Sabaton Tickets

Short Biography
Swedish war machine, Sabaton, have announced their first full UK headline tour. The battle ready bruisers are arming their guns for the UK invasion alongside allies, Scottish Pirate metallers, Alestorm, for a six-day attack of England, Scotland and Wales. Expect nothing less than slaughter, plunder and total madness from these crazy, hard touring bands.

Digging deep will let you discover that Sabaton were formed back in 1999 in Falun, Sweden, and worked hard with demos and small club shows just like any other band. You will also find that an album was recorded in 2002 bearing the name of Metalizer on an independent label in Italy but was never released. What is interesting is not to hear what you already heard from thousands of other bands but to hear the story of a successful band that paid the high price and sacrificed it all for their dreams. So we take a leap in history.

In 2004 the band began to be quite angry about their trouble to get an album out on the market but decided to forget about the past and started all over again. A new demo was recorded bearing the title of Panzer Battalion. At this point Sabaton had become much better songwriters and the quality of the songs was a lot higher than before which of course gave result.

Several labels immediately contacted Sabaton, but after stranded negotiations Sabaton decided to record an album without any help from any label. Primo Victoria was recorded and was fully paid by the band members themselves. With this masterpiece in their hands the band now returned to some labels and the bidding started. Winner was the Swedish label Black Lodge who gave a fair offer and a deal was made. About one year later Primo Victoria was one of the most successful debuts ever to come from a metal band on an independent record label. The band played bigger and bigger clubs and was soon one of the most popular bands in Sweden. Meanwhile Sabaton also was launched into the European market which led to immediate success. At this time, it was no longer possible to have a "normal" life so jobs, apartments and girlfriends had to go away. This was a hard sacrifice but the band decided that the band goes first!

About one year later, Sabaton entered the studio once more with the mission to follow up the great success of Primo Victoria. The result of this session was to become one of the best selling metal albums in Sweden in 2006 and win several awards worldwide.

Before the release and to promote the two albums Sabaton went on a six-week European tour with Edguy & Dragonforce. That tour became a great success and was followed up by the release of Attero Dominatus. The band was now recognized all over the continent and was now able to successfully tour as headliner in Europe for the first time. In 2006, the band did more shows than most bands and was able to handle three European tours plus being the opener for Lordi in Sweden.
The first activity in 2007 was a five-week long European tour with Therion and Grave Digger. This was a very successful tour for Sabaton and journalists all around Europe praised Sabaton over their tour mates.

Once Attero Dominatus had been released, and after almost two years of negotiation with an earlier record label, the original debut album of Sabaton saw the light of day when it finally became available as a double-CD compilation called Metalizer. Even though it was just intended for the fans and gained no real hype or marketing campaign it still reached no #1 position on Swedish hard rock selling charts and topped the leading record stores sales for months. The album was also followed up by the first bigger headline tour of Sabaton which reached several European countries from east to west and lasted for about five weeks. During 2007, the band was one of the hardest touring metal bands and did over 80 shows in more than 20 European countries and played at several of the biggest festivals in Europe.

This bodes well for the future and new albums!

In January 2008, it was time again for a new recording and with material good enough to top the previous albums, the band returned once more to Abyss Studios where they worked with both Tommy and Peter Tägtgren to reach a new level with the new album. The new album was to be based upon an ancient book called "The Art of War" which was written 600 years BC by a Chinese general, so a great amount of research was made.

With a heavier sound, much more powerful songs and fantastic new artwork, the album "The Art of War" was ready to invade record stores worldwide in March. But as the band refused to take a rest and instead packed their bags and travelled to America for their first US show in Austin, Texas during the huge South By Southwest week. The band returned triumphant to Sweden with new deals and contacts and America now stands ready to fall.

Awaiting the release of "The Art of War", the band, which still consisting of the original members, has already booked up every weekend for six months with over 60 shows, including the main stages of several of Europe's biggest festivals and one big headline tour, plus one of the most massive tour a metalband have done in Sweden since years.

In-depth Biography
Swedish band Sabaton have been a major force in the power metal field since the mid-‘00s, but had to battle through significant difficulties to get there, which may explain their eventual creative obsession with everything war-related. Originally founded in 1999 and comprised of Joakim Brodén (vocals and keyboards), Rickard Sundén (guitar), Oskar Montelius (guitar), Daniel Myhr (keyboards, beginning in 2006), Pär Sundström (bass), and Richard Larsson (drums), the enterprising group quickly produced two demo tapes that were later released in a limited edition as Fist for Fight in 2002. But after inking a deal with Italian label Underground Symphony, Sabaton saw their first would-be official album, Metalizer, inexplicably held out of the marketplace for a full two years (it, too, would belatedly reach the public in 2007). Tired of waiting, the members of Sabaton (now including new drummer Daniel Mullback), once again took matters into their own hands, and financed the recording of another album, Primo Victoria, which was officially released in 2005 by the Black Lodge label. It also opened the floodgates for a slew of popular singles and battle metal LPs to follow, including 2006's Attero Dominatus, 2008's The Art of War, and 2010's Coat of Arms, all of them bursting at the seams with historic and mythical chronicles of battle set to anthemic power metal. ~ Eduardo Rivadavia, Rovi