About the band
Arkado began as BB2, formed in 1983 by a group of friends from Ödåkra, a village outside Helsingborg. They recorded a vinyl single for the local football club, Ödåkra IF — a song still played at every home match.
The band went separate ways around 1988. Thirty years later, in 2017–18, they were asked to play a small event in Helsingborg under the old name. The show sold out, and the members decided to carry on. Some line-up changes followed, and the new band took the name Arkado — Ödåkra spelled backwards, dots removed.
The music is melodic hard rock and AOR: big choruses, three guitars, layered vocal harmonies and keyboards well forward in the mix. Two of the guitarists come out of seventies and eighties hard rock, so a riff tends to find its way into the songs. The debut album Never Say Never came out on AOR Heaven in 2020, Open Sea followed on Pride & Joy Music in 2024, and the third album, III, arrives on 13 November 2026.
“Our music is melodic and accessible without being simple or banal. We like to write and arrange songs that sit a little outside the box of the melodic rock and AOR community.”
Patrik Svärd, Rocknytt, 2025
