The long lasting friendship of lead guitarist Stefan Gavik and vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Per Malmberg goes way back to the early 1980's when they were about seven or eight years old. Their meeting, however, had nothing to do with music. They were both on the same handball team and have been friends ever since. Growing up they found they shared a burning passion for music and formed their first band, "Snigeln välter", in their teens. The emphasis of the music in those days was put on hard rock and heavy metal.

In "gymnasiet" (the Swedish equivalent to high school) Per met keyboard player Johan Lindqvist through mutual friends. They gelled instantly and Per persuaded Johan to join the band as well. In their late teens they felt it was time to try and make a living off of the music so they started playing cover-songs on the live circuit of south western Sweden (pubs, clubs, parties etc.) with great success.

To this day they are still occasionally performing in this manner (under the "Stämband"-moniker) and have been doing so since 1992.

The Salva-project had been the brain-child of Per for many years but it didn't become a reality until 2003 when he, Johan and Stefan decided to form the band. As a three-piece with Per handling the bass-playing, drum programming and percussion in addition to his regular instrument arsenal they started recording what was to become their debut album.

"A handful of earth" was released on the bands own Perand KB Records in the autumn of 2004 and instantly started getting favorable reviews throughout the prog rock community. Distribution deals were soon struck with Caerllysi Music in the UK, Progress Records in Sweden and Big Balloon Music in the US and sales took off from there.

In 2005, the three decided it was time to start working on their second album. The vision for Salva was always to be a "full band" which resulted in the quest for a drummer and a bass player.

They didn't have to look far. Johan's younger brother, Fredrik is a gifted bassplayer who had been playing with Johan, Stefan and Per in other constellations and drummer Lasse is an old school friend whos musical path has crossed the others several times as well. They both agreed to join the band and work began on what was to become "Left to burn".

"Left to burn" was released in 2007, again through Perand KB Records, and with it Salva continued building their reputation and growing fan base.

Although work on their third album started right at the heels of Left to burn's release, several of the members got married and started families in the years that followed resulting in the recordings taking almost 3 years.

During the work with the third album, Salva were approached by long time collaborator Will Mackie (Caerllysi Music, Hoggwash) and Rob Reed (Magenta, Tiger Moth Productions) with an offer to sign with their newly started UK-record label, White Knight Records.

Salva jumped at the oppurtunity since making music while handling all adminstrative matters had proved quite daunting through the years.

"Thirst" finally saw the light of day in 2011, released through White Knight Records, accompanied by the band's first music video to the track "Primoris Iugum".

The album was a huge step forward in terms of composition, performance and sonic quality.

Plans for live performances in support of the album were forming but disaster struck as drummer Lasse Bolin decided to leave the band focusing on family and day time career.

New drummer Erik Zetterlund was quickly installed and proved to be a more than worthy successor.

The plans to tour were postponed again when main driving force behind the band, Per Malmberg, went through a divorce in the years that followed.

The band scrapped the touring plans and decided to focus on the recording of their fourth album, "Sigh of Boreas", which was released, again through White Knight Records, in the spring of 2016.

The long hiatus leading up to the album had resulted in Salva basically having to start over, re-bulding their reputation and fan base again.

The album turned out to be a great success and both critics and fans hailed the album as the bands best effort yet.

Two music videos from the album were released for the tracks "Gone II" and "Closed Casket".

Just after the release of the album, Fredrik Lindqvist decided to leave the band which resulted in the recruiting of new bass player Daniel Nätt.

The follow up to "Sigh of Boreas", "Off the deep end" was released the 26th of October 2018, again through White Knight Records.

A video for the track "Skyclad" was released and with it and the album Salva managed to further build on their reputation as one of the most original and unpredictable rock bands from Sweden.

In the year 2019, the band again went in to the studio to start recording new material and the 19th of October 2020, "A thousand ways to disappear" was released.

The first video-single "Feeding the flame" was released two days prior to the album. 

What the future holds for these five gentlemen from the cold north....we'll just have to wait and see.