Narnia

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.

History

Liljegren and Grimmark met for the first time in 1993 in J?nk?ping, a town in the south of Sweden. At this time Liljegren and his band Modest Attraction were just about to release their first album, The Truth in Your Face. Grimmark was a member of a band named Sentinel. They remained in contact over several years, during which both had trouble with their bands. Modest Attraction produced its second album Divine Luxury in 1996, at the same time as Grimmark decided to leave Sentinel. Liljegren phoned Grimmark and asked him whether he was interested in working together on a project. Liljegren had a passion for melodic hard rock, which he was not able to explore in the band Modest Attraction. Grimmark was instantly interested in a project along those lines.

A few months later Liljegren called Grimmark again and told him that Modest Attraction would go on tour to Germany and the guitar player Stephan Mohlin could not accompany them. Thus Grimmark replaced Stephan. Stephan soon left the band all together, and Grimmark was asked whether he would like to become a full-time band member. Grimmark accepted, thus giving Liljegren and Grimmark 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. Grimmark played all of the instruments and Liljegren sang. The recordings took several months. They had several guests on the album, including Jakob Persson, who later played bass in Narnia. Janne Stark (Overdrive, Locomotive Breath, Baltimoore) was responsible for a 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 S?derkvist 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, Liljegren and Grimmark went on their last tour with Modest Attraction. They met Matthias Mittelst?dt, who possessed an enterprise named MCM Music. Mittelst?dt, along with his brother, Rainer Matthias, loved the album and Mittelst?dt became their manager.

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

Subsequently the group signed with Nuclear Blast Records, and would release the albums Long Live the King (1999), Desert Land (2001), and The Great Fall (2003) on that label. They opened once for Stratovarius during this time.

A live-DVD and live album was released of their concert in Germany, both titled At Short Notice... Live in Germany (2006). The following album, Enter the Gate (2006), was released on MCM Music, as was the compilation album Decade of Confession (2007).

On April 9, 2008, Narnia began recording their latest album. On April 29, Liljegren announced his departure from the band. On August 29, the band announced on their official MySpace that the new vocalist is Germ?n Pascual. Germ?n grew up in Rio de Janeiro/Brazil, but moved to Sweden in his teens. Previously he has worked with various bands and artists, such as Minds Eye and Mendez.

On February 24, the band announced that their new album, which has the working title ?Course Of A Generation?, will be released in Europe by Massacre Records on July 24.

Members

Current
Germ?n Pascual - vocals
Carl Johan Grimmark - Guitar, vocals
Andreas Olsson - Bass
Andreas Johansson - drums
Former
Jakob Persson - Bass
Linus K?se - keyboards
Martin Cla?sson (now H?renstam) - keyboards
Fredrik Junhammar - drums
Original
Christian Liljegren - vocals
Carl Johan Grimmark - Guitar, Bass, keyboards, Drum-Programming

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Original Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narnia