Shellback

Karl Johan was born on February 1, 1985 in the small Swedish city of Karlshamn in the family of an electrician and teacher, has an older sister, Johan and a cousin of Junas. ^[one]

His first musical instrument was a drum built into the stroller, on which he played along with the city orchestra, performing every Saturday. Hearing the rhythmic talent of his son, his father bought him two children's drum sets. Thanks to the Swedish educational system, which makes it possible to study musical theory, vocals and playing musical instruments for free, Johan mastered all the proposed types of instruments at school and participated in a school orchestra. At thirteen, he was accepted into the city orchestra as a drummer. ^[2] The only instrument that Johan avoids playing live due to lack of skill is the piano .

Johan recorded his first song at eight years old on a synthesizer at a friend's house in the genre of comic rap , a cassette record has been preserved to this day. At the age of thirteen, he bought the first guitar and taught himself to play himself, picking up chords for the songs of the Nirvana group. With friends at the skate park where he skated since high school, he created the first group playing in the style of skate punk .

After graduating from high school and finding his first job at sixteen, Johan bought a professional microphone and began recording drums in studio quality. In the basement studio, he recorded hundreds of songs that no one had ever heard, experimenting with mathematical metal , polyrhythmia and non-standard musical sizes. He joined the local post-hardcore band The Distorted Pilot Program , with which in 2004 he won the Swedish national rock contest Musik Direkt.

In high school, Johan met Julius Petersson, the younger brother of Jenny Petersson, the common-law spouse of producer Max Martin , whom she had met since the late 1990s. Out of his teenage naivete, Julius decided that Johan and Martin should make music together, and began to send his sister all the records of Johan so that she would transfer them to Martin. Neither Johan nor Martin were delighted with this idea. Johan said he hates pop music with " three chords and Baby, baby, baby "; Martin, a former member of a metal band himself, did not hear in Johan’s rock experiments the potential for writing pop tunes.

In 2006, Johan joined as a vocalist in the new children's metal band from the neighboring city of Karlskrona, The Shattering and renamed Skörda, which gained some fame among local fans.

In the same year, Johan first met with Martin, having arrived with Julius in Stockholm during the autumn holidays. Martin showed the boys the sights in his car, invited him on an excursion to his studio, introduced him to the leader of the Christian rock band Blindside , who made a strong impression on Johan. According to Julius, Johan greatly annoyed Martin with his arrogance and self-confidence. Arriving in Stockholm for the second time, Johan himself set Martin his notes, which he made in the basement of his parents' house on a computer. Martin listened in silence and did not comment on them in any way, but upon returning home, Johan received a package - professional studio equipment. Martin asked Julius to tell Johan to try to write at least one pop song, to which Johan boastfully replied that there was nothing easier. This time, Martin began to send his comments about the compositions, and Johan had to admit that with Martin's edits the songs got better.

At this time, Johan chose the pseudonym Shell , named after the character of the nerdy turtle Skalman from the famous Swedish comic book Bamsi . In addition to the parallel with the multi-talent of the hero, while working in the studio, Johan could also suddenly fall asleep.

On the twentieth birthday of Julius, who loves pop music, in November 2006, Juhan wrote the first pop song, upon hearing which Martin decided to record it in a professional capacity in his Cheiron studio, for which he invited Johan to Stockholm. ^[3] Johan arrived with a toothbrush and a return ticket a week later. But Martin didn’t have time to record, waiting for Johan to sit quietly in the corner of the studio, while Martin talked with Swedish pop stars Robyn and E-Type and decided that he didn’t want to go home at all. Martin suggested Johan to be a trainee in a studio with a salary of twenty thousand crowns . Johan did not understand that an internship meant fulfilling personal assignments and instead sat inseparably behind Martin's back, watching his work, but on the second day of work he shouted to Martin along the way to buy him something for lunch. Johan and Julius lived in Martin's new Maratone studio. Johan keeps the unused return ticket to Karlshamn a souvenir. ^[four]

At the same time, Johan went on a two-month European tour with the moderately successful band Blinded Colony (The Blinded), which he joined in 2004, playing in the style of Melodic death metal . During the tour, the song “I am a rock star!” Came to his head. Returning to Stockholm, Johan recorded a demo with the words “ So, so what? I am a rock star, I got my rock moves . " Martin showed a demo then in the studio Pink , which immediately chose her for his new album. So What became a world hit and brought Juhan 700,000 kroons in the first year of sales. This prompted Johan to leave the rock scene and switch to writing pop songs. For the next six years, he was in the studio every day with no day off.

In 2013, analyzing with Martin and Julius the reason for their quick success (by the age of thirty, Max Martin had only two hits in the top 10 charts, and Juhan had close to twenty), they concluded that the predominant role of mentoring and continuity in show business. To develop Swedish music exports, they founded the Wolf Cousins studio (named after a character from the same Bamsy comic book), where they invited ten unknown but productive Swedish composers up to thirty years old and two illustrator artists - brother and sister Madeleine (Julius's common-law wife) and Roberta Mullard. One of the studio participants immediately gained world fame under the name Tove Lu .

In 2014, after completing work on the Taylor Swift 1989 album in an emergency mode, he was unable to get out of bed once due to chronic fatigue syndrome , and he began to tremble in his body, arrhythmia. On the advice of a psychiatrist, he canceled all the scheduled recordings, went to his parents, walked a lot, played FIFA , sometimes he went into the studio for half an hour just to chat. At the end of 2015, Johan returned to work.

In friendly relations with the Swedish footballer Zlatan Ibrahimovic , with whom he recorded two songs. Zlatan described Johan as "too sweet."

In 2013-2015, he met with the famous Swedish singer and TV presenter Rebecca Stella, who dedicated the song This Summer's Gonna Hurt Like A Motherfucker from the album of group V of Maroon 5 , with frontman Adam Levine who has been maintaining close friendships since 2011. ^[5] He appeared in a music video for the song. ^[6]

It has two apartments in the center of Stockholm, in a neo-classic style with black walls.

He loves Christian rock, he can often be seen in a Christian Rock T-shirt, but he is an atheist.

Uses Fender Jaguar guitars, Fender Telecaster , Yamaha CS-01 children's synthesizer with Waves CLA and AmpFarm plugins.

Has two cats.

Meriah

• ... Turn Him Your Other Cheek (Demo) (2003)

Blinded colony

• Promo Demo (2005)
• Bedtime Prayers (2006)
• Faith - Sorg (2005)