Somewhere in the middle of this year’s Viva Las Vegas lineup is an unexpected delight. Linus Zander and the West Coast Boys, all the way from Sweden, were making their international debut and loving every minute of it. “It was one of the coolest things I’ve ever experienced!” says Zander. “From hearing all the great bands that you wouldn’t otherwise get the chance to hear in Sweden to seeing so many rockabilly people in one place was truly wonderful. Especially considering that the USA is the country where the culture originates from. It was the first time for me and the band to visit Viva Las Vegas and as a Swedish completely unknown act in the USA, me and the band are blown away by the great response we had! If I get the chance to perform at Viva again, I will definitely do it – Best rockabilly event in the world!”

When the MC called Zander ‘the Swedish Jerry Lee Lewis’, she had a good point. There’s a whole lot of the Killer’s style in Zander’s piano playing, and he loves the idea. “I take that as the biggest compliment i can get! Jerry Lee is the reason why i sing and play the piano the way I do. The goal with my music is to keep the legacy from all the rock n roll legends alive but also to add a little of my own DNA in to it.”

Much like Lewis, the Rock n Roll bug bit Zander at a young age. “When i was around ten, I found a CD with an interesting cover that caught my attention. I put the record in the player and the first song that played was Chuck Berry’s ‘Roll Over Beethoven’. I got goosebumps on my arms and since then I’ve been hooked on what I think is the best music there is. After some time I discovered ‘Ferriday Fireball’ and that made the decision easy to start playing piano and make it my main instrument.  

I’ve been playing in different bands since i was 14 but in 2019, when I was 22, I decided to focus on myself as an artist. This led me in to release music under my own name – Linus Zander – and putting together my backing band, The West Coast Boys. That same year we decided to take part in a music competition by the name of Swedish Country Music Championship where we participated and won in the rockabilly category. The competition was the start of my new project, but unfortunately we couldn’t really take advantage of the win because the covid pandemic got in the way in 2020. 

Fast forward to 2022 after the pandemic, we started over and took part in another competition – Classic Car Week Music Challenge – that the big car meet Classic Car Week in Rättvik arranged. This also resulted in a win and gave us a new spark and the chance to perform at that car meet.” 

A string of albums and singles followed, including his latest and biggest hit, ‘Tail Fin Boogie’. “‘Tail Fin Boogie’ is my latest single that I wrote myself. I got the inspiration when I heard a song made by another Swedish band that i thought i could do a better version of, so I did.. haha… The lyrics are about taking a ride in a big American ”tail fin car” and just having a good time and paired with a nice boogie beat I think it came together in a good way. I’ve got a studio in my garage where i record and produce all my songs. On most of my songs i play and sing everything except the drums as is the case with this song. I try to produce my songs with a vintage inspired sound. A fun thing I did to get the right feel of the tune was to record my old out of tune Upright piano.”

The rest of 2026 is looking to be very busy for the young piano star. “What’s coming up next is some local gigs here on the Swedish west coast, a Cruise Ship gig (Classic Car Cruise Parade) between Stockholm and Helsinki and later this summer we will play two of the bigest car meets in Denmark, ‘Viking Run, Roskilde’ and ‘Rømø Motor Festival” which we think will be a blast!” There’s also going to be a new album, which Zander can’t reveal too much about yet. “It will feature some of the songs i already have out on spotify and other streaming services together with some new stuff i working on. The album will have a more of a neo-rockabilly sound and will besides released digitally be the first album i release on vinyl which is a big goal I’ve had for a long time.” We can’t wait to find out where he ends up next!

Kate Allvey

Buy your CDs, merch and find out more on Linus Zander’s website