The Guitar Was His Sword: Remembering Heavy Load’s Ragne Wahlquist

Ragne Wahlquist's memorial service in Stockholm last month had all the solemnity (and the stacked guest list) of a state funeral. Wahlquist, who for nearly 50 years led the heavy metal institution Heavy Load, has been called Sweden's first true rock star, and Heavy Load is widely considered the country's first metal band. His death on Jan. 2, three weeks shy of his 70th birthday, left a gaping hole in the scene that he and his brother and bandmate, Styrbjörn Wahlquist, created from whole cloth at the end of the 1970s. After Heavy Load's initial shot across the bow, Sweden quickly developed into a global hotbed for metal, a reputation it retains to this day. Somebody in Sweden would have gotten around to starting a heavy metal band eventually. But Ragne and Styrbjörn had the vision and the guts to be first.