LeadBreaker channel their origins into something blunt, loud and unmistakably Swedish: a band shaped by snow, steel, and the instinct to make heavy metal that feels alive rather than polished. Since their 2018 demo, they’ve pushed a sound that leans on attitude over perfection, carrying that raw edge through their debut and the full‑throttle chaos of Overdrive. In this interview, they look back at the moments that forged them, the artwork and albums that left a mark, and the humour‑fuelled, high‑voltage spirit that keeps their music charging forward.

Interview

TheNwothm: What first connected each of you as musicians and pushed you toward forming a band together?

LeadBreaker: One bloke had a guitar and another bloke had a set of drums, which are two of the three pivotal instruments for playing Heavy Metal. So the idea of a band was conceived and after some searching the mighty Bassman joined and there it was, the start of the band known as LeadBreaker.

TheNwothm: Sweden has a long history of producing powerful heavy metal. What aspects of Swedish culture or daily life in Gävle have shaped your sound or attitude as a band?

LeadBreaker: We eat lots of snow that has been polluted with heavy metals from the great iron mines in the north and the red hot steel mills in the midlands so heavy metal is literally in our blood and we want to express that.

TheNwothm: Which album from your childhood or teenage years made you think that heavy metal was where you belonged?

LeadBreaker : Adam: I’ve always liked rock music since a young age, but AC/DC´s Let there be rock was probably the one that really set me on that track. 

TheNwothm: There is love in the trad metal scene for tape and vinyl collecting. Do any of you collect releases and what kind of gems or obscurities would someone find if they looked through your hoard?

LeadBreaker:

Daniel: Beneath the heaping piles of unsold LeadBreaker records one would find real gems like the debut singles from Motörhead and Venom as well as countless albums released by the Mausoleum label, all from 83-85, the golden age of metal.

Adam: Some of us are more in to collecting than others. I don’t collect as much as I used to but I do have some first press releases from Sex Pistols and Queen.

TheNwothm: Let us move on to the music! Your first demo in 2018 marked the earliest snapshot of LeadBreaker. When you think back to creating and recording those first tracks, what stands out the most, and did that early process teach you anything about how you wanted to work together as a band moving forward?

LeadBreaker: We recorded the demo all by ourselves and it was incredibly frustrating with all the technical difficulties so that teached us that it is worth hiring someone who knows what they are doing to deal with the technical stuff when recording.

TheNwothm: Your self titled debut album arrived in 2020. What feeling did you hope listeners would take from that first play, how did your early artwork discussions shape the visual identity of the release, and which song from those sessions proved the most challenging to bring to life and why?

LeadBreaker: We want the listener to become overly excited to the point where the person concerned start smashing and destroying their own belongings. As for the artwork, I can’t quite remember the discussions behind it. I would guess that the fist grabbing a burning chain was deemed the best concept out of a list of ideas with varying quality. We are not very aesthetically aware people so coming up with ideas for album covers is one of the hardest things for us when it comes to the process of making an album.

The most challenging song to record on the first album was “Uncrown the King,” which was quite unexpected as it is one of our oldest songs and we thought it would be a walk in the park. But it took the most takes by far, and for every take we got a bit more frustrated and played a little bit faster. So the album version of the song is way faster than we originally planned it to be. 

TheNwothm: “Overdrive” landed in 2024 and received strong reactions. What was the spark that set this album in motion?

LeadBreaker: We just wanted to create some new music to be honest. We did want there to be more attitude and a bit “in your face” than the last one. 

TheNwothm: The artwork for “Overdrive’ has its own personality and shows a sense of strength. How did you approach the visual side of this album and what did you want it to communicate?

LeadBreaker:

Daniel: “Overdrive” got drive in the title and you drive cars, so it seemed fitting to have the album cover be from the perspective inside of a car. Then just throw in the hand from the first record breaking the gear stick, thus kicking the car into overdrive. We really just took a picture I took with my phone of my hand holding a gear stick and sent it to Mina Walkure (who has done the artwork for both our albums) with some stupid description of what we wanted, like “can you make this, but cool”?  And a couple of weeks later she sent us that absolute monster of an album cover.

Adam: We wanted something that would catch the eye, something that jumped out at you. We wanted something that represented the “over the top” energy that we try to put into our music.