Alyson Avenue

Alyson Avenue is a classic rock band from Sweden formed in 1989 by a couple of friends who intended to play rock in the way Treat and Europe amongst others did. Its musical style was described as aor. Originally, the band had a male vocalist, eventually replaced by Anette Olzon, now of Nightwish. The band released two albums: Presence of Mind and Omega. The music tended to a much more poppy sound for a while but at the rehearsals you could hear the band playing everything from hard rock to even soul. When playing live Alyson Avenue always had concentrated to perform aor & hard rock only though. During the following years Alyson Avenue several times had to take a break due to different directions where the individual band members the music wanted to go. They nevertheless always seemed to find the right way back to each others as the friendship was very strong. In 1999, the band sent out a demo to the press and gained huge feedback for their sound. With a little help by the belgian melodic rock orientated magazine Rock Report, Alyson Avenue found the right contacts to some labels. Unfortunately not much happened. Main song-writer and keyboard player Niclas Olsson got the band together again to record another new 4 track demo which finally resulted in a record deal with AOR Heaven. Their debut album Presence of Mind was released in November 2000 and the interest and reviews were far beyond the band’s expectations - including an 93/ 100 rating in Japanese magazine Burrn! which was followed by massive sales. A little more than 3 years later and after another break Alyson Avenue did another album called Omega, an album everyone involved was very much satisfied with. Lead vocalist Anette Olzon (who used her married name Anette Blyckert) left the band due to wanting to tour and to be part of something bigger than Alyson Avenue, which was more of a hobby to the members. On 24 May 2007, she was officially announced as the new lead vocalist for Nightwish. Members of Alyson Avenue have continued making music in the new band Sapphire Eyes. Their lead vocalist is Thomas Bursell, who was previously the lead singer of Second Heat. On July 2008, bassist Thomas Löyskä posted on Alyson Avenue's official MySpace blog that the band will continue and they are holding auditions for a new female lead vocalist. From the band's official website: "in 2009 Arabella Vitanc joined the band on Lead Vocals giving the band new energy to start the work on the 3rd Alyson Avenue record." www.alysonavenue.se