As a 10-year-old boy I took my humble savings (250 Norwegian Kroner) and ran to the record store to buy the Bruce Springsteen collection Live 1975-85. At the same time I picked up my mothers guitar and my fathers Beatles Complete songbook, got inside my room and stayed there. After having learned the basics from John, Paul and Bruce, I started, at the age of 12, writing my first songs, songs about anything from everyday trivia to global peacekeeping. When I was 15 I bought my very first guitar, a Jasmine/Takamine acoustic guitar. My guitar, the songwriting and the singing was part obsession and part leisure activity alongside a life filled with school and soccer.
When I was 20, I met guitar/bass player Heine Aardalen at the University of Oslo and joined his band, Mojito, as a drummer. I kept playing drums in several bands for a few years, until one point where I felt that I had to go out and perform the songs I had written. Heine, who had become a dear friend and my musical soulmate, joined to support me on the bass. At the university I had also met this remarkably friendly fellow, Gaute Neby, who had been a blues- and fusion drummer for 13 years. Luckily he also accepted my invitation to join me onstage. I decided to use my old nickname Baunen (meaning The Beacon) as artist name. Before we had even started rehearsing, the three of us got the weirdest gig offers you can think of. Never imagining we would get very far with my silent, mellow songs, we accepted every offer. So after a couple of quick rehearsals in Heines living room, on cold winter evenings in Oslo in 2004, we found ourselves onstage in small private gatherings where anyone in the audience could have been our parents, on a big banquet for employees in the social security administration, in tiny, tiny singer-songwriter clubs. You name it. Some of it was great fun, some of it was just awkward.
As our first demo record received great response in our surroundings, and even some air-time on national radio, we started thinking bigger. We found an extremely talented saxophone- and guitar player, Kjetil Raustøl (also on MySpace), and asked him to join the band, which he did. Adding color and depth to our music, Kjetil made us sound more like a full band than before and the audience embraced it. We got better and bigger gigs on the underground scene in and outside of Oslo, and even an outdoor show at Oslo Jazzfestival 2005. Some of our new recordings were also put on air, and not only in Norway.
As Kjetil unfortunately had to move to another city and could only perform with us occasionally, we started looking for reinforcements, which we found in keyboardist Bjørn Viggo Andersen. Through beautiful and elegant piano pieces as well as massive organ attacks, he added flavour, dynamics, energy and drama to our sound. As sax-and-guitar master Kjetil was still available more than we would dare dreaming of, we were in 2006 five guys on stage most of the time.
In August 2006 we played at Øyafestivalen, the second biggest festival in Norway, featuring artists like Beck and Morrisey. Summer 2006 the recording of 8 new songs was finished, which resulted in "Word of Wisdom EP", released on March 16th 2007. In addition to Baunen's songs, you can check out my mates' projects here at MySpace:
Heines ass-kicking rock band Denver Daddy
The wonderful, moody and silent jazz of Kjetil Raustøl
The clever, playful fusion-electronics by Gaute Neby
Hope you enjoy the music, and feel free to leave us a message!
HÃ¥vard/Baunen
