Metal Shock Finland (World Assault )

Swedish rockers FROM THE SKY will release their self-titled album “From The Sky” on January 22nd, 2021.

After years of touring and writing the songs for his rockband Bonafide Pontus  Snibb wanted to get behind the drums again in a BIG way. And while back there,  why not sing too. He asked his friends Sampo Axelsson and Staffan Österlind  who’ve been playing with him for twenty something years and in their “Tribute  To Led Zeppelin” band and asked if they felt like forming a trio ala 70-s rock  and something very Zeppelinesque.

The answer was no… or actually it was Hell  Yeah! let’s do it!  

They started writing songs together and there was an instant “click” of joy,  musicality & playmanship. 

They asked Lennart Östlund from The Polar Studios if he wanted to record  From The Sky in his studio and the answer was yes. Having recorded some of  From The Sky’s major influences like Rush and Led Zeppelin they didn’t want  to see anybody but Lennart behind the console tracking From The Sky.

The album was recorded live in the studio during two evenings and then some  overdubs later on. It was mixed and mastered by Staffan Österlind with Pontus  Snibb and Sampo Axelsson’s sensitive ears helping out.

This is an album that takes you back to the time when the musicians played  together in the studio and kept the best take out of many (three in our case…). This is an album that we want to listen to even if it wasn’t us. 

About FROM THE SKY:

PONTUS SNIBB (Singer, guitarist & drummer)
has been working with a lot of artists like Mats Ronander, Louise Hoffsten, Mikael Wiehe, Ralf Gyllenhammar, Mikael Rickfors, Sven Zetterberg, Papa Dee, Conny Bloom and Charlie Musselwhite to name a few. Musselwhite recorded one of my songs on his Blues Grammy nominated album “One Night In America”.

He also wrote Sweden Rock Festivals main song “Fill Your Head With Rock” which they´ve used ever since for all commercial stuff about the festival. 2 years ago it was accompanied by fireworks seen by 350000 people at the years grand finale. Dee Snider on stage doing “air vocals” miming him.

Since 2008 he’s the drummer of Nashville based Jason & The Scorchers. Been touring the states and Europe many times with that band.

Supported the likes of Jerry Lee Lewis, Deep Purple, ZZ Top, Nazareth, Europe to name a few.

SAMPO AXELSSON (bas, Keys)
Over the years Sampo Axelsson has come to collaborate with a number of artist and groups, both as touring musician, songwriter and, on some occasions, producer. ”I’ve got the pleasure to work with some very talented and well known name in the music business and I’m truly grateful for that.”

Sampo grove up listening to bands like Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin and others classic rock bands so when the opportunity to tour and write songs with ex Purple member Glen Hughes came up there was no hesitation to join. The collaboration resulted in tours in Japan and Europe and also in co-writing songs for two albums. One song actually ended up having another legend on organ: Keith Emerson from Emerson, Lake and Palmer.

In the early 2000’s Sampo joined Swedish hard rock/metal band Lion’s Share. A very exiting couple of years followed with tours, festivals, two world wide records and collaboration with artists and musicians like Bruce Kulick (Kiss), Glen Drover (Megadeth), Michael Romeo (Symphony X)

A collaboration with Skintrade singer Matti Alfonzetti, named Road To Ruin, resulted in a critically acclaimed self titled album. On this album Sampo also did most of the keyboard parts besides playing the bass.

Sampo has been writing music in a number of different styles over the years: Hard rock/Metal, Country Rock, Progressive rock, theme music for Swedish national TV (SVT). One of his songs ended up on a grammy winning album with the Swedish band Joyride.

In recent years Sampo has done several tours with the Australian progrocker Mike Mills (known from Ayerons Universe) a.k.a. Toehider, In late 2019 Sampo joined the band HFMC led by the singer from Swedish prog rockers, and grammy nominees, The Flower Kings: Hasse Fröberg.

STAFFAN ÖSTERLIND (Guitar)
Staffan Österlind is a Swedish guitarist, producer, songwriter and audio engineer.
At the age of seven he began listening to Swedish pop bands like Gyllene Tider and Secret Service like most kids his age in the early 80’s but thanks to his older brother bands like Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath soon caught his attention. Little would he know that 25 years later he would tour the world playing the guitar with the singer from Iron Maiden; Paul DiAnno.

In 1993 Staffan moved to Malmö and started studying at the University Collage of Music with Electric Guitar as the major subject. That same year he formed A Tribute To Led Zeppelin with Pontus Snibb which started a long friendship that would years later lead to From The Sky.

After graduating with honors in 1997 (master’s degree) Staffan started teaching music at the Senior Highschool of Music in Helsingborg, Sweden. Some of his students would later make names for themselves in bands like The Sounds and Smith & Thell. While teaching Staffan played and toured with several bands and artists and released a few albums with Sounds Like Sarah, Bloom and Slived Voodoos.

Between 2005 and 2008 he played in 13 countries with DiAnno, including Russia, India, Spain, Venezuela, Greece and many more. Staffan also produced and recorded Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir” with Paul DiAnno to be released on several Led Zeppelin tribute albums through Cleopatra Records. He also mixed and mastered all the CD’s and DVD’s from Sweden Rock Festival with artists such as Alice Cooper, Motörhead, Sammy Hagar and Magnum to name but a few.

After several years touring the world with Paul DiAnno and teaching music Staffan moved to Los Angeles in 2009. There he took a degree in music production at Musician’s Institute in Hollywood. After graduating MI he worked at Guitar Center in Hollywood (with major customers like Johnny Depp, Seal, Steven Tyler and various different stars) and toured the States with Tuff, Willie Bass (taking over from previous guitarists Slash, Paul Gilbert and Georg Lynch), LA Velvet, Stacy Barthe and Black Robot.

Black Robot (produced by Dave Cobb) went number one on iTunes US rock chart in 2010 and went viral on VH 1 all over the world with their singel and video Cocaine.

He also worked as a studio session guitarist and tracked guitars for famed producer Tony Deniro, Macy Grey, members of Run DMC, Evan Ross and Motown Records as well as several Sunset Strip rockbands. Staffan got headhunted for Beck and can be seen in Beck’s Sound And Vision. In Hollywood he managed to sneak in his foot in the movie industry as well and did sound design and music score for some indie movies and can also be seen and heard in Huell Howser’s California’s Gold. When he was asked to perform with a Canadian singer at the Emmy Awards in Las Vegas he of course said yes. Good for the CV.

Staffan is now a Stockholm resident, touring on a regular basis with different bands and artists in Sweden and Europe and is still doing guitar tracking for artists in LA. He also mix and master records and produced the best selling album, Always A lot, Never Little with Swedish rockband Close Quarters. The album went number one on Swedish rock charts in 2015.

Lately he has been performing with major bands like The Quireboys and Miljenco Matijevic from Steel Heart and as a member of Arrival From Sweden he tours the world (as Björn) playing huge ABBA shows with some original members from ABBA’s records.