Johan Airijoki

Small bags are allowed inside the venue – no bigger than a sheet of A4 paper.

Johan Airijoki has built a reputation as a live act beyond the ordinary. Groovy, hypnotic, dynamic. With each show, his audience has grown. For a long time, Johan Airijoki has been something of a hidden gem, cherished by those who discovered his songwriting on their own.
From being a favorite in the northern parts of Sweden, he has grown to sell out major rock clubs in Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö.

On December 13, Johan Airijoki will gather his band and fans at Fållan in Stockholm.

His sixth album, “Rockens vingar” (“The Wings of Rock”), will be released on October 10 via Top Hit Records. The album dares to explore a wide spectrum of genres, with the common thread being a warm, organic, live-recorded sound. With its inherent eclecticism, “Rockens vingar” is simultaneously Airijoki’s heaviest and most fragile album to date.

“I come from a homemade, lo-fi-inspired musical background. Since then, I’ve tried out a lot of different styles, and I think I’ll keep exploring. ‘Rockens vingar’ has quite a bit of rock in it. The guitar amp is turned up, and there’s a lot of energy in the music.
But there are also country tracks—or at least what you might call country. At a certain age, you start getting into country music. Before that, you think it just sounds kind of cheesy, like dance bands. But then you begin to understand that contrast between upbeat melodies and pitch-black lyrics—how exciting that tension is. That’s the path that led me to write more country-ish songs.”

A defining characteristic of “Rockens vingar” is the streak of humor found in the lyrics—something Airijoki sees as a vital part of songwriting:

“In how we communicate with people, there’s always a thread of humor. Even when life is at its darkest and heaviest, there’s always some humor—gallows humor. And that’s in my songs too.
Where I come from in the north, people have dark humor, really pitch-black, and I think that’s shaped my writing a lot. It’s like a crooked smile—that’s something I really like.”

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