Bulletrain

Bulletrain (stylized as BuLLETRAiN according to the logotype) is a hard rock band formed during the late summer of 2006 in Helsingborg. The name Bulletrain was thought up by Jonas Tillheden and originates from the book The Dirt: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band, written by the members of Mötley Crüe. The book describes an accident on a so called "Bullet train", which runs on the high-speed railway lines in Shinkansen, Japan (新幹線).

The band started as a vision by Mattias Persson and Tillheden when they practiced their instruments together in Bjuv. They started looking for other members to join the band and they found Robert Lindell, Tim Svalö and Adam Börvall. Together they formed Bulletrain and the different roles were appointed as follows:
 * Robert Lindell - singer
 * Mattias Persson - lead guitar
 * Adam Börvall - rhythm guitar
 * Tim Svalö - bass guitar
 * Jonas Tillheden - drummer

1000 Miles an Hour and Johnny Gonebad (2006–2009)
The band choose to record their first demo back in 2006 and it was produced by Klas Ideberg. It was titled 1000 Miles an Hour and was released in September that very year. The band had a setback later that year when Börvall left the band. The role as rhythm guitarist was later filled by Robin Bengtsson, who joined the band in either late 2006 or early 2007. Bulletrain had their first live performance at The Tivoli in Helsingborg in February 2007.

Bulletrain's main focus was to release more songs but it would take until the 14th of July 2007 before the band released their first EP. It was titled Johnny Gonebad and was also produced by Klas Ideberg.

The band agreed upon entering an annual local music competition called Popkorn, which took place during the spring of 2008. This competition was held at The Tivoli in Helsingborg and Bulletrain made it to the finals, where they were deemed to be one of the strongest bands. The final positions were as follows:
 * 1) Act Strange
 * 2) Mary Jane
 * 3) Bulletrain
 * 4) Urban Mind

Bulletrain now started to get more and more offers to play live and they continued to do this until it was time to release some new songs. The new songs, "Route 27" and "Eat Me Raw", were released on the band’s MySpace page on the 4th of August 2008. At the same time the band started to play a new song live, called "Fly Away".

On the 25th of October 2008 Bulletrain performed on stage at The Tivoli in Helsingborg. During their show they announced that a music video was in the making and two video cameras were visible in the room. The music video was directed by Eine Beispiel and the song, for which the music video was made, was "Bad Blood (Outta Love)" from Johnny Gonebad. The remaining scenes were shot on the 8th of February 2009 at Musikhuset in Helsingborg. On the 26th of May 2009 the entire music video was uploaded on YouTube.

Turn It Up! and "Even with My Eyes Closed" (2009–2010)
The band put all their focus into getting a second EP recorded. On the 10th of May 2009 a video clip, called Bulletrain In The Studio, was uploaded on YouTube. In this clip Lindell is seen singing his part of the song "Even with My Eyes Closed". The studio recordings ended on the 29th of June 2009 and all of the songs were uploaded to the band's MySpace site on the 3rd of July the same year. The EP, which was produced by Klas Ideberg, was printed on the 31st of July 2009 and the band decided to give away 25 copies for free. At the same time they announced that their attention was to sell this EP (which went by the title Turn It Up!) unlike Johnny Gonebad that was given away for free. Turn It Up! was released in stores on the 4th of August 2009, at the cost of 50 Swedish kronor per copy (approximately 7 US dollars at that time).

Towards the end of June 2009 Svalö decided it was time for him to leave Bulletrain and the reason he gave for this was that he wanted to do something else with his life. The role as bass guitarist was filled by Emil Lundberg. Lundberg made his first performance live in Höganäs on the 22nd of August 2009. On the 15th of September 2009 the band announced that they were working on a new song and on the 13th of October the same year they said that the lyrics for at least three new songs were finished. The songs went by the names "Bad Little Boy", "Phantom Pain" and "Take Me to the Sun". Bulletrain announced on the 18th of November 2009 that they were to record acoustic versions of two of their older songs. These two songs were released on the 22nd of November 2009 on the band's MySpace page, and their names were "Dicing with Death (Acoustic)" (previously released on 1000 Miles an Hour) and "Livin' a Dream (Acoustic)" (previously released on Johnny Gonebad). This was the first and only time that Lundberg performed on a studio recording together with Bulletrain.

In February 2010 Bulletrain performed at the Rest in Sleaze Festival in Stockholm. Later the same month the band announced that they had entered a competition called Rockfighten 2010, which was arranged by Rockweekend Festival in Söderhamn. In May 2010 the band announced that they were going up to Stockholm in late June to record their first single. The single was produced by Chris Laney and it was recorded on the 18th and 19th of June 2010. The single "Even with My Eyes Closed" was not released until the 4th of January 2013. On the 21st of June 2010 Bulletrain announced on their MySpace site that Lundberg had left the band. He left the band on the 16th of June 2010 and was therefore not present when the band recorded the debut single in Stockholm. The bass guitarist during this studio session was instead Björn "Nalle" Påhlsson from the band Treat. On the 4th of August 2010 it was revealed that Svalö was back as bass guitarist in the band. The band later performed at Expressen XL Live in Stockholm on the 24th of September 2010. There they played three acoustic songs ("Dicing with Death", "Even with My Eyes Closed" and "Take Me to the Sun") and they also got an article written about them in that very newspaper on the same day.

In early October the same the year the band went on their first tour outside of Sweden. The tour took place in Italy, on three different locations.

Rock for Japan and a new singer (2011)
On the 24th of February 2011 Lindell left the band because "he couldn't keep up the hard work there's to do for a band like ours", as the band stated on MySpace and Facebook. Their last performance (though without Lindell), before they took time off to search for a new lead singer and start recording Start Talking, was on the 5th to 6th of March 2011 at The Tivoli in Helsingborg. During this live performance there were two singers: Robin Bengtsson, who sang all the original songs by Bulletrain, and Joel Theorin Billqvist, who sang all the cover songs. The search for a new singer started on the 13th of March 2011.

On the 10th of April the same year it was announced that the band had an upcoming record deal with the German record label Metal Heaven (a sublabel to AOR Heaven), who was to release Start Talking. On the 29th of April 2011 the band made their first album appearance when the compilation album Rock for Japan was released. Bulletrain contributed with their song "Take Me to the Sun" and after that the song got some air time on the radio in England. On the 8th of May 2011 Bulletrain announced that they had found a new singer and that he would make his first appearance at Helsingborgsfestivalen, on the 30th of July 2011. Already on the 12th of May 2011 the band released a new demo song, called "Sixteen Seasons", with the new singer though they did not announce who the singer was. The name of the singer, Redas J. Davis, was not revealed until the 22nd of July.

Persson had his arm broken by an unprovoked attack by some security guards (possibly bouncers) in May 2011. Because of this any new songs with the band were put on a hold until his arm had healed correctly.

Start Talking (2011–2014)
On the 28th of September 2011 the band announced their third EP that would be called What's Left Behind. On that day the band announced that they would start the recording of the EP in October 2011 and that Christopher "McGyver" Björck (keyboardist from the band Titan) would join them in the studio. The band also released the song "Sixteen Seasons" again on that very day. The plans for a third EP were later cancelled.

On the 11th of September 2012, Davis' 20th birthday, Bulletrain announced that they had parted ways with him. There were no hard feelings and Bulletrain wished Davis all the best on his new project called Big Time. The band was halfway through with the recording of Start Talking when they parted ways with Davis and once again they had to start looking for a singer.

On the 15th of June 2013 Bulletrain had their first live concert in over a year and it was held at The Tivoli in Helsingborg. During this concert a new singer was present and his name was Sebastian Sundberg. Also present was Niklas Månsson, the new bass guitarist. Svalö had left the band earlier since he had other interests. A demo version of the song "Fight with Me", which was first mentioned in a blog post on the 4th of December 2010, was released on the 17th of November 2013. This marks the first studio recorded song that was released where Sundberg was the singer and Månsson was the bass guitarist. On the 4th of December 2013 Bulletrain announced that in the coming week they would travel to Stockholm to meet the producer duo RamPac (Johan Ramström and Patrik Magnusson) and to finish their debut album. During the summer of 2014 the band was signed to the German label AOR Heaven and it was via that record label Bulletrain released their debut album Start Talking on the 24th of October 2014.

What You Fear the Most (2015–)
After touring for almost a year in support of Start Talking, Bulletrain announced on the 6th of October 2015 that they would release the second album, What You Fear the Most, in 2016. The album, which contained ten songs, was produced together with RamPac and it was recorded both in Riga, Latvia and in Stockholm, Sweden in November 2015. What You Fear the Most was released on the 23rd of September 2016 via AOR Heaven, with a release party being held at The Tivoli in Helsingborg on the 1st of October. A video album was announced on the band's Facebook page on the 27th of June 2016 and was recorded in connection with What You Fear the Most but was later cancelled.

Bulletrain took a hiatus between April 2018 to October 2019.

Band members

 * Present
 * Sebastian Sundberg - singer, piano (2013–today)
 * Mattias Persson - lead guitar, composer, backing vocals, keyboard, sound effects, editing (2006–today)
 * Robin Bengtsson - rhythm guitar, composer, lyricist, backing vocals (2006/2007–today)
 * Niklas Månsson - bass guitar, backing vocals (2013–today)
 * Jonas Tillheden - drummer, lyricist, backing vocals (2006–today)


 * Former
 * Robert Lindell - singer (2006–2011)
 * Adam Börvall - rhythm guitar (2006)
 * Tim Svalö - bass guitar (2006–2009, 2010–2012)
 * Emil Lundberg - bass guitar (2009–2010)
 * Redas J. Davis - singer (2011–2012)


 * Temporary members
 * Björn "Nalle" Påhlsson - bass guitar (2010)
 * Joel Theorin Billqvist - singer (2011)