Clown (5)

Clown was a nu-metal band from Bergen, Norway. Clown history from 2001 (from the band's old website): Part 1: The First Years From Bergen on the west-coast of Norway comes the history of a hardcore/metal outfit named Clown, a band setting many others of it’s genre in shade with their higher state of hard music. This is the story so far. During the latter part of the first half of the nineties, Christer Bakke and Haakon Haagensen decided to start playing guitar and form a band. At the time the band was named Disallowed and the line-up was completed by Øystein Knutsen, now in Culpa, on bass. A rehearsal place was hard to find, and so was finding dedicated people to play drums and doing vocals. However, after a couple of years the band had got hold of both a drummer, Geir Titland, now in Culpa, and a vocalist, Mathis Risebrobakken, and started laying down tracks in a scarcely equipped rehearsal place at a nearby school. Øystein had by then left the band to join local legendary hardcore/metalband Legacy, and he was replaced by Yngve Knudsen. The band made its first public appearance as Clown at a local club for teenagers on March 7 1997, playing tracks like ‘Dirt’ and ‘Fungus’. During the spring of ’97 Clown played about a dozen gigs in the Bergen area, and was greeted with great response and admiration wherever they performed, not solely because of the appealing nu-metal style music, but also because of the energy-ladened performances. On July 17 1997, Mathis and Geir did their last gig with the band. This night at Kvarteret in Bergen, where Clown shared bill with hardcore homies Legacy, marked the end of the first era of Clown. Part 2: A New Beginning The autumn of 1997 saw Geir, Christer and Haakon being forced to get done with the involuntary army-duty. Haakon was placed in the northern parts of the land to serve there, which meant he could only join the band for rehearsals sporadically when he was home for a few days once every or every second month. This was a low-key time for the band, but to end it was never even an issue. The band was looking for a new vocalist after Mathis’ departure, and fate served them well… In the army, Haakon met Lasse. Luckily for both him and the band, he lived in the same area as the band came from, so hooking up for rehearsal back home was not a problem. So we did, and it turned out better than they had ever dared to hope for on beforehand! The band seemed more skilled than ever, and new tracks taking more daring directions musically were about to be laid down. Geir decided to expand his time in the army by signing up for duty in the war-plagued parts of former Yugoslavia, to earn good money. Obviously it was a decision Clown respected, but it meant they had to find a new drummer as well, because they felt it was a very important time for the band, so they couldn’t wait for Geir to come back. The band got lucky again, and Ben, who they had known for some time, joined the band around Christmas 1997. Not only had Clown found a new great drummer, he also had a superb rehearsal place; an old storehouse on the property where he lived. This has remained the group's practising-joint until today. On April 10 1998, today’s Clown line-up performed together for the first time, once again supporting Legacy. This marked the beginning of new era for the band. Army-duty ended for Lasse, Christer and Haakon that summer, allowing them to lay down as much time as wanted to create new material. New concerts were played, and more and more people supported the band and it’s music. However, Bergen is not really a very pleasing place to play unless you go on stage with confidence and a strong attitude, because of the crowds here and their ‘so you think you’re something?’ attitude. For Clown, it’s important to make the crowd bounce, and if they do that onstage, the crowd usually follows. At the end of 1998, the band decided they wanted to record their first demo. THey hooked up with producer and former guitarist in the hardcore-band Slut Machine, Jørgen Træen, and entered his Duper recording-studio the days before new year’s eve ‘98-’99, and recorded ‘So Tight’, ‘Dirt’ and ‘My Design’ in a couple of days. Those were the best songs at the time. The cover-art and lay-out was done by Christer and Haakon with much help from Ricky Sookermany. Everyone was very proud of the result, but today those songs are very far from the level of the new material. 1999 was a good year for the band, writing new songs and playing some gigs, although way too few! 2000 was a good year too, mostly because of all the new, strong material written during the year. 2001 should be the year this outfit gets the attention they deserve. The new demo is done, and the material is stronger and better than ever, and is steadily evolving. The band is determined to succeed, and if the right persons hear them, they will. Part 3: The Clown Style Clown’s sound is not easy to describe, but it’s metal. The material is diverse, ranging from the heaviest aggro-style kicks like ‘My Weak Lung’, ‘Unwell’ and ‘All Your Ugly’ to the more soothing, hovering and melodical songs like ‘Glorify’, ‘Velvet Her’ and ‘Anemic’. Our growing diversity is a result of daring to experiment and playing what we feel, and not be afraid to set our own path. We make the music we want to hear. We don’t try to avoid sounding like other bands, we don’t want to sound like other bands. We want to sound like Clown, and our style is constantly evolving, setting us further apart from the rest. Part 4: The Future Clown is a band with ambitions. We want to succeed and spread our music, play larger venues and record albums. We know our material is of high quality, and we are determined to make an effort to achieve our goals. There are many bands like us out there, and there should be even more of them, metal deserves attention. It’s only a matter of doing it well.