hop swagger in a song like recent single Look At Me that has helped the band become rising stars in a saturated scene. Not that Thrown are too bothered by what you call them.
“It’s hip hop-influenced metalcore,” shrugs Johan. “But our hip hop influence is greater than most bands. We’re into Suicideboys, stuff like that. Our influences are really hard, dark rap tracks. Call us whatever you want.”
Johan, who joins us on Zoom today with the more softly spoken drummer Buster Odeholm (Humanity’s Last Breath, Vildhjarta), speaks with a confidence that some might mistake for cockiness. At one point, he says: “A lot of the bands in the Swedish metal scene think they’re the best. They’re not,” and it feels like a gauntlet being, ahem, thrown down.
His confidence is well-placed. Considering they’ve only been a band for a few years, Thrown have made remarkable inroads. They have almost one-and-a-half million monthly listeners on Spotify, and they’ve shared stages with the likes of Knocked Loose, Counterparts and Emmure. All this before their excellent debut album, Excessive Guilt, had been released.
There has been some controversy, however, with some Reddit users calling the band out over the use of a Spotify tool called Discovery Mode. It allows artists and labels to prioritise songs for inclusion on the streaming platform’s all-important mixes and playlists in exchange for a commission on any plays the song gets as a result. But crucially, Discovery Mode isn’t some kind of “pay for play” model – if people aren’t engaging with the songs in the first place and don’t enjoy them, they won’t get recommended as much.
“There’s a lot of focus on the playlist thing,” Buster acknowledges. “We just sent our songs to our label and they uploaded it. Obviously if I would have cracked the code on getting views, my other bands would have way more views than they have, but they don’t.”
Discovery Mode may have helped Thrown get heard, but clearly people were impressed enough to stick around and become fans. Which is just as well; far from the hardened, underground metal stereotypes, both Johan and Buster admit they have their sights on appealing to as many people as humanly possible.
“Thrown are made to be commercial, but hard,” Buster grins. “Our music is made to be as effective as possible in the shortest amount of time. It’s really designed to do what it’s doing.”
“Initially, our commercial aspirations were none,” admits Johan. “They were born from the interest we got. It’s like, ‘We’re obviously doing something right here. What can we add? What can we take away?’ When this stuff started happening, of course you lean into it more.”
Thrown believe the simplicity of their music is one of their greatest strengths. “I play in other, super-technical bands and it takes a lot of effort to write stuff,” Johan nods. “Writing in this genre is not at all as much effort, and it’s way more fun. Simple, but effective songwriting will never lose its power.”
With a simple, effective and killer debut album about to drop, and plenty of touring plans to take them into the future, the band are committed to making their doubters eat their words.
“I feel like we’re kind of starting to prove them wrong now, because we’re touring like crazy,” smiles Buster. “We’re doing good shows, people are coming out, so we have something to back this up with.”
It all seems very promising, but before we go… pissed-core. Do you guys think that label suits the music you make?
“Oh, man,” sighs Johan. “I’m not sure it’s that accurate, to be honest. I’m not going to pretend that we aren’t super-pissed off about a lot of stuff… but so are a lot of other genres. Our emphasis is just on writing good music, and that’s more important to us.” Pissed-core is dead. Long live Thrown.
Excessive Guilt is out now via Arising Empire. Order your exclusive orange, black and white LP variant via the Louder Store.
