Biography
Born in Karlstad, Sweden, the versatile Mattias Hellberg ignited his enduring musical drive by stepping onto the stage at fourteen as a member of his debut group, Ugly Jake, during 1987. That ensemble later morphed into the explosive rock unit Nymphet Noodlers, which MC5 guitarist Wayne Kramer once singled out as his favorite band of all. Hellberg anchored the lineup as frontman through the act’s dissolution in 1996. In the years that followed he contributed both onstage and in the studio to the Hellacopters, the celebrated Swedish garage rockers, and supplied performances or session work to an array of additional garage and rock outfits such as Soundtrack of Our Lives, the Solution, and Thunder Express. While immersed in these harder-edged ventures, he simultaneously nurtured quieter impulses through folk-leaning efforts including the dub-tinged Kanzeon and the longstanding Hederos & Hellberg partnership. The latter duo so struck Ryan Adams that he booked them as support for his 2001 European tour. When Swedish prog veterans Nationalteatern regrouped in 2005, Hellberg was enlisted to sing on their summer outing and subsequently joined as a permanent member. He extended his folk explorations with the psychedelic outfit Mattias Hellberg & the White Moose, which delivered the raw album Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Woods in 2008 and logged extensive road dates the following year. That direction continued with the 2012 solo album High in the Lowlands, a brooding set of backwoods indie folk colored by Neil Young’s influence.
Albums
Singles
