War (Swedish band)
Encyclopedia
War was a Swedish black metal supergroup
Supergroup (music)
In the late 1960s, the term supergroup was coined to describe "a rock music group whose performers are already famous from having performed individually or in other groups"....

, formed by Tony "IT" Särkkä
Tony Särkkä
Tony Särkkä, who goes by the stage name It, is a Swedish-Gipsy multi-instrumentalist who has played in many black metal bands. He plays guitar, drums and bass guitar as well as doing vocals. He is joined by Jim Berger in many projects. His projects include Abruptum, Ophthalamia, Vondur, Incision,...

 of Abruptum
Abruptum
Abruptum was a black metal and dark ambient band from Sweden formed in 1989 by IT , All , and Ext. IT had already planned to create the band in 1987, but it wasn't until 1990 that he found the right members to do it. The same year, they recorded their first two demos. After the release of the...

, David "Blackmoon" Parland
David Parland
David Parland is a Swedish metal guitarist, best known for his work in the bands Dark Funeral, Necrophobic and Infernal, in all of which he was one of the founding members.-Biography:...

 of Dark Funeral
Dark Funeral
Dark Funeral is a black metal band from Stockholm, Sweden, founded by guitarists Blackmoon and Lord Ahriman in 1993. They are one of the bands to have emerged in Sweden during the Second wave of black metal....

 and Peter Tägtgren
Peter Tägtgren
Alf Peter Tägtgren is a Swedish musician and producer. He is the founder, main songwriter, lead vocalist, and guitarist of the death metal band Hypocrisy as well as the industrial metal band PAIN in which he is the only member....

 of Hypocrisy
Hypocrisy (band)
Hypocrisy is a melodic death metal band from Sweden. It was formed in 1990 in Ludvika, Sweden by Peter Tägtgren.Musically, the band started off with a traditional death metal sound on their first albums, and soon drifted to become a melodic death metal band. The lyrics in their early stages -...

.

War was formed in 1995 when Blackmoon attended an Abruptum recording session in Peter Tägtgren’s The Abyss Studios
The Abyss (recording studio)
The Abyss is a recording studio in Pärlby outside Ludvika, Sweden. It is owned and operated by record producer and musician Peter Tägtgren.-Recordings:...

. After the recordings, IT, Blackmoon and Tägtgren had a discussion about the scene, about the murder of Euronymous
Euronymous
Øystein Aarseth , who went by the pseudonym Euronymous, was a Norwegian guitarist and co-founder of the Norwegian black metal band Mayhem...

 and IT's True Satanist Horde. They discussed to record an album and give any money they would earn to the True Satanist Horde. It was also discussed to have killed Varg Vikernes
Varg Vikernes
Varg Vikernes is a Norwegian black metal musician, writer, philosopher, religious and political activist, arsonist and convicted murderer.Vikernes was born near Bergen, Norway. In 1991, he founded the one-man music project Burzum, which quickly became popular within the early Norwegian black metal...

 who had murdered Euronymous. As IT said: "We knew people inside the "Cunts" prison, who would have him killed for a certain amount of money, at that moment we hatched the idea of recording an album and that any money earned from it would directly go to the Hordes bank account. This is how WAR was born."

According to Blackmoon, "We decided loaded out of our minds, to form a band that night...a band that should be like a true fist to the face to all the theatrical, keyboards, female vocals, troll singing black metal bands that were coming out at the time". Unlike those bands, War played primitive black metal with lyrics mostly about Satan and war, but also recorded the racist
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...

 song "I Am Elite" with lyrics such as "Stand aside for the superior race
Master race
Master race was a phrase and concept originating in the slave-holding Southern US. The later phrase Herrenvolk , interpreted as 'master race', was a concept in Nazi ideology in which the Nordic peoples, one of the branches of what in the late-19th and early-20th century was called the Aryan race,...

. You are nothing but worms
" and "Nigger
Nigger
Nigger is a noun in the English language, most notable for its usage in a pejorative context to refer to black people , and also as an informal slang term, among other contexts. It is a common ethnic slur...

s and kike
Kike
Kike is a derogatory slur used to refer to a Jew.-Etymology:The source of the term is uncertain. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it may be an alteration of the endings –ki or –ky common in the personal names of Jews in eastern Europe who immigrated to the United States in the early...

s, stay away
".

In 1997 the band released its first EP "Total War", featuring IT and Blackmoon on guitars, Peter Tägtgren on drums, Mikael Hedlund of Hypocrisy on bass and Jim "All" Berger
Jim Berger
Jim Berger is a Swedish black metal singer who goes by the stage name All. His original project was Abruptum. He also performed in many side-projects including Ophthalamia, Vondur, War, usually with Tony Särkkä.-Sources:...

 of Abruptum, Ophthalamia
Ophthalamia
Ophthalamia was a Swedish heavy metal band that formed in 1989.-Biography:Ophthalamia was started in 1989 by singer All and guitarist It, both also active in the musical groups Abruptum and Vondur. The band named themselves Ophthalamia after a fantasy-world created by It. He created and named the...

 and Vondur
Vondur
Vondur was a black metal band from Sweden. It was made up of members of the bands Ophthalamia and Abruptum, "It" and "All" . The sound could be described as primitive black metal, though rumors have claimed that this was conceived as a joke band...

 on vocals, on Necropolis Records
Necropolis Records
Necropolis Records was a record label founded in 1993, mainly providing an American home for extreme black metal to start. The label's roster included artists such as Archgoat, The Black, Incantation, Satanic Slaughter, Witchery, Rotten Sound, Babylon Whores, Dissection, Dawn,, Vondur, Impaled and...

.
They also featured on the Bathory
Bathory (band)
Bathory was a Swedish heavy metal band, formed by Quorthon in 1983. They are regarded as pioneers of both black metal and viking metal. Quorthon remained the main songwriter and member of Bathory for more than two decades. Bathory was permanently ended after Quorthon's death in 2004...

 tribute album In Conspiracy With Satan released in 1998, performing the final song titled War.
In 1999 they released their album "We Are War" with All on vocals, Blackmoon on guitars, David "Impious" Larsson of In Aeternum on bass and Lars Szöke, one more Hypocrisy member, on drums and guitars. IT had left the black metal scene in the meantime.

The band had to change its name to Total War as there was already another band called War
War (band)
War is an American funk band from California, known for the hit songs "Low Rider", "Spill the Wine", "The Cisco Kid" and "Why Can't We Be Friends?". Formed in 1969, War was a musical crossover band which fused elements of rock, funk, jazz, Latin, rhythm and blues, and reggae...

 and was put on hold in 2001, but released "We Are...Total War", a compilation of material released before.

Members

  • All (Jim Berger
    Jim Berger
    Jim Berger is a Swedish black metal singer who goes by the stage name All. His original project was Abruptum. He also performed in many side-projects including Ophthalamia, Vondur, War, usually with Tony Särkkä.-Sources:...

    ) - Vocals
  • David "Blackmoon" Parland
    David Parland
    David Parland is a Swedish metal guitarist, best known for his work in the bands Dark Funeral, Necrophobic and Infernal, in all of which he was one of the founding members.-Biography:...

     - Guitar
  • David "Impious" Larsson - Guitars, Vocals

Former members

  • Mikael Hedlund - Bass
  • Lars Szöke - Session drums on We Are War
  • IT (Tony Särkkä
    Tony Särkkä
    Tony Särkkä, who goes by the stage name It, is a Swedish-Gipsy multi-instrumentalist who has played in many black metal bands. He plays guitar, drums and bass guitar as well as doing vocals. He is joined by Jim Berger in many projects. His projects include Abruptum, Ophthalamia, Vondur, Incision,...

    ) - Guitars
  • Peter Tägtgren
    Peter Tägtgren
    Alf Peter Tägtgren is a Swedish musician and producer. He is the founder, main songwriter, lead vocalist, and guitarist of the death metal band Hypocrisy as well as the industrial metal band PAIN in which he is the only member....

    - Drums

Discography

  • Total War (EP, 1997)
  • We Are War (Full-length, 1999)
  • We Are...Total War (compilation, 2001)
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