Joakim Brodén is the lead vocalist, keyboardist, and occasional third guitarist of Sabaton.
Biography[]
Joakim Brodén is half-Swedish and half-Czech. His father, Ulf Olof Brodén is a Swede from Falun, and his mother Anna is from Prague, Czech Republic. His parents met in Prague in the 70's when his father worked there. By the end of 70's his parents moved to Sweden.[1] He has dual citizenship, both Swedish and Czech.[2] He became a metalhead at an early age, when as a kid, he saw the Twisted Sister's video to "We're Not Gonna Take It" or "I Wanna Rock". Joakim started playing Hammond Organ at the age of 10. He played a lot of church organs because they are so similar to the Hammond Organ. He's not a religious person, but likes their sound.[3] He studied music production, radio broadcasting. "A little big of everything, actually". Before Sabaton, Joakim was a music teach for a year.[4] Since he was in Sabaton since he was 18, Joakim did some jobs to be able to pay the bills.[5]
Career[]
Brodén founded Sabaton in 1999 with bassist Pär Sundström. Initially, he was a keyboard player and wanted to sing only until the band finds a permanent vocalist.
Joakim: "I started out as a keyboard player or actually a Hammond church organ is how I started out. When I came into Sabaton, it was named Aeon at that time and then we changed the name in late 99′ to Sabaton. I was still the keyboarder, but, I was singing until we found a found a singer. Then they fucking found a keyboarder in 2005 instead. I got stuck with it. I never planned to be a singer at all. That was the furthest away from my plans you could possibly imagine. I was considering not even being a professional musician at all. That would be something I did on the side just for fun." [6]
Trademarks[]
- Mohawk haircut
- "Squared" facial hair
- Aviator sunglasses
- Vest studded with metal plates
- Hits his knee with a fist during live performances and videos
How did he got his vest with metal plates and glasses:
Joakim: "I saw this crazy vest in London, with a six pack and I thought: “This looks fun, maybe I’ll wear it for Halloween someday”, you know. And at that point we had leather, normal metal stage clothes. So we were going to make a video for the song Attero Dominatus and it was the drummer of Nocturnal Rites actually, who said he had an idea to do it in a bunker like when Hitler was hiding, since it was about the final storm of Berlin. Then we thought that maybe we should also have camo pants, and he agreed but said that we shouldn’t get the normal ones so that no matter which lights we’re on, it would look good. And then I think it was Pär or Rich who said: “Joakim, why don’t you put that fake six pack on?” since we were all wearing black tops. Then I put the sunglasses on because basically I have bad vision. I had normal glasses, but if you film someone with bad vision up close then you see that their eyes are not focused. So to avoid looking strange, since I didn’t have contact lenses at the time, I put sunglasses on. That was also nice because I’m sensitive to light too and we had lots of them there. So we recorded the video and thought it looked cool; we showed it to some friends and everybody liked it. They said our new stage clothes were fucking awesome! (laughs) So yeah, all of this slowly but surely evolved; we never had a plan. I think it’s a good thing because everything – the music, stage clothes, war theme, genre – everything was natural evolution for us. And that’s a lucky thing. Even though our music is not the same since 2001 maybe, you can still see this natural evolution but also still hear it’s the same band. And I think that’s how we want to keep it. We’re happy with what we’re doing and it seems like people like it too. So why stop?" [7]
In one of the interviews, Joakim was asked what was the reason besides aesthetic, why he wears sunglasses on stage:
Joakim: "The obvious reason is because we use some much light on stage I almost got blind and couldn’t effectively communicate with the crowd. It kind of became a thing after that so that when I didn’t use them for one tour, photographers asked me to put the sunglasses back on!
They’re also handy for when the stage goes black and we’re to come off stage and then come back on after a cool intro. It can be pretty fucking dark so the guys who have had all the light in their eyes sort of fumble their way off stage whereas I can take the sunglasses off and just walk off stage normally!" [8]
Discography[]
- Fist for Fight
- Primo Victoria (2005)
- Attero Dominatus (2006)
- Metalizer (2007)
- The Art of War (2008)
- Coat of Arms (2010)
- Carolus Rex (2012)
- Heroes (2014)
- The Last Stand (2016)
- The Great War (2019)
- The War to End All Wars (2022)
Guest Appearances[]
- Desert - "Lament For Soldier’s Glory (Order 227)" (2010)
- Van Canto - "Primo Victoria" (2011)
- Twilight Force - "Enchanted Dragon of Wisdom" (2014)
- Twilight Force - "The Power of the Ancient Force" (2014)
- Twilight Force - "Gates of Glory" (2014)
- Wisdom - "Rise of the Wise" (2016)
- Twilight Force - "Heroes of Mighty Magic" (2016)
- Twilight Force - "Gates of Glory" (2016)
- Doro - "All We Are" (2016)
- Pain - "Call Me" (2016)
- Hulkoff - "Ibor & Aio" (2017)
- Thobbe Englund - "I am a Viking" (2018)
- Follow The Cipher - "Starlight" (2018)
- Grailknights - "Pumping Iron Power" (2019)
- Babymetal - "Oh! Majinai" (2019)
Apocalyptica - "Live or Die" (2020)