Band of the Week: Johnossi

Hometown: Stockholm, Sweden
Members: John Engelbert and Ossi Bonde
Fun Fact: Engelbert and Bonde met when they were 12 and 15 years old, respectively.
Why It's Worth Watching: The duo hammers out instantly accessible, upbeat pop-rock that’s as energizing as it is dynamic.
For Fans Of: The White Stripes, The Whigs, Paul Westerberg

John Engelbert plus Ossi Bonde equals Johnossi, a Swedish rock duo that proves the latest clue in a developing sonic mystery: How do two people playing just a guitar and drums produce so much damn sound? Agility is the logical advantage of this kind of bare-bones outfit (no dope-sick bass players or stage-hogging lead guitarists to worry about). But it’s also entirely possible for a duo to sound just as big and dynamic (The White Stripes), rowdy and soulful (The Black Keys), and versatile (Two Gallants) as any four-piece rock band. On its self-titled album out Oct. 9 stateside, Johnossi reaches all of these marks and then some.

Brandishing the album’s eleven songs, the two friends have been hop scotching across Europe for more than three years now. While gearing up for their first U.S. tour on which they’ll be supporting fellow Swedes, The Shout Out Louds, front-man Engelbert acknowledges the challenge every young band with a limited repertoire on a grueling “spread-the-word” tour faces—how to keep the songs sounding fresh. “It’s funny, because our album was released in Sweden like two and a half years ago,” he says. “But it’s going to be brand new in the States, so we have to switch back a couple years to get that feeling.”

The relentless touring has affected the band’s sound, Engelbert notes, pushing it in a heavier direction. Given that when the two recorded the album, they’d only officially been a band for five months, and had only played three shows together, the evolution was probably inevitable. “We were [a tight unit] from the very first rehearsal, and that’s why we decided to give it a try,” Engelbert recalls. Along with the aforementioned attributes, on Johnossi, that tightness really is astounding. All sounds are distinct and accessible. You comprehend the input immediately and the reaction is visceral.

To squeeze out a more lush guitar sound in lieu of extra instruments, Engelbert, like many other rock 'n' roll duo frontmen, eschews a standard guitar rig for a more unorthodox approach. You hear it in the huge, blazing riffs and feedback of the second track, “Execution Song.” Implausibly, it’s just an acoustic guitar run through some effects pedals and electric guitar amps. “When we play live, I have seven channels of [acoustic] guitar going through the PA system. So it’s really heavy and loud and fucked up... It’s two different worlds that shouldn’t be mixed. That’s what I like about it.” Bonde, like many other rock duo drummers, hammers out simple yet determined beats. Both guys sing. All together, it sounds like John and Ossi—just like Jack and Meg, Daniel and Patrick, and Adam and Tyson—are good friends achieving a sum that’s exponentially greater than its parts. “Everybody asks us why we don’t have a bass player,” Engelbert says. “We don’t really consider ourselves to be like ‘a band.’ If we would add another person, I think that chemistry that we had instantly from the beginning would be ruined. There’s no reason for us to try it out. It’s like, why fix something that isn’t broken?”

When Johnossi returns to Stockholm in November after a U.S. tour, the group will head straight into the studio to begin recording a second album. With years of road-test gigging and inspiring nights spent in foreign cities (as well as a handful of new effects pedals that Engelbert is fired up to use in the studio), you can expect a wave of deafening buzz to roll across the Atlantic heralding the release. All signs indicate that it will be well-deserved.

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