”The foremost advantage is his voice, that immediately reveals class.” is what the norwegian newspaper Aftenposten wrote when A Boy Named Sue had their EP-debut in 2004. A lot of things have happened since then, but the unique voice of singer Stig Sandbakk is still to be found up-front. Sandbakk is the kid from a small town at the north-west coast of Norway who moved to the big city of Bergen to become a rock-star in the year of 2000, quit the band a couple of years later, and started working on his solo-project A Boy Named Sue, where he brought along Roy Ole Førland (bass/keyboard/programming), Jan Tore Ness (drums) and Roald Kaldestad (guitars/mandolin); exquisite and experienced musicians who joined to arrange Sandbakks compositions and recorded them live in legendary Grieghallen Studio in July 2006.
Kings of Convenience-producer Davide Bertolini engineered and mixed the entire album.
Stig Sandbakk grew up in a small town in a village called Barstadvik. He started singing in public at the age of 5, and was all the time encouraged to develop his musical talent by his family, especially his grandparents. Now, even though his grandparents bought him a lovely red accordion in fourth grade, his dads old Yamaha-guitar seemed a bit more intriguing. Out in the woods and in the mountain-sides, our young hero learned the arts of playing guitar mostly on his own.
Some years later he finally met his equals, and managed to impress the members of the local rock band ”Yellow Farts” into letting him join as their new vocalist. The band quickly changed name into WOO, and developed into a young acoustic rock band playing original material and some covers of mainly Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith and Grateful Dead. Some years later electricity was back in business, and WOO rapidly became an extraordinary Progressive Rock Band, playing a lot of concerts in their hometown.
A journalist wrote this after a concert in 1999:
”This quartet displayed one of the best musical performances I´ve ever heard.”
This was more than good enough for our young lads, their ambitions outgrowing the little village by far, and in April 2000, WOO moved into an apartment in the city of Bergen. After their first performance in Bergen, The Bergen Times wrote:
”WOO brought total astonishment upon the audience. The band showed that the rumours of something truly special was more than true. A much tighter and precise band is probably unexisting in this town”
WOO won the ”ZOOM” competition in Bergen in the fall of 2000, played at the Norwegian Wood-festival in Oslo in 2001, and toured the country. Yet, in classical rock-band-style, differing artistic visions led to Sandbakk leaving WOO in 2002. Sandbakk started appearing in various concerts as ”Smith&Wesson and Me..”, with his dads acoustic Yamaha-guitar and a girl playing Cello, while WOO later arose as NINTH.
A Boy Named Sue appeared in the fall of 2003, and the band started to take shape.
The debut at by:Larm (norwegian version of South By Southwest), was a heads-up for the norwegian music business, telling of a new exiting band playing down-to-earth and very sincere music. This inspired the band to record the six-track EP ”A Boy Named Sue EP.”
This release received very good reviews:
5/6 www.musiq.no: Stig Sandbakk presents himself as an intelligent musician with a knack for intriguing guitar-melodies, and a vocalism performed in an extremely persuasive matter”
5/6 Bergen Arbeiderblad: Stig Sandbakk is a sensitive singer who makes you listen to his stories, at the same time as having many great melodies up his sleeve.”
In 2005 ABNS followed up with a new EP, released on a limited number of 7” vinyls titled ”7 Inches From My Head.” The Bergen Times wrote the following accompanied by 5 out of 6 points:
”very clear and impressingly consistent project...”7 Inches From My Head” is a very good warm-up for the upcoming album. Might be about time for the record-companies to waive their checkbooks?”
Alongside these releases ABNS has toured most parts of Norway, both alone with his guitar, and with a band. ABNS has on these tours built up a small fanbase troughout the country, and also some fans in both USA and Europe.
Releasing an album has therefore become crucial, and the live-recordings from 2006 developed into A Boy Named Sue´s first LP ” Selling Road Maps for the Soul”
The album contains new recordings of two songs from ”A Boy Named Sue EP”, two songs from ”7 Inches From my Head”, and six new songs recorded for the first time. Additionally ABNS has recorded their own version of The Jayhawks brilliant ”Sound Of Lies”
The songs are arranged with an acoustic sound with instruments like banjo, mandolin, grand piano, harmonium, the red accordion from fourth grade and acoustic guitars. Everything fronted by the voice and lyrics of Sandbakk.
The lyrics are to be found in a universe mostly portraying the weird ways of the human mind, questions regarding life and death, and a message that despite the rocky road this life is, one does not need to loose hope, cause we are all unique human beings with a lot to give each other:
”It´s not an easy way, but we all must walk, and your pretty soul needn´t cry”
The Way It Should (Sandbakk)
”A Boy Named Sue - Selling Road Maps for the Soul” will be released 17th of September 2007, and it is very promising to be able to say that the song Still Blind is already to be found on the sampler Acoustika 3 released by 272 records in Hollywood...
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