The Chicago born guitarist, vocalist and songwriter Johnny Engstrom started to play guitar at the age of 12 and has been playing in bands ever since. He has been a fulltime working musician since 1992, doing what he loves most; teaching guitar, helping kids forming bands, song writing and playing in front of a live audience.
At a young age he moved to Karlskoga, Sweden, a town that had a blooming music scene. His parents owned a summer cottage near the town Nora, were he made friends with the talented Abba guitarist Lasse Wellander, who inspired him to develop his guitar skills. Johnny formed 'Dead End Street' together with bass player Niklas Högberg and drummer Galle Johansson, a band that showed strong influences from Rush, The police and U2. The trio blended a lot of different styles, making them into their own. The band played a large number of gigs, festivals, made records and had a few television appearances and some radio airplay.
In the ensuing years he decided to put more effort in his solo project, playing with a lot of different musicians. Johnny played gigs and toured all over Scandinavia with his band, plus rock acts 'Don And The Mob and 'BBbrain'. He was also the bass player in 'Pg And The Hooligans', a rhythm and blues band taking him back to his Chicago roots. He eventually reunited with his old bandmates to form 'The Johnny Engstrom Band' early in 2008, releasing the debut album "Analyse My Dream" shortly afterwards in April of the same year. "From Birth To Chaos" was the band's sophomore effort, released in February 2009, followed by "Magnetic Force" in October 2011.
This third album is a powerful Progressive Rock/Metal hybrid that brings to mind groups such as Dream Theater, Rush, Saga and Evergrey. Lyrically it is a "concept" album dealing with UFOs, alien abductions and 'X-Files'-type themes. Dark, heavy and menacing (but still very melodic).
On 23rd March 2013 the band made a decision to change their name from J.E.B to 'Dead End Space' for the release of their fourth album "Distortion Of Senses" (released on May 24th 2013). The album was co-produced by Mats "limpan" Lindfors at Soundtrade Studio in Stockholm, and has ethereal subjects such as ghosts, spirits, angels, life and death (amongst other things) as its main theme.
The band will return to work with Mats Lindfors in August 2013, and record three songs for release as digital download only. They have their own record label 'Aliennation Records'.
Edited by yam yam - July 03 2013 at 08:07