AC4 was a Swedish hardcore punk band from Umeå, Sweden. Refused members Dennis Lyxzén and David Sandström had been talking about starting a new band for a long time. In the spring of 2008 Karl Backman had written songs for the new band and they started to rehearse. Jens Nordén had played with Lyxzén in pre-Refused straight edge hardcore band Step Forward (1987-1991) and since 1990 with Backman in punk band The Vectors. The "AC" in the name is the regional code for the Västerbotten province where Umeå is located.[1][2][3][4]
The first show was at a squat on Parkgatan in Umeå on May 5, 2008.[5]
In May 2008 someone posted a live song on YouTube.[6] It got on Kerrang's playlist[7] and had over 14,000 hits the first week.[8]
In 2010 their European tour took them around their native Sweden, as well as Norway, Denmark, Germany, Belgium, Austria, France, Italy, England and Wales.[17] They also released the Umeå Hardcore 7-inch EP in Europe, a special 7-inch for Australia only and the debut album came out in America.[18]
AC4 initially refused to do interviews with mainstream media and would only answer questions from fanzine writers who were under the age of 18.[13][19][20] To promote their Australian tour in April, 2011, Dennis conducted a number of interviews with the local press, including Melbourne radio show Bullying The Jukebox.[21]
While on tour in Australia a short documentary film about the band entitled "A few minutes with AC4"[22] was filmed, along with a promotional video for the song "Won't Bow Down"[23] from their debut album.
In May 2012 the band announced that Sandström had been replaced by Christoffer Röstlund Jonsson (DS-13) and that the recording of a second album had begun. The album Burn The World was released in March 2013[24] on Ny Våg records and Deathwish Inc.[25]
The band is also performing at some upcoming festivals including Groezrock on a spring 2013 tour. A week before the tour the band announced that Nordén had suddenly left AC4, but is being replaced by their producer Fredrik Lyxzén.[26]
^"Archived copy"(PDF). Archived from the original(PDF) on 2012-03-04. Retrieved 2010-03-01.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) Sound Pollution
^"Deathwish Inc". Archived from the original on 2013-03-18. Retrieved 2013-03-18. AC4 "Burn The World" LP out soon from a partnership of Deathwish & Ny Vag