Peter Bjorn and John

The Peter, Bjorn and John group was assembled by three friends who were born and then lived and met in the North of Sweden. Peter Moron and Bjorn Yttling knew each other since the early nineties and had been playing music together for eight years before they made friends with the third member of their future outfit, John Ericsson. In 1999, they built up a band and called as simple as they could. They formed the title out of their first names. The musicians themselves stated that it was not because of their inability to think over something better, but because they indeed liked the way it sounded. Originally, the participants of the new group intended to find the fourth member to take up the duties of the bass-guitarist. In the long run, this vacancy went to Bjorn, a skilled keyboardist, who eventually learned to play the new instrument. The group trained well to play like a three-piece band on the stage and resorted to overdubbing while working in the studio.

In the beginning, Peter, Bjorn and John suffered a lot from Bjorn’s involvement into production industry and participation of the other members in better-known projects. However, as soon as the young musicians realized the potential and prospects of their own band, they shifted their focus to this part of their activities. The Swedes recorded their debut self-titled album in the home conditions and released it at their own expenses. This did not keep the long player from receiving praiseful reviews. Among all the tracks featured on the CD, Matchmaker, and People They Know appeared to be the main favorites with the indie-rock audience. The fresh release was quick to catch the attention far away from the Scandinavian region. The English periodical Rough Trade even claimed that Peter, Bjorn and John were at that time the most promising and talented act of all pop music performers from Sweden, a country always rich in top music makers.

In 2004, the Swedes issued the sophomore full length album under the title Falling Out to present a more mature and at the same time darker material. The track called It Beats Me Every Time became the leading hit of the Swedish radio stations. In a year, the album hit the American market to great critical acclaim from the local specialists. Following that, the musicians took steps to change their creative process slightly. During the making of the third long player, all the three were involved in the song-writing. Moreover, the vocal parts of the new songs became the responsibilities of each member of the group. The album named Writer’s Block was recorded and mixed in Stockholm. It was delivered to the stores in 2006 to find a much warmer welcome in the States and the Great Britain than on the home soil of the musicians. The closest attention was drawn by the hit Young Folks. Having made this breakthrough, the Swedes shared the stage with Kanye West at a big festival in Gothenburg in 2007. On the completion of the tours to promote the new CD, the participants of Peter, Bjorn and John took up side projects. Yittling immersed into the production industry, while Moren recorded his solo album that was called The Last Tycoon (2008). When autumn came, the musicians got together again in the studio to prepare another full format record, Seaside Rock, consisting predominantly of instrumental tracks. It took the band a very short period of time to deliver the subsequent album, Living Things (2009).