BLOODBATH – Guitarist Quits Band

Joakim Karlsson, guitarist of Swedish death metal act, BLOODBATH, has announced his departure from the band via the following statement:

“I am putting away my Bloodbath vest for good.

“To be honest, I’ve never really considered myself a guitarist – at least not a particularly good one – just someone who plays guitar out of necessity because I wouldn’t be able to write my music otherwise. Bloodbath needs a lead guitarist; someone who can pull off these fast, evil solos and whatnot, and to be completely honest, that guy simply isn’t me. Bloodbath needs someone who can do it justice.

“I have had pretty much only good moments with the band, and I’m glad to have been a part of it for the last year and a half, but now I’ll do other things. (I vaguely remember having a main band which hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves during the last year. I think I’ll focus on that for a while.) Alright… Later, Bloodbath fans. I hope I at least managed to trick some of you into listening to Craft.

“By the way, some of you were making guesses about what songs I wrote for TAOSID. I wrote ‘Wayward Samaritan’ (music/lyrics), ‘Only the Dead Survive’ (music, together with former Craft guitarist John Doe), ‘Ride the Waves of Fire’ (music/lyrics) and ‘Wide Eyed Abandon’ (music).”

Bloodbath formed in 1998 when, one evening, friends Mikael Åkerfeldt (Opeth) – Vocals, Anders Nyström (Katatonia) – Guitars, Jonas Renkse (Katatonia) – Bass, Dan Swanö (Edge Of Sanity) – Drums, thought it would be good to thrash out some classic death metal in the style of early Entombed, mixed with some of the US Florida death metal scene bands. Quite simply, Bloodbath was born out of this shared admiration for quality death metal in the old style & the guys quickly realized that they could churn some ugly metal out to a pretty high standard. From this one session the Breeding Death EP was written; the songs naturally & spontaneously coming together, and subsequently released in 1999.

Upon releasing Breeding Death, Bloodbath described their style as “a tribute to the old-school death metal that reigned in the late ’80s and onward.” The response to the EP’s three songs was tremendous. Metal Maniacs hailed it as “the collective effort of Sweden’s most prolific and talented power hitting songsmiths… Finally, a super group has taken the idea of praising the glory years of death metal…and further, this super group has done the right thing by pooling its abundance of talent to form something new instead of falling victim to the stylistic trappings of the retro movement.”