Saturnus Biography 2012
The history of Saturnus (or as someone would call.....The beginning)
In 1991 lead-vocalist Thomas A.G. Jensen started looking for people to start a death-metal band. He hooked up with bass-player Brian Hansen who was also looking for people into the same act. After a few months the band (at that time called "Assesino") was joined by a drummer and guitarist. In 1992 the drummer was replaced and an additional guitarist entered the band. In the following year a number of musicians entered and left the band.
In 1993 the people of Assesino were Thomas A.G. Jensen (vocal), Brian Hansen (bass), Christian Brenner (guitar), Pouli Choir (drums), Kim Sindahl (guitar). The band played at a metal-competition (Judgment Day) in BarBue (Huset, Cph.) and ended up second out of eight bands. Shortly after the band split up and Thomas, Brian and Kim Sindahl found a new drummer, Jesper Saltoft. A month later Kim Sindahl left the band and guitarist Mikkel Andersen joined in. It would not be long after Mikkel joined the band that a keyboard player was found, his name Anders Ro Nielsen. At this time the name "Assesino" was replaced by Saturnus.
In 1994 guitarist Kim Larsen entered the band making it a sextet. It was round these days the group left death-metal to play more doomy stuff ("Astral Dawn" is a reminiscent of the elder period of SATURNUS).
In 1995 guitarist Mikkel Andersen left the band but he has continued to be an active lyric-writer. The band played a number of gigs in Copenhagen with other Danish metal-acts.
Early in 1996 the band played a gig with British My Dying Bride. The impact of this meeting lead to a further change of style, and during 1996 SATURNUS developed their present sound, the slow, melancholic mixture of doom and gothic metal.
At the end of the year the band was signed to Euphonious Records (a division of Voices of Wonder), and in January 1997 "Paradise Belongs to You" was released.
At the same time guitarist Morten Skrubbeltrang entered the band making it once again a sextet with the following line-up : Thomas (vocal), Brian Hansen (bass), Jesper Saltoft (drums), Anders (keyboards), Kim Larsen (guitar) and Morten Skrubbeltrang (guitar).
During the first half of 1997 the group played a number of show in Copenhagen.
The most renown of these was a 5 hour gig in Sct. Stefan's Church on Good-Friday, the inside of the church was covered in white sheets, upon which different images was projected, the band was supported by a live classical choir of 20 women.
On the 29th of June 1997 the band played yet another memorable show, Saturnus entered the stage in front of 3000 fans at the Roskilde Festival. The show climaxed with the songs Christ Goodbye/The rise of Nakkiel played together with an 8 piece choir conducted by Morten Skrubbeltrang.
The Roskilde show was recorded by Norwegian Radio (NRK), was be broadcast in Scandinavian Radio during spring 1998 and lastly christ/nakkiel was featured on the mini-cd "For the loveless lonely nights".
Come august '98 Morten Skrubbeltrang left and Peter Poulsen entered immediatly.
In the beginning of 1999, Saturnus began looking for a studio and a producer. Once again Flemming Rasmussen (Sweet Silence Studios) was chosen. Flemming Rasmussen is the producer of the now classic Metallica albums "Ride the lightning", "Master of Puppets" and "...And justice for all".
The album was recorded during April/May 1999, but due to tons of weird happenings like the trucker strike in France, which meant the album couldnt get to Denmark for the release and the album release date was constantly postponed, it finally saw the light of day on january 10 2000.
The band went on the road for the last half of 1999, a few dates abroad and some around in Denmark. Come the end of 1999 things took a turn as Kim, Brian and Jesper chose to leave Saturnus.
The show must go on and it certainly does, in the first quarter of the new millennium, Saturnus was seriously strengthened by the addition of Morten Plenge on drums, Tais Pedersen on guitar and Peter Heede on bass.
To further strenghten their position with their fans, Saturnus played a "we're still alive" show on may the 18th at Stengade 30 in Copenhagen.
In August 2006 Firebox Records signed Saturnus on their roster. The band and label negotiated a contract for two albums; the much-awaited third full-length Saturnus studio album was recorded late 2005 and ‘Veronika Decides to Die’ was released in 2006.
In April/May 2008 the band embarked on their first extensive European tour with Chileans Mar de Grises and Thurisaz from Belgium.
In 2009-2010 the line-up changed once again as Brian Hansen rejoined Saturnus and Rune Staysni, who help out on the european tour also joined. This ment Tais, Peter, Nicolai and Anders was asked to leave. A new drummer and guitar player was found in Henrik Glass and Mattias Svensson.
In 2011 Saturnus began to tour and this took them to Moldovia, Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Italy, Netherlands, Armenia and Georgia where they became the first international metal band who performed there. After a 4 song demo was recorded to find a new record deal, Saturnus signed with Cyclone Empire in 2012 for 2 albums.
The 4th fulll length album, Saturn In Ascension, was recorded at Winding Road Studio once again with the famous producer Flemming Rasmussen (Metallica, Morbid Angel, Blind Gaurdian etc.) and the album was released on the 30th of November 2012. Mattias left the band shortly after the recordings due to personal reasons.
In 2013 Saturnus can celebrate their 20th year anniversary |
