9 years into their career Intourium felt it was the right time to define a couple of things. Define Intourium the band. Define the music... "We feel that we've developed our own sound now, I can't think of any band that sounds like us, at least not here in Norway. We try to combine the trifecta of great songwriting, lyrical acumen and catchiness, and I feel that we've accomplished just that" Bassplayer Balchen confidently says. Well it's certanly rock. They got the rock guitars, the decent drumming and the deep roaring bass lines. But on the other hand they got the harmonies and the catchiness of good pop-music mixed in. So it's rock and it's pop. They call it Rock/Pop! "The last couple of years we've been working a lot more on how we arrange our songs. You know, to get a more interesting sound and add those little things that keep the listener listening. We hadn't been paying much attention to the composition of the songs until we started recording for "I Need You" and our producer totally ripped our songs apart. It was pretty scary back then, you know, when someone outside the band starts messing with your songs, well, let's just say that bands don't like that. But it didn't take long before we saw that the new changes made our songs better. We got to see it from the producers point of view, and hopefully we learned a great deal from that" Three year after the release of their debut EP "I Need You" the band released another EP “Balls and Glory”. By using the same studio and producer as they did on "I Need You" the band is hoping to hit the spot once again. "We recorded for “Balls and Glory” for a year, that’s a long time, considering it’s a four song EP. We're not rushing things, we got plenty of time. We know it's like the biggest cliche but we don't want to release something that will be embarrasing to listen to a year from now." "But it's all about playing live, guess we just mentioned the second biggest cliche of the music buiness, but nowadays you can't take for granted that a band can play live. It's getting better though, the last couple of years a great deal of new rock bands have hit it pretty big. But right before that, with all the lipsync and s***, that was just terrible. As far as playing shows, luckily we can say that we love it! That is the goal that we're trying to reach, you know, living in a tourbus for 6 months a year and playing shows every night." 2006 Intourium
HISTORY
Late summer of '97 3 boys from a small suburb of Larvik formed a band.
They called
themselves "Sanatorium". Starting off with instrumental hardrock
from the 80's, they gained
high popularity with the locals. Later Martin Brathagen joined the band.
After
weeks of practicing Johan Sannes came up and tried out for the band.
He soon became
the new singer! Sanatorium were ready for their first concert. It was
to take place at
their local youth-club. It was a GREAT success!
The next week they had their 2nd concert. Over 160 people payed to see
Sanatorium rock the house. This concert was the release-party of
"the blue album", a CD they recorded in "Bluff-studios"
in Larvik.
Many weeks passed and Sanatorium decided to kick their bass-player
due to lack of talent and interest. Endre Balchen (a.k.a. eb) joined
the band. After some months of practicing and fine-tuning sanatorium
played their first gig with a new bass-player.
They played several concerts (see concert-page),
and earned a good reputation as a band. The only problem was the name,
after checking the www the guys found 2 other bands by the same name.
So they decided to use a band name that didn't already mean anything!
So when
you search the www the only Intourium you'll find is the RIGHT
Intourium. By early 2000 guitar-player Bjorn Erik Nass quit the band
due
to personal issues, the band decided not to replace him. Intourium had
finally
found its form: Johan Sannes(vocals), Roy Holmes(guitar), Endre Balchen(bass)
and
Audun Mangelrod(Drums) In August 2000, the band featured the CD "kongegata.com"
with the song "burden". In october 2000 Intourium had their
first concerts abroad,
playing 2 times in Västerås, Sweden. Later the same year
the guys went on the V-tour,
with 3 other bands from Vestfold.
After recording a few new songs Intourium got a management, Time
Management, but this relationship didn't succeed. In july Intourium
entered
"nrk-urort contest" and recieved top notch results!
Later 2001 the band entered the "vestfolds beste band" competition,
Intourium
got to the semifinals, but didn't reached the finals due to the poor
music-video quality!'
After that Intourium reached top 10 all around Europe on Besonic mp3
charts: no 2 in
Switzerland, 7 in Italy and 10 in Austria! Also reaching top 20 in Germany
and the
UK. The next week Intourium went 8 in the USA!
In 2002 The guys recorded 2 more songs "I need you" and "why
cannot", and got a deal with
Starlight Media.
In January 2003 Intourium released their debut EP "I Need You".
The EP got great reviews
and some air play on the radiostations.
Then in 2004 Johan decided to move to Kristiansand. This ment Intourium
needed a new singer. After a couple of weeks we tried out Mikkel and
he was just perfect for us. An amazing voice and a rebel on stage. Our
first gig with Mikkel was at the youthstage at Stavern Festivalen 2004.
(Written by Bjørnar Dybdal Hansen)
DISCOGRAPHY
Balls
and Glory (EP) - 2006
I Need You (EP) - 2003
Radio (promo) - 2002
Kongegata.com - 2000
The Blue Album (demo) - 1999
