Dan Swanö

Dan-Erland Swanö (born 10 March 1973) is a Swedish musician who is currently the vocalist, guitarist, ex-bassist and ex-drummer for the band Nightingale, lately vocalist, keyboardist and drummer for the band Witherscape, as well as the Owner of Unisound but he achieved fame as the vocalist and songwriter of progressive death metal band Edge of Sanity.

As a multi-instrumentalist he is regarded as influential in the underground melodic death metal, black metal, progressive metal, death metal, progressive rock, power metal communities. He is known for his progressive rock-influenced songwriting style and his frequent use of both clean and growled vocals.

Swanö has fronted a number of bands, including Edge of Sanity, Brejn Dedd, Unicorn, Infestdead and Route Nine. He has also been a member of Katatonia, Ribspreader, as well as playing drums and lead guitar in death metal band Bloodbath.

He has also contributed his vocal talents to Arjen Lucassen's Star One project. The two musicians are good friends, with Lucassen contributing guitar parts to Swanö's Nightingale project. He can also be heard on the albums Theli and A'arab Zaraq – Lucid Dreaming by the symphonic opera metal band Therion. He was also producer and contributing writer of the band Diabolical Masquerade, the now defunct solo avant-garde black metal band of Anders Nyström aka Blakkheim (Katatonia, Bloodbath, ex-Bewitched). He also contributed some guitar solos, backing vocals on various Diabolical Masquerade albums, and played the drums on the album Nightwork. He also produced and played the keyboards on the Memories from Nothing album by Swedish progressive rockers Another Life, released on Vic Records.

Swanö has also released a solo progressive death metal album entitled Moontower, on which he showcases his multi-instrumental talent, playing all instruments (guitar, bass, drums, keyboard) as well as providing all the vocal work.

Swanö has a diverse vocal register, encompassing many styles, which include death growls; clean, melodic singing with a warm rich tone; deep, dark, gothic vocals and thrash shouting.

As a particularity, he is a left-handed guitarist (right hand on the neck) but plays on right-handed guitars without reversing the strings (highest strings up), which is quite unusual.

During 2009 Swanö re-activated Odyssey, this time performing all instruments by himself. Swanö recorded 7 of his all time favourite songs which was released in November 2010 on the album 'Reinventing The Past', together with the three 1999 tracks as a bonus on Dutch based Vic Records. His brother Dag played guest lead guitar on the song 'Gypsy' (Uriah Heep cover). Lately, Swanö has released a new album called The Inheritance (2013) with his new project, Witherscape.