The Grand
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The Grand

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Discography

The Grand EP (2007)
The Grand (2007/album)

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-I have always dreamt about being in a band, says Amund Maarud, singer and guitarist in the Norwegian power-quartet The Grand, without the slightest touch of irony.

Well, most rock musicians do just that, right? So what´s up with Amund?
Thing is, Amund has actually always been in a band. More accurately; Amund has always fronted his own band. He has put out three albums, the first one when he and drummer brother Henrik were in their mid teens and still played with their father. He has travelled his native Norway for the last five-six years as a professional musician, and is actually a decorated veteran of the remarkably large Norwegian blues scene. He has headlined festivals and he has played with and alongside guitar legends, international as well as local. And yet, Amund Maarud is not even 25.

The great thing about The Grand is the fact that the quartet works as a four cylinder engine, says studio-engineer Sven Olsen in legendary Athletic Sound Studio in Halden Norway, who recorded The Grands debut EP - Every member of the band is crucially important. This is not at all about Amund showing off his impeccable guitar skills, he says.
-This is one of the coolest things I´ve ever worked with. After the EP the band played major Norwegian festivals such as Øya and Storaas.

Alongside the Maarud brothers, The Grand consists of keyboard-player Eirik Knutsen and bassist Per Tobro. Their debut album was released in Norway last Autumn.

The Grand`s musical direction came about in a very unusual way:
-We struck up this routine of jamming at the end of our shows. After a while that was the coolest part of the evening, the one everyone in the band looked forward to, even though sometimes the audience didn´t get it. Some even got seriously mad and flipped the bird to us as a parting gesture, so that´s really what sparked the whole thing, Amund confesses. -After a while some of these jams turned into full songs, and we just kinda took it from there...

Upon hearing the the selftitled debut album The Grand, it seems one is instantly transported through a strange time-warp. Has Rick Rubin travelled back in time to produce Leslie West´s Mountain? Did Cream actually secretly make a ”Disraeli Gears Part II”? Has Groundhogs teleported from the dirty backstreets of London´s early seventies to the east side of Oslo, Norway anno 2008? And still it all sounds new and refreshing...

We are living in strange days indeed, The Grand is touring extensively, and have already played major music industry events such as Eurosonic and PopKomm with excellent reception. Parts of their gig from Eurosonic has been televised by Rockpalast.