Narnia (band)

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Origin Jönköping, SwedenSweden
Years active 1996 - Present
Genres Heavy Metal
Power Metal
Neo-classical metal
Progressive Metal
Cprog
Labels Massacre Records
Attic Arcade
Nuclear Blast Records
Members Carl Johan Grimmark
Christian Rivel
Andreas Olsson
Andreas Johansson
Past members Jakob Persson
Linus Kåse
Martin Claésson
Fredrik Junhammar

Narnia is a Christian Neo-Classical Progressive Power Metal band founded by guitarist Carl Johan Grimmark and singer Christian Liljegren. The band formed in Sweden in 1996.

Contents

[edit] History

Christian Liljegren and Carl Johan Grimmark met for the first time in 1993 in Jönköping, a town in the south of Sweden. At this time Christian and his band Modest Attraction were just about to release their first album The Truth in Your Face. Carl was member of a band named Sentinel. They exchanged their telephone numbers and remained in contact.

Several years passed and both Christian and Carl had trouble with their bands. Modest Attraction produced its second album Divine Luxury, at the same time as Carl Johan decided to leave Sentinel. Also at this time (1996) Christian phoned Carl Johan and asked him whether he was interested in working together on a project. Christian had a passion for melodic hard rock, which he was not able to explore in the band Modest Attraction. Carl Johan was instantly interested in a project along those lines.

A few months later Christian called Carl again and said to him that Modest Attraction would go on tour to Germany and the guitar player Stephan Mohlin could not accompany them. Thus Carl Johan replaced Stephan. Stephan soon left the band all together, and Carl Johan was asked whether he would like to become a full-time band member. Carl Johan accepted, thus giving Christian and Carl Johan time to plan their project. They took a few old songs from other bands and altered them to their own preferences. In September 1996 they went into the Top Recording Studio. Carl Johan played all of the instruments and Christian sang. The recordings took several months. They had several guests on the album, including Jakob Persson, who later played bass in Narnia. Janne Stark was responsible for the guitar solos and Mart Hallek played the violin.

In January 1997 the recordings was finally finished. After hard work the album Awakening was mixed.

Thanks to their manager Magnus Söderkvist their album was taken up by ten Japanese labels. Nine of these labels wanted to take Narnia under contract, finally Narnia decided for Pony Canyon. In May, Christian and Carl Johan went on their last tour with Modest Attraction. They met Matthias Mittelstädt, who possessed an enterprise named MCM Music. Mittelstädt, along with his brother, Rainer Matthias, loved the album and Mittelstädt became their manager.

With a demo in hand and new management, they began to search for talented new members and finally Narnia was born.



[edit] Band members

[edit] Present

[edit] Past

  • Jakob Persson - bass
  • Linus Kåse - keyboards
  • Martin Claésson (now Härenstam) - keyboards
  • Fredrik Junhammar - Drums

[edit] Original

[edit] Discography

  • Awakening (1998)
  • Long Live the King (1999)
  • Desert Land (2001)
  • The Great Fall (2003) (Not released in Japan)
  • At short notice... Live in Germany(CD version)(2006)
  • Enter the Gate (2006)

[edit] Videography

  • At short notice....Live in Germany (2004)

[edit] Related Artists

[edit] External links

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