The Story starts out in a small town south of Copenhagen,- Køge. The band was first formed under the name of “Vicious Circle” in November of ´89, but had to undergo several changes before finally settling on the name Konkhra in 1990. After leaving his first band, founder Claus Vedel started the band under humble conditions. The weekly rehearsal was a 4 hour session on Saturdays in a public building cellar, and almost everything from amps to drums were borrowed. This was the stage until the band after several changes consisted of Claus Vedel: Guitar and Vocals, Jon Clausen: Drums, and Anders Lundemark:, who joined the band on bass fresh out of School, 16 years old.
With this formation the band went on and recorded the first demo: “The Vicious Circle”. This demo was well received in the Danish underground, and the band got their first reviews. But not knowing how the business worked, the band didn't use this response for a further push. They played a couple of local shows and was used by theatrical group on a tour in the eastern block for “sound effects” to their play. Hardly a career for a metal musician.

This developed a termination with the band members and they increased their rehearsals, and were now working on a daily basis to achieve their goals. A new bass man was acquired: Martin Christensen and Anders switched to guitar and was also picking up on vocal duties. The band prepared to record their Second demo, this time in “real” studio, with their own equipment. “Malgrowth” was recorded and released in 1991. This demo was extremely well received and sold thousands of copies in Denmark and abroad. A full-on national tour was set up, and the reputation grew. Konkhra was quickly becoming a part of Scandinavia's new Death Metal scene, with plenty of contacts abroad. All the money made was re-invested in the band and this activity led to serious offers from underground record labels.

One offer in particular was interesting the band,- this was from a danish underground magazine, Progress Magazine, which was doing articles on Tattoo and Metal lifestyle. They offered to sponsor a Demo cd, to be distributed with the mag. The band finally saw their effort bearing fruit and signing a recording contract with the mag. The goal was to sell Konkhra to a big label, once all the press had been arranged.

The cd “Stranded” was released in 1992 and limited to 3000 copies. This scheme went very well for both the band and the magazine, and by the end of '92 the magazine transformed itself to a “real” record company and offered the band a deal for their debut album. This lead to a couple of replacements within the band in order to be well armed for a world wide release and subsequent touring. Jon and Martin left the band, and gave way to Johnny Nielsen: Drums and Lars Schmidt: Bass. Both were shagged from other danish metal bands and this made the line-up strong enough for the debut album recordings.

After having released the “Stranded” promo-EP, the guys at Progress Magazine decided to run the mag into the ground and start a full-on record label. The first and natural choice for a name was “Progress Records”. ( Later they changed the name to Diehard, because there was a norwegian label who had the international rights to the first).

Konkhra felt ready to move on, and was preparing for their first real album recording. The studio they chose was Sunlight in Stockholm, Sweden, with renowned producer Tomas Skogsberg behind the board. In July 1993 the band traveled along with label manager and A&R Andreas Ludvigsen to Stockholm where the recording commenced. Having booked a long 5 week lock-out at Sunlight, and with a enthusiastic Tomas Skogsberg everything about the production just went fine.

Shortly after finishing the recording the band went on their first tour abroad, along with Floridian Hard Core band Meatlocker they toured the american east coast, and had shows in New York, Baltimore, Washington, and several in the sunny state. The tour was 14 days and was an overall success....read the tour report.

Coming back from the states the band flew back to Stockholm to mix their record. This was in October '93, and the record was released in December '93. In January and February of '94, the band toured Europe with american death metal band, Suffocation. Tours for the record included two national tours in Denmark, with Iniquity and Frozen Sun supporting the band. After finishing the touring in the summer of '94, the band started writing material for the second release.

Claus Vedel, founder member of the band found that this was a good time to retire, and concentrate on his family as well as other projects. (Today Claus is still close to the band and the label, he is the owner of a TV and Video production company: Cope Productions, and he was responsible for Konkhra latest promotional video for the song “ Back Stabber”).

A replacement was found in local guitar hero Kim Mathiesen, a dedicated bay area style lead guitarist with a long history of bands behind him. Konkhra found what they were looking for in him, and the band changed their approach to a more traditional line-up. Before, both Claus and Anders were doing vocals, and there was only few leads incorporated in the music. Now, Anders was handling all vocal duties, and changed his approach from the the ultra-growls he used when Claus was in the band, to a more aggressive style, with more audible phrasing and dynamics. Music for “ Spit Or Swallow” was written on that basis.

When the band had written all the material for their second effort, they booked studio time once again in the Sunlight Studio. They went there in the fall of '94 and lived in a camping area outside Stockholm. It was fucking cold, and they were hating it. The accommodation was little 4m2 wooden houses that wasn't built for winter camping. Maybe these miserable conditions were helping the recording, because the final output was definitely the most evil and extreme record the band has released. It is, to this day, a very strong and incredibly powerful release and hailed by many as one of the most important classics of the death metal wave. Produced by Fred Estby, it was a new and harder direction for both the band and Sunlight Studio.

The forerunner of the album was “ The Facelift EP”, which was released before Christmas in 1994, followed by a festival tour in January along with Napalm Death. Konkhra now invested their remaining down payment doing no less than 4 promotional videos during the year. the videos were for the songs “ Spit Or Swallow”, released winter ‘95, Warzone, recorded in January '95, and released winter ‘95 Drowning ( Dead Dreaming), recorded at the indoor festivals with Napalm Death and released same winter.“ Facelift” recorded at Roskilde, and released summer '95.

Spit Or Swallow was released in April 1995, and the band was confirmed for the world famous Roskilde festival in June '95. This was the bands breakthrough on a national level. They played their show in front of 12.000 people and was recorded by both national radio as well as television. Suddenly everyone knew the band, and they were getting exposure in national newspapers and general “over ground” press.

The band was busier than ever, and toured throughout 1995, with a culmination in December where they supported Deicide on their European tour. Playing shows every night in front of 1500 people was an overwhelming experience and surely this was the highlight of the year. Coming home was difficult, by now the band was used to touring, and trying to write new material directly off the yours where slow. Lars Schmidt left the band to concentrate on his own project, Furious Trauma. With his exit some of the chemistry in the band was changed, and frustration raised.

The spring of '96 quickly passed, and the band didn't get far with the writing of a new record. Konkhra now decided to release a live album. The first Death Metal Live album the world had seen. Recorded at the Roskilde with the vibe of that great show intact, they managed to buy some time. But nevertheless, it all fell apart later that year when both Johnny Nielsen and Kim Mathiesen left the band to form their own: Facelift. The newly recruited bass man Thomas Christensen was caught in the middle of this turmoil, but hang onto things as Konkhra took a surprising turn.

Anders was left with no members in the band, and was starting to look for new members. This proved to be an impossible thing to do with the declining death metal movement, and no suitable replacement in Denmark or anywhere near. Anders made contact with Chris Kontos through a mutual friend, and he, fresh out of Machine Head, was ready to work with Konkhra on a full-time basis.

Anders and Thomas flew to the states in December '96 and started working on the next record. In San Francisco, a lot of important contact were made, and among these the possibility to work with James Murphy rose as well. James just stopped working with Testament, and had time off to work with Konkhra on a guest level.

With this new and different situation the writing of the next record went smooth. With new blood, the band was able to make a new and different direction, to reinvent themselves. Death Metal was almost gone, and with Chris behind the drums, some of the tempos got slowed down and song writing took a more ambient turn. Still a metal record, with definite death metal touches, Weed Out The Weak was the record everyone was waiting for. Selling 20.000 copies in three weeks in Europe, the band got their breakthrough on a international level.

Now all that was left to do Touring. But this proved harder than anyone could imagine, the distance between the members got to be more of a problem that they would admit. And as Chris had bad experiences in Machine Head, he was unlike to tour unless something really big happened. The band was waiting for the right tour, and passed on offers from Obituary, Six Feet Under, Death, Clawfinger, and several others, and finally decided to go out on their own headlining tour of Europe. This too got to be a problem. Chris was dissatisfied with the conditions and postponed the tour 3-4 times.

Finally Konkhra decided to go ahead without him, and hired ex-Invocator drum wizard Per M. Jensen for the job. They had a hard time touring in Europe, the postponing of it moved it into the World Soccer Championship, and this made the tour less successful. After coming home Per was offered to join the band, and after some consideration, it became a reality. The band is now preparing their fourth album, to be released later this year.

OFFICIAL BIOGRAPHY (2002)