Biography

Early history (1992-1999)

The original lineup, consisting of Nikola on vocals and bass, Erik on guitar, and Mathias then playing drums, started the band in 1992 in Örebro (Sweden) and released their first demo tape, Goofy, in early 1993.

Nikola and Mathias played in punkband Seigmenn, who had put out two demo tapes (“Hårda Tider” and “En Sommar Dag”) and a 7″ single (“Omen”, where Erik did the artwork for the record) on KGB Records, all in 1992. Seigmenn broke up in early 1993, as Nikola and Mathias left for Millencolin.

Erik played in punkband Charles Hårfager, who had put out two demo tapes (“Galningars Lek” and “Svenske Mannen Är En Mes”) in 1991 and a single 7″ (“I Svält Och Nöd”) on Korv Records in 1992. Erik would stay with the band and record full length CD “Korpen Faller” released in 1994 on Kamel Records, but left the band before it’s release. Erik did however later do the artwork for the bands second full length “Knapra Och Fly” released in 1995. Erik also put out a fanzine called “Jagular music & skate zine”, however only a single issue was released.

Larzon, soon to join the band, had played drums in punkband “Kung Pung”, putting out one demo tape (“Tung Gung”) in 1991 and self-titled 7″ in 1993 on the bands own label “Pung Records”. (The joke here is that “kung” translates to “king” and “pung” translates to “scrotum”, “ballsack” or simply “balls”.) The band broke up in early 1993.

Early records by the band members:

Soon afterwards, at which point the band had only played one show, Larzon joined the band to play drums, allowing Färm to perform as the second guitarist. In the summer of 1993, they recorded a second demo tape, Melack, at with Dan Swanö at Unisound Studios, where the band later on recorded all their stuff up to 1998.

The band sent the tape to Burning Heart Records, a new record label formed earlier that year by Peter “Babs” Ahlqvist in Fagersta (Sweden), who asked Millencolin to release a CD single on the label, which culminated in the release of Use Your Nose in November 1993.

At the time Millencolin was asked to do the record, Burning Heart had only released less than a handful of records and Use Your Nose became the 6th and last release in 1993 by the label (earlier releases by Burning Heart includes records by bands like Refused and No Fun At All).

At this point, having released their first record they started playing a lot more outside of Örebro.

Success of the single prompted Burning Heart to sign the band to release a full album. In July 1994, the band released Skauch, initially planned to be a single for their new album. However, the band decided to record four cover songs as well and released it as an EP instead.

They put out their first major release, Tiny Tunes, in 1994. The recording and mixing of the album took two weeks. Later, legal trouble with Warner Brothers over the title and cover artwork of the album led the band to re-release it in 1996 under the name Same Old Tunes (the band was on tour in the US at the time, so Erik had to direct the new artwork over the phone, taking the artwork from the back and putting it on the front and change the colors).

Just like after the release of Use Your Nose the band did increasingly more shows after Tiny Tunes was released, playing over 100 in Sweden in 1994.

In 1995 both Burning Heart and Unisound Studios moved to Örebro (Burning Heart from Fagersta and Unisound from Finspång). At this point Burning Heart had grown from a small label to the biggest skatepunk and hardcore label in Sweden, having put out records by Satanic Surfers, No Fun At All, Breach and Raised Fist to name a few.

Millencolin continued to tour and in 1995 brought out their second full-length album Life on a Plate, recorded in August and released in October 1995. The number of festival shows exploded that summer, with the band playing 24 festivals (22 of those in Sweden). In september they did their first tour outside of Scandinavia, playing 10 shows in Germany with Pennywise. Shortly after they went on a second European tour this time in Switzerland, France, UK and Germany. 

At the end of 1995, US record company Epitaph wanted to release Life on a Plate in the US, and the band agreed, releasing the record 1996 in the US. They then toured further afield, touring Japan, Australia, Brazil and Canada, and played as part of the 1997 Warped Tour.

The band came home from touring with Refused in 1996 and had studio time booked, so the band immediately after coming home started the recording of “For Monkeys” with many songs being half-finished or even written in the studio.

The band had at this point spent something like 3 of the last 5 years on the road and decided to take a break for an indefinite time. This break didn’t really end up being that much of a break with the band not only recording For Monkeys but also put together the compilation album “The Melancholy Collection” covering the period between 1993-1998 and began working on the videotape for “Millencolin and the Hi-8 Adventures” that was released in 1999 covering the period between 1992 to 1995.

Early 1997 on April 21 the third album was released, “For Monkeys” with a the “Lozin’ Must” single released in March. The album ended up being one of the last recordings ever made in the Unisound studio as Dan Swanö decided to no longer run the studio and sold most of his studio equipment to Mathias and Mieszko Talarczyk (who had played with Erik in Charles Hårfager and later on in bands such as Nasum, Genocide Superstars and Krigshot) who then started their own studio together. The Punk Palace or as the studio was renamed Sound Lab Studios would years later become the studio where full lengths Machine 15, True Brew and SOS would be recorded.

The first Millencolin song to be recorded in Sound Lab Studios was “Vixen” from the “Lozin’ Must” single. The year later in 1998 Bombshell Rocks, 59 Times The Pain, The Hives and Voice Of A Generation to name a few would release records recorded in the new studio.

The For Monkeys tour kicked off in may 1997 and continued all the way to August 1998 including close to 200 shows in three tours in Europe, one trip to Australia, Japan and South America and another three trips to North America.

The same year, in 1997, Nikola moved from Örebro to Gothenburg with his girlfriend. The move to Gothenburg would soon kick off a deeper interest in beer and almost 20 years later in 2016 Nikola would start a Beer Brewery in Gothenburg called Mikrofonbryggeriet (translates to something like “Microphone Brewery”), having started to brew beer at home three years earlier. In 2019 Nikola would start another brewery called Wizard in Gothenburg with his friend Jonas Gustavsson (from brewery “Morgondagens”).

Later history (1999-2019)

Early 1999 after feeling the energy was spent the band felt back on track again, and at this point Brett Gurewitz (the former of legendary punk band Bad Religion formed in 1980 and former of Epitaph Records the same year with the labels first release being Bad Religions self-titled EP in 1981) got in touch with the band wanting to record and produce the bands next album at Westbeach Studios in Hollywood, USA (the studio was established by Brett in 1985 in Culver City, California and then re-located to Hollywood, California in February 1987, again re-located in 1988 to the former location of Seymour Heller’s Producer’s Workshop studios on Hollywood Boulevard. In a back room closet at this location, Epitaph Records had its first office).

Obviously being a skatepunk band (or skate rock, as they themselves refereed to their style, other than softcore) getting this offer from Brett of Bad Religion and Epitaph was a huge deal for the band.

The band left Sweden for Hollywood, USA by the end of July to record their fourth album, “Pennybridge Pioneers”.

Pennybridge Pioneers, probably the bands most iconic album since “Life on a Plate”, was recorded in 6 weeks and was released the 21st February 2000. While in LA the band also recorded videos for “Penguins and Polarbears” and “Fox”. The same month the record was released the “Pennybridge Pioneers Worldwide Tour” started in Wellington, New Zealand. As the band began the tour in New Zeeland and Australia the record was released two weeks earlier in those two countries.

The day the band came home to Sweden from the New Zealand/Australia tour Burning Heart held a release party in Örebro beside Örebro Castle.

This is kind of where the Pennybridge Pioneers album touring really gained momentum. The band did the Punk-o-Rama tour (for the Epitaph compilation album) and the Warped Tour for 7 weeks. The band ended up making quite an impression on the other Warped Tour bands with their “Beer Olympics” competitions, obviously a competition on drinking beer and doing so fast.

The touring continued in two European tours and a second Australian tour. At this point the band had done 600 shows, with 115 shows on the Pennybridge Pioneers album.

The band started writing new songs in 2000, shorly after the Pennybridge Pioneers tour ended at the Livid festival in Brisbane, Australia.

This time the band wanted to record the new album home in Sweden, and the guys in Samiam (who had released albums “You Are Freaking Me Out”, “Astray”, “Whatever’s Got You Down” along with a few singles on Burning Heart) recommended it’s producer Lou Giordano (the soundman for Hüsker Dü who worked on hardcore records like “Jerry’s Kids – Is This My World?” and “SS Decontrol – The Kids Will Have Their Say” to pop punk records like ” The Ataris ‎– So Long, Astoria” and hundreds of other records).

Before the recording of the new album the band was offered a support-tour of The Offspring, the band accepted.

The band then picked up Lou at Stockholm Arlanda Airport who had flown in from New York, USA in September 11, 2001 or “9/11”.

On a side note, and bear with me here as I’m going out of context: As this took place on “9/11” where terrorist organisation Al-Qaeda-affiliated hijackers flew two Boeing 767 jets into the Twin Towers (in New York) in a coordinated act of terrorism. Begining the attacks at 8:46 a.m. Eastern Time (ET), a team of five hijackers intentionally crashed American Airlines Flight 11 into the northern facade of the North Tower. At 9:03 a.m. ET, a second team of five hijackers intentionally crashed United Airlines Flight 175 into the southern facade of the South Tower. After burning for 56 minutes, the South Tower collapsed at 9:59 a.m. At 10:28 a.m., the North Tower collapsed, after burning for 102 minutes. The attacks on the World Trade Center killed 2,753 people.

This truly horrific and horrendous event did had a really big effect on the band and the whole recording.

The pre-production of the new album took place in Mathias studio Soundlab Studios for a week. The album recordings was made in Little Big Room Studios in Haninge, Stockholm. The album, later named “Home from Home” took a month to record. The title an obvious reflection on the life on tour. Lou later flew back to Sweden finishing up the final mixing for the album, the mixing was also made in Little Big Room.

Just like with Pennybridge Pioneers the Home from Home album was released first in New Zealand and Australia in February 2002 where, again just as with the Pennybridge Pioneers tour, the tour for the new album also began. After the tour at the 11th of March the new album was released in the rest of the world with a release party held in hometown Örebro. A tour to North America and Europe followed that spring and summer.

In October 2002 the band celebrated their 10 year anniversary with a special show at Club 700 in Örebro, a anniversary show that also marked the start of the yearly tradition of the Millencolin Open skateboard contest, then held at Brädcentralen in Örebro (an indoor skateboard park in the same building as the Soundlab Studios and the Burning Heart Office, a building that has now sadly been torn down). At this show Brett Gurewitz joined the band on stage playing Fox and the Bad Religion song “American Jesus”.

The Home from Home tour continued in 2003 in Australia and New Zealand, followed by a UK tour, Scandinavian tour and an American Westcoast tour. The year after in 2004 the band began rehearsing and writing new songs, aiming to record a new album by the end of the summer.

That didn’t happen, the coming record Kingwood was however recorded in August–October 2004 and later released March 30, 2005. According to Erik it was “certainly a lot faster and a lot more punk than Home from Home”.

After Kindwood the band said they had an identity crises of sorts, in that they wanted to do something bigger and more mature sounding than before. Three years after Kingwood the band started to record the new album in their own studio in Örebro and then headed down to Berlin to do the mixing, and so Machine 15 was released in 2008.

In 2010 the band celebrated their 20th anniversary with the “Millencolin 20 Year Festival”, a two-day open-air festival held at at Brunnsparken in Örebro. The band closed both nights playing in sync with a digital backdrop the changed with the songs. Other than a whole bunch of other bands playing there was also a skateboard contest.
The limited Carry You 7″ single was also available for sale at the festival.

In 2015 True Brew was released, and if the last record was a renewal of sorts “True Brew” was definitely a step back to the more classic Millencolin sound. The band toured quite heavily with that record, including 2 Australian tours and 3 South American tours, which is according to the band was why it took 4 years until SOS was released in 2019.