Vikingo!

With its in-your-face attitude, primal rock’n’roll chords and sophisticated sonics, VIKINGO! is very much a band of the moment. The Los Angeles-based quartet’s debut EP - Set It On Fire - boasts the raw immediacy of a brand new collective getting ready to take the world by storm. In reality, the genesis of VIKINGO! harks back to the ’90s, when singer/guitarist Daniel Jiménez Afanador and lead guitarist Sejo Navajas were Colombian teen rebels growing up in their native Bogotá. “We were 14 when we first met – both of us heavily into rock,” enthuses Afanador. “We dressed in black and favored a brand of boots worn by Colombian workingmen. They were called GRULLA and had metal wedges on the tips so that if a brick happened to fall on your foot, you’d emerge unscathed. There was something macho about those shoes, and they mirrored the music of our first bands: a trash metal combo called Anima, and a progressive rock collective named Azul Profundo.” Jimenez Afanador and Navajas ended up moving to LA. From time to time, both musicians would express the desire to form a back-to-the-roots, no-frills rock’n’roll combo. Last year, they invited Norwegian bassist Andreas Kvinge Sandnes and 4th Street’s first-call session drummer Christopher Roberts for a couple of recording sessions that made it clear how prolific and self-assured the VIKINGO! way of doing things could be. Sandnes’ propulsive bass chops and Robert’s hard-hitting drumming were just what the band needed.