The Calm Before The Storm: The Peterified Story

Swedish arena rockers Peterified - Peter Johansson (vocals), Mikael Johansson (guitar) and Mattias Ingvarson (keyboards) - recently unveiled their brand-new single “Mill Valley (Coming Home)”, an emotional and cinematic anthem dedicated to their hometown Mölndal, a place of memories, struggles, and redemption.

More than just a song, “Mill Valley (Coming Home)” is a story about confronting the past, clawing your way out of heartbreak and confusion, and rediscovering who you truly are. It’s a rallying cry for anyone who has ever stumbled, fallen, and fought their way back.

Soaring, epic, and emotionally charged, the track blends the theatrical spirit of Meat Loaf, the melodic drive of Journey, and the raw power of The Who, taking listeners on a journey from darkness to light, from exile to homecoming.

This heartfelt anthem is the third single, accompanied by a cinematic music video, taken from Peterified’s upcoming debut album Trial By Fire, out October 24th, 2025.

Produced and mixed by Victor Olsson (Saffire, Gathering Of Kings) and mastered by Grammy Award-winner Thomas “Plec” Johansson (Nestor, The Night Flight Orchestra, Perfect Plan, The Gems, Soilwork, Evergrey, and more), the song carries the polish and power of a world-class production while staying true to the emotional core of Peterified’s music.

While many Swedish artists have sung about Gothenburg, Peterified turn the spotlight on Mölndal, the band’s hometown just south of the big city, transforming its streets, waterfalls, and lakeside hideaways into a vivid emotional backdrop for their music.

I sat down with Peter Johansson and we discussed everything from this new single, his career thus far, on through to what the album’s original title was and, oh yeah, penguins!

Being that Trial By Fire is your debut album and is a powerful blend of heartfelt singer-craft and muscular arena rock, can you please explain how it all came together, both thematically and musically - “Well, the initial idea was just to record some solo material. I’ve been playing in a lot of bands and musical projects over the past 37 years, everything from rock, punk and metal to commercial top 40 stuff, and when the last band I played in, Magasin 99, disbanded in early 2022 I was pretty fed up with the whole band situation. I’ve always been a creative part in all the bands I’ve worked with over the years, but I’ve mostly written songs with another singer in mind but myself.”

“I’m originally a drummer, but I’ve also fronted a couple of bands over the years and also play a little guitar and keyboards, mostly for songwriting purposes. I had a bunch of leftover songs that for one reason or another never quite fitted my previous bands and this time around it was important for me to try and find my own identity both musically and lyrically. In the process of finishing up old song ideas I had lying around I also started writing brand new material where the lyrics were based on personal experiences of love, loss, grief, loneliness and it kinda evolved from there. ”Trial By Fire” became a deeply personal and autobiographical record.”

So what were some of the biggest obstacles along the way to bringing this album to fruition and how did you overcome them? - “I think the biggest obstacle was coming to terms with myself and my own insecurities as a singer and songwriter. The first year of writing and bouncing ideas around was with two of my oldest and closest childhood friends, Matt and Mike who I also worked with in different bands over the years. I needed their feedback and encouragement since they know me really well both personally and musically, before I could gather the confidence to involve other people in Peterified. Luckily they supported me right from the get go which led to me finally gathering up the courage reaching out to Victor (the producer) and Anton (the drummer) and my good friend and former bandmate Johan (the bass player).”

As for the album, I understand that it has an emotional backdrop and is a coming of age soundtrack filled with big guitars and even bigger choruses, and so I am wondering if you modelled this album, your sound on some of the big bands we would know and have loved the music of down the years? - “I’m very much a child of the eighties when it comes to music. Being born in 1974 means I digested music both from radio and MTV during the eighties and nineties so there’s A LOT of artists that inspired me on Trial By Fire. In order to help me promote the album I sent songs to about fifty people, both in the music industry and friends not associated with the musicbiz, to help me pick the singles and namedrop bands and artists they could hear in the songs. The bands that were most frequent in their feedback was Meat Loaf, Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen, Journey and Queen. I’ve also heard friends namedrop bands like The Who, Peter Gabriel, TOTO and Magnum.”

“Even though the songs are inspired by a whole bunch of other bands as well, like Slade, Treat, Europe, Manic Street Preachers, Howard Jones, Tom Petty, Phil Collins, Van Halen and Rick Springfield to name a few, I think that’s a good way to sort of sum up what Peterified has turned out to be. The music is very melodic and built on a foundation of rock obviously, but there’s also a bit of singer/songwriter influences and a dramatic, flamboyant side to the music as well,” he smiles

Indeed, a lot of words and terms will be used to describe your music here on this album, but how would you yourselves sum up your sound on it ... and in just five (5) words? - “Oh, wow, that’s a tricky one, but I’ll try: Personal, Honest, Down-To -Earth, Melody-driven, Dramatic! How’s that,” he smiles again.

Please tell us (in a couple of sentences or less) a little more about what these tracks noted below mean to you and how they came to be:

Helpless - “It’s about my ex-wife who I shared a life with for close to eighteen years. I loved her deeply and we have a daughter together. We divorced twelve years ago. Looking back and reflecting with some distance on our life together I, with some help from close friends, came to the conclusion that she is a full blown narcissist, always demanding help from practically everyone around her just to get through everyday life. Always seeing herself as a victim in all situations, blaming others for her shortcomings. That’s what the song is about.”

Dangerous Curves - “It’s about a woman who is so beautiful and mesmerizing she makes any man fall head over heels in love with her. She uses her beauty and smarts to get what she wants. At the same time she is a lovely and adorable person. I think we all know or have a woman like that in our life, and this one in particular I share some history with.”

Mill Valley (Coming Home) - “This is Victor, the producer’s favorite track. He calls it The Lion King, ha ha. It’s a song about rising from the ashes, clawing your way out of sorrow and heartache and rediscovering and reclaiming who you are. At the same time it’s sort of a homecoming to where you grew up, rediscovering your roots and thinking back to your youth with warmth. A tip of the hat to my home town Mölndal just south of Gothenburg, Sweden.”

And was Trial By Fire always going to be the albums name or was there another that nearly won the race come the time to take your hands off the project? - “Yeah, actually the working title was Stand My Ground. Actually stand my ground and trial by fire are lines that can be found in the lyric to ”On My Own” which was the first song me, Mike and Matt worked on. Mike calls it my take on Bruce Springsteen’s song The River.”

Being that we’re not called Exclusive Magazine for nothing, is there a hidden message, a secret notation or an easter egg to be found amongst all the tracks assembled for this recording? - “The main messages on Trial By Fire is: stand up for yourself and what you believe in. Life is a journey, not a destination. If you create a monster, you need to learn to control the monster or the monster will control you. There is life after love and loss, but you’ve got to give yourself time to mourn. Be kind to others, but don’t forget to be kind to yourself so you can be kind to others in return.”

I just watched the video for Mill Valley (Coming Home) and it acts like a tribute to your hometown of Mölndal. Please explain more about it for us and talk about any behind-the-scenes interesting facts of its creation - “Mill Valley was actually the first video we made, but the third single/video to be released. Me, Mike and Matt shot that by ourselves on location in Mölndal in late April/early may just as spring was coming in full bloom in the south and western parts of Sweden. The idea was to capture the beauty of our hometown with its woods, lakes and hills. Especially the old parts of the town and to coincide lines of the lyric like “The ancient windmills, the haunted castle and the rapids makes it a magic place” by actually showing them to the public.”

“The rapids in this case is the waterfalls of Götafors where Mike and Matt are seen singing the chorus. It’s part of the Mölndal river which powered mills and early industries as far back as the middle ages, connects Mölndal with Gothenburg and made sure that Gothenburg city got their flour by rafts a couple of hundred years ago. The haunted caste is Gunnebo Slott (Gunnebo Castle) where Mike is seen playing guitar. You can also see the English inspired gardens of Gunnebo castle in several shots. It used to be the summer estate of English merchant John Hall who lived in Gothenburg. Gothenburg was to a large extent built by the brits and dutch and is reminiscent of cities like London and Amsterdam with it’s canals and architecture. It’s one of Sweden’s best-preserved 18th-century castles, a tourist attraction and a playground and party spot for us when we were growing up. I’ve been drunk on more than one occasion at Gunnbo castle in my teens,” he laughs aloud.

Who designed the artwork for Trial By Fire and why was it chosen as being the final choice? - “Oz Hawe Petersson, guitar player, songwriter and art director for bands like Osukaru and Oz Hawe Peterssons Rendezvous, is a friend of mine. He’s designed album artwork for several bands including Art Nation, Captain Black Beard and Flight Of Icarus. I really like his artwork and we have similar thinking when it comes to art. He told me early on that when he thinks of Mölndal he could see warm colors like gold and yellow and also green. The green hills and the sun being central themes. It was very much a collaboration where my ideas of having a sort of seal with a creature part Aries (my star sign) and part tiger (my soul animal) burned into a wall came to fruition. The inspiration is lovingly but loosely taken from classic Whitesnake albums like ”1987” and ”Slip Of The Tongue”.”

What are some of the last albums (CD, vinyl, cassette, et al) you physically purchased (vintage and/or new releases) and which one have you already gone back to listen to more and why? - “I’m a huge fan of The Night Flight Orchestra so whenever they release a new album I buy it on vinyl. Their latest album “Give Us The Moon” which was released in January I tend to go back to and listen to a lot. They have a unique sound, warm, rich and diverse. They have sort of carved their own niche in classic rock and melodic rock and manage to incorporate everything from ABBA and Deep Purple to TOTO, early KISS, Electric Light Orchestra, STYX and Mike Post sounding TV themes in one marvelous mix. I also love the band Streetlight, I’ve got both their albums on CD. Their latest album ”Night Vision” I also listen to a lot. There’s a lot of Kansas, Night Ranger, TOTO and Sammy Hagar era Van Halen in their sound, which I absolutely adore.”

“I’m also heartbroken of the death of Ace Frehley who’s been one of my biggest musical heroes growing up. Lately I’ve listened a lot to his solo stuff, albums like his first solo album from 1978, the first Frehley’s Comet album, the Trouble Walkin’ album, the Anomaly album and his latest 10 000 volts album from 2024. I have them all on CD. Peterified actually paid tribute to Ace Frehley last Saturday on our release gig for Trial By Fire by playing an unreleased demo of his called ”I Got The Touch”, a song that as it turns out fits Peterified quite well actually.”

What would you like all the readers of this interview to know about the new album and what to expect?

- “Trial By Fire is an honest, dramatic, heartfelt, warm and melancholic album. There’s both darkness and light in the music and lyrics. It’s reflective and introvert but also life affirming with bright moments of playfulness. It’s a story of love, grief, longing and loss. It deals with rising from heartache and pain, rediscovering yourself and finding your way back to where you belong.”

And yes, we ask everyone we interview this very same question (as we are putting together a kid’s book). We here at Exclusive Magazine love Penguins and so we were wondering if you had any love for them and/or had a story of one (soft toy, zoo, chocolate bar, relative, etc.) that you could share with us? - “Many years ago I visited New Zeeland and I found it both exotic and funny that they had road signs, the same way we have signs in Sweden of moose and deer, warning for penguins, stating ”warning: little blue penguins cross at night”. I thought that was really funny and cute. Gothenburg has also got it’s own central park which is totally free to walk around in. They have a huge playground, a petting zoo, a seal pond, a butterfly house, flamingos and a penguin pond where there’s these amazing Humboldt penguins roaming around. Everything totally free of charge. I always make a stop at the penguins pond when I’m there with my family. ”

And finally, we asked Peter to kindly provide a never-before-seen photograph of himself. One that perfectly personified their readiness for the world to hear his new musical endeavor. And kindly, this is what he sent.