Interview by Ali Williams
H.E.A.T are not exactly sitting around polishing old trophies and talking about the glory days. When HEAVY's Ali Williams caught up with Jimmy Jay, the Swedish melodic rock machine was holed up in rehearsal mode, fresh off the Spanish leg of their Welcome To The Future 2026 run and already gearing up for the next round of work.
In classic H.E.A.T fashion, there is no neat little pause between touring and recording. The band is heading into Hamburg to start work on the next album, with more than twenty songs already written and waiting to be narrowed down to the strongest ten or so. Jimmy made it clear this one is being approached with a more live, in-the-room mindset too, leaning back toward the kind of energy that made earlier releases hit so hard. Less stitched together in separate corners, more five blokes in a room pushing air and rattling the walls. That alone should be enough to get fans interested before a single note has even escaped into the wild.
There is also something deeply satisfying about hearing a band twenty years in still sound hungry rather than merely organised. H.E.A.T hit their 20-year anniversary next year, which is long enough for most bands to either implode, become a tribute act to themselves, or start releasing albums that sound like they were assembled by committee and a legal team. Jimmy, though, spoke with the kind of grounded pride that only comes from a band that has genuinely worked for its place. He describes H.E.A.T as classic Scandinavian melodic heavy metal and hard rock, and there is no need to dress that up in fancier language than it deserves. They know what they are, they know what they do well, and they have built a loyal following by sticking a boot through the door not by politely knocking.
Coming out of the Stockholm suburbs, with the broader Scandinavian legacy of hard rock and metal humming in the background, has clearly helped shape that instinct. Not in a smug, self-congratulatory way, either. More in the sense that if you grow up in a place where this music is woven into the cultural fabric, it is easier to treat it as something lived rather than borrowed.
That authenticity carries through to the band’s line-up story, which Jimmy recounted without turning it into some dramatic soap opera. H.E.A.T began as a six-piece, later dropped to five, and have only really had one major shake-up at the microphone. After original vocalist Kenny Leckremo left, Erik Grönwall stepped in for a decade-long run before moving on, with Kenny eventually returning and bringing things full circle. The result now is a band that feels about as close to its original DNA as it possibly can.
For longtime fans, that matters. For newer ones, it explains why H.E.A.T still feel connected to their roots instead of merely trading on them. Jimmy also touched on the audience the band attracts, and it was one of the more telling parts of the chat. He reckons the crowd seems to stay roughly the same age, which is a very funny way of saying younger fans keep finding them while the old guard refuses to bugger off. That is not a bad place to be. It means the band has managed the rare trick of staying relevant without trying to act twenty years younger than they are. No desperate trend-chasing, no identity crisis, just a solid crowd of people who actually give a damn about music.
Of course, for Australian fans, the immediate excitement is the upcoming run of shows in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney this April. It will be the band’s third trip Down Under, which means they are well past the polite “great to be here” stage and into the territory of knowing what they are in for. Jimmy spoke warmly about returning, even if the small matter of a 25-hour flight sits between Stockholm and Brisbane like a punishment designed by an especially vindictive travel agent.
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