Stry

Stry has performed as a vocalist, guitarist, and keyboardist while distinguishing himself most clearly as a songwriter whose intermittent brushes with recognition have always given way to renewed seclusion. This pattern has rendered much of his output scarce, even when the better-known projects he joined fell out of print, and it has lent his reputation a distinctly legendary quality. Although his most visible affiliations remain with the pioneering punk band Ebba Grön and the later alternative-rock group Imperiet, he had already appeared in several local outfits that eventually acquired cult standing, among them Kriminella Gitarrer and Garbochock.

Raised in a rural district of southern Sweden close to the unlikely musical center Klippan, which shaped much of the country’s alternative sound during the 1970s, Stry made his first appearance on record with a 1978 single by the punk band Kriminella Gitarrer. At the time the group received scant notice in a punk landscape dominated by Ebba Grön, yet it has since been regarded as an early influence on Swedish punk. A second single followed the same year, after which Stry left the band and moved to Malmö to start Besökarna.

That project also proved short-lived, so the next year he recorded singles and toured first with Blödarna and then with Stry & Stripparna before forming Garbochock in 1979. The band’s debut album, Ritual, appeared in 1980 and displayed Stry’s continued punk roots alongside pronounced echoes of the Doors. After a stretch of intensive touring with Garbochock, he accepted an invitation to join Ebba Grön, which had moved beyond strict punk and required a keyboard player. Although he had never played keyboards in previous bands, Stry agreed, relocated to Stockholm, and entered the most commercially successful phase of his career, even while appearing uneasy with stardom. He performed on the 1982 album Ebba Grön, but the band dissolved that winter. He had also taken part in the side project Rymdimperiet, formed by several Ebba Grön members, and remained when the group developed into Imperiet. Their first album, Rasera, came out in 1983; Stry contributed to several shorter releases in 1984 before leaving the band and Stockholm.

Back in southern Sweden he formed Babylon Blues with Binkie Liljegren, another former Garbochock member. The pair released two albums and several singles through the 1980s that leaned more toward rock & roll and roots rock than punk. Stry’s first solo album, Plastålekrik, finally appeared in 1991; its lyrics still suggested his punk background, yet the music was described as psychedelic pop. Although he wrote extensively during the 1990s, few of those songs reached record until five years later, when the solo album Hale Bopp was issued. The same year he released an album with the short-lived group Wildsmoke, which received a lukewarm response.