Anders Johansson — born in Sweden in 1962 — was HammerFall's drummer between 1999 and 2014, and one of the most notable career paths in Scandinavian metal. Before HammerFall he was the drummer in Yngwie Malmsteen's band in the first half of the 1980s, alongside his brother Jens Johansson on keyboards. That was a context of extreme virtuosity — neoclassical metal played at a speed and complexity few could follow — and the pair of brothers formed the rhythmic and harmonic ground on which Malmsteen built his solos. Both come from a family of musicians: their father, Jan Johansson, was one of the central names of Swedish jazz, known for fusing the genre's language with Scandinavian folk music. That background explains what Johansson brings to HammerFall. The band's repertoire is direct and demands no rhythmic complexity, but it demands constant precision and weight — and he delivers that with the technical command of someone who comes from far more demanding territory, without overloading the songs with what they do not ask for. He recorded from Renegade (2000) to (r)Evolution (2014), covering practically the group's whole phase of international consolidation.
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