Zonaria was formed during 2001 by the 14 year old Power Metal guitar player Simon Berglund. He and his friends, Christoffer Wikström (bass) and Mikael Hammarberg (vocals), started playing together at their school just for fun. Later on they got in touch with the drummer Claes-Göran Nydahl and started rehearsing at a regular basis. After a year of just playing covers, Emil Nyström joined as a second guitar player and things started to happen. At this time, around 2003, the band felt that they needed to move on, so Simon started writing songs. The sound at this stage was similar to bands like Persuader and Morifade. Soon Christoffer left the band to concentrate on chess playing and Claes-Göran had to leave the band because of lack of motivation and skills. This was also the time when Simon’s song writing became heavier so they felt that a new name was needed. After a check in a Latin dictionary, they found that Zonaria suited their music style.
Now Kalle Flodin (bass) came in to the band like a fresh wind together with the drummer Niklas Lindroth and the keyboard player Johan Aronsson. Unfortunately Niklas didn’t have any interest for the music and Mikael never showed up at the rehearsals so they left the band just a couple of months later. That’s when the talented drummer Simon Carlén came in to the band and Simon Berglund took over the microphone duties. The band did a couple of gigs and then Johan left the band due to the same reason as Niklas.
During the last months of 2004, Gustav Svensson came in to handle the keyboards, and the band did some more gigs and recorded a couple of more songs. At this stage, the sound of Zonaria turned in to the sound that the band has today. Unfortunately Gustav and Simon Carlén felt that the band was not their thing, so they left it. Zonaria kept on working with the demo and later found the drummer Emanuel “Cebbe” Isaksson after a couple of try-outs.
ZONARIA
