International Women’s Week 2025

Chapter 4: Thundermother

What is in the water in Sweden? They punch way above their weight in the music world. Modern pop music would sound completely different if it had not been for ABBA. Their approach to songwriting became a blueprint for songwriters everywhere, and especially in the U.S.

The Swedes didn’t stop there. Swedish songwriters continue to dominate the charts. Some 15–20% of Billboard Top 40 hits in the last thirty years were written or co-written by Swedes. If you are wondering how that happened, I looked at this in my article “The Songwriters Who Ate America”

The Songwriters Who Ate America (Part IV in A Series)

Is this a good thing? My opinion is that it is not. It has led to the standardization of pop tropes that make the songs sound more and more alike. But that is a topic for another day. From a purely commercial standpoint, it is damned impressive.

Sweden has also played an outsized role in less mainstream music. Along with its neighbor, Finland, it is home to a disproportionate number of top hard rock and heavy metal bands. These include some of the major innovators in gothic and symphonic rock and metal. They also include some of the most influential bands fronted by or composed entirely of women.

The Swedish band Therion were one of the first to combine heavy rock instrumentation with female lead vocals. Founded in 1987, they became the pioneering symphonic metal band, integrating elements of classical music with metal instrumentation. 1987 turns out to have been a big year for pioneering female-fronted bands of many kinds. In the U.S., we saw the formation of Femme Fatale, and that was also when Vixen locked in their best-known lineup.

The momentum for female-led acts lost steam in the U.S., but in the 1990s, it picked up in Europe. In addition to the symphonic bands, there were a number of hard-rock and metal bands led by women. I’ve featured Crucified Barbara several times in this column. One of their spiritual progeny is Thundermother.

They are a straight-up, in-your-face hard rock band. If there is a point of reference among top male bands, think AC/DC, but with more clever lyrics. The best thing about them is that they do not let cultural expectations confine them to the traditional box reserved for female musicians. That is no easy thing to pull off.

Women in music face a set of impossible demands. They are relentlessly judged not only on their on-stage look and presentation but on their off-stage lives. They usually have to sexualize themselves to get commercial traction — just look at the inescapability of the stripper aesthetic in pop music videos.

The stars who could easily afford to ditch the twerking and pole dancing still do it — or they outsource it to armies of half-naked dancers. Off stage, they have to maintain the anorexic look, or in some cases, the overstuffed Jessica Rabbitt look, and can never appear in public without being fully “done.” No wonder there are so many stories of nervous breakdowns and so many songs about anxiety.

Thundermother have chucked all that. Most of them have been doing rock for at least 20 years. They have let us see them age, have kids, gain weight, and generally be normal. They joyously celebrate all of it without apology. They are not girly girls—they dress the way they want, which is often torn jeans and T-shirts. They have tattoos, and some of them perform in leather and spikes—when they feel like it.

Many of their videos are full of raunchy gags, drinking, and horniness. None of it seems to be an affectation. Other early female rock bands tried to adopt the biker chick or tough girl aesthetic, or they imitated the male hair bands, and it usually felt forced. Thundermother seem to be exactly what we see — a bunch of women who enjoy being women — without catering to anyone else’s idea of what that means.

The good news is that, after many years of being on-again-off-again and lots of lineup changes, they are still going, driven by their unquenchable founder, Filippa Nässil. She is the only original band member who has been with the band through every iteration, but she has never had trouble finding other women who wanted in on the fun.

Thundermother are not a commercial juggernaut, but I consider them an important band, in the way I think Voice of Baceprot are important. They stand as a living rebuke to society’s expectations of what women should be and how they should behave. And they do it while making it all look like hell of a good time.

“It’s Just a Tease”(2015, from “Road Fever”)

This is the opening track from their second album. Straight ahead, nothing subtle here. That never-ending dance between the office girl just out to blow off some steam and the dude with the fancy car, hoping to pick her up.

But it’s also a metaphor for the band itself. They radiate female energy and had to fend off many fans who got just a bit overexcited, so they made a song about it. This clip features their original lineup.

Oh baby, now you’re my domain
Why don’t you order some more champagne
You know I will drive you insane
I’m sorry, baby, but…

It’s just a tease
It’s just a tease
Got nothing to lose
I got myself to please
It’s just a tease

“Dog From Hell” (2020, from “Heat Wave”)

The band went through a number of lineup changes, and here only two of the original members are still there. But if anything, they have gained polish, and their songwriting has gotten more sophisticated.

“I Left My License in the Future” (2023; later included on “Dirty and Divine”, 2025)

Echoes of Motorhead. This is a live-in-studio version with their newest lineup. The bassist, Majsan Lindberg, was part of one of the previous lineups and rejoined in 2023. She is also into competitive martial arts.

After all the instability and lineup changes, they appear to be set for now, and are currently on tour in Europe. Chances of them coming to the US are not great but if they do, I plan to go. Here is the opening song of one of their sets from 2023. The title sums it up well:

“Loud and Free” (live, 2023)