Magnus Karlsson (born 26 November 1973) is a Swedish heavy metal musician, songwriter and producer. He is currently a session musician and songwriter of the band Primal Fear, as well as for other projects like his own Free Fall.
Biography
Magnus attended school to study classical guitar when he was 10 years old. Later on he was very much into "The New Wave of British Heavy Metal" of bands such as Iron Maiden, Dio, Judas Priest and Black Sabbath. His influences as a guitarist were Steve Morse, Steve Vai and Allan Holdsworth. He has played in various metal and fusion bands early on and developed a style which mixes metal and folk music.[1]
His first critically acclaimed musical project was with the band Last Tribe, which has released three full-length albums.
In 2004, Magnus started to work as a session musician in a project put together by Frontiers Records, which had the intention to have two acclaimed heavy metal vocalists singing together as a duet. The project ended up featuring powerhouse vocalists Russell Allen (Symphony X) and Jørn Lande (ex-Masterplan) and was simply called Allen/Lande. The project released its first three albums with all music and the majority of lyrics written by Magnus Karlsson, featuring a variety of hard rock and heavy metal songs with a progressive metal touch.
In the same year he also started to write music for a project with singer Tony Harnell (TNT), drummer John Macaluso (Ark, TNT, Yngwie Malmsteen) and bassist Fabrizio Grossi (Steve Vai) that would later on become the band Starbreaker.
In 2008, he worked with Magnum vocalist Bob Catley on his solo album Immortal writing all the songs himself .
The same year, Magnus joined German metal band Primal Fear making a big contribution to the band's songwriting. He also teamed up with the band's bassist and leader Mat Sinner to work in a number of projects released by Frontiers Records, such as Kiske/Somerville (another singer-duet project, featuring ex-Helloween singer Michael Kiske and American singer and vocal coach Amanda Somerville) and the first solo album by Primal Fear frontman Ralf Scheepers.
In 2013 it was announced that Magnus Karlsson would release his first solo musical project called Free Fall on 11 June in North America and 14 June in Europe by Frontiers Records. It features many guest singers who worked with Magnus before, including Russell Allen, Ralf Scheepers, Tony Harnell, Rickard Bengtsson (former bandmate from Last Tribe), Mark Boals (who worked with Magnus in the project The Codex), Mike Andersson (who worked with Magnus in the project Planet Alliance) and other guests like David Readman (Pink Cream 69, Voodoo Circle), Rick Altzi (At Vance, Masterplan) and Herman Saming (A.C.T). Magnus also sings three tracks on the album himself and Daniel Flores (who also worked with Magnus in the project The Codex) recorded the drums.[2]
The second Free Fall album has been announced to be released in 2015. It's called Kingdom of Rock and features the following guests: Jørn Lande, Tony Martin (ex-Black Sabbath), Joe Lynn Turner (ex-Rainbow, ex-Deep Purple), Jakob Samuel (The Poodles, also worked with Magnus in the band Midnight Sun), Harry Hess (Harem Scarem),
Rebecca De La Moite, and once again Tony Harnell, Rick Altzi and David Readman, the last three also sang in the first album. Jaime Salazar (who worked with Magnus on bands Last Tribe, Planet Alliance, Midnight Sun and the Allen/Lande project) recorded the drums.[3] The album's release date is 6 November 2015.[4]
In 2018, Magnus and Tony Harnell reunited to record the third album of Starbreaker which is titled Dysphoria and was released on 25 January 2019. It also features bassist Jonni Lightfoot and drummer Anders Köllerfors.[6]
Heart Healer
Heart Healer is a project with the intention to create the first metal opera only with female singers, with Magnus Karlsson on songwriting and production. Self-named album Heart Healer released on 12 March 2021 via Frontiers Records.[7][8][9]
Current band members: Magnus Karlsson, Erika Sävström Engman, Daniel Tengberg, Anders Köllerfors
The album's plot follows the title character (performed by Cowan) after she wakes up with no memory and with the ability to heal people with the touch of her bare hands, though that comes at the gradual cost of her own strength. As the story progresses, she meets people willing to help her, use her powers or hunt her.[7][8]
The album has been released on CD, color vinyl and digital formats.[8] On 25 January 2021, a video for "Into the Unknown" was released.[7][8]
Karlsson explained in his words, "my interest in orchestral music has been growing increasingly during the years. I wanted to mix the epic and dramatic orchestral sound with metal and produce something without any limits and rules. At the end of 2019, I started to work on ideas and tried new sounds and arrangements with the goal to create something dramatic, epic, and beautiful. This is easily my biggest and most demanding work ever. First the music with big arrangements and orchestra. Then all the singers and the need to find the right parts for everyone to make it as good as possible. Finally, mixing it all together in an interesting story about the 'heart healer'. I have to say, if I didn't work with such great and professional people it would be impossible to make this happen!"[8]
