Van Gunn

Where to begin?? The story of Van Gunn is far beyond ordinary, and started about 10 years ago (what??? TEN years???.....yup, ten fucking years). Martin, Boy and Ward found themselves in a small town in the Netherlands, rocking on everything from AC/DC to ZZ Top. Unable to hear the real rock on the radio or played by any new bands, they decided to start their own band at the age of 13. After writing some songs and some in and outs of new members, they found their missing members (guitar-shredding High and skin-banging Bert) and their unique sound. They were ready to take over the Universe. But the Universe was not ready for them. Yet. Although they received awesome fan response at their early gigs in Holland, they felt there was no real rock scene, and the majority of people just did not get where the guys were going. As High recalls: "Most people listened to Techno or the Backstreet Boys. Which made us scream in frustration!!" "Well," Martin said one day, "if no one's gonna be able to appreciate us here, we might as well go to the place where most of rock 'n roll happened: Los Angeles. Everybody who wants to go: raise your hand. Anybody who's against it: you're out... end of story." The guys all decided to pursue the dream they started 7 years earlier, packed their bags and guitars, and just went. Of course it wasn't all that easy. They moved to the worst part of Long Beach (little did they know), lost their instruments, went totally broke and even had to move back to the Netherlands to save enough bucks to go back to LA again. "We lost almost everything we had. But we still had the band, a killer show, and what we believed to be great songs. We vowed to never give up our dream." says Boy. When they'd saved enough for the plane tickets, they flew back to LA again. This time they were gonna succeed. After living on the streets for a couple of days, they found a tiny 1-bedroom apartment in Hollywood. With $50 between the five of them, they found themselves some shitty jobs and started playing as soon as they could. Still rock wasn't what it used to be.. even in LA. What the fuck was going on??!!! Well, that just made the mission even more important. Nothing and nobody was gonna stop 'em now. After doing more and more gigs, things started to get exciting. Something special was going on, and people were feeling it. Soon the band got an offer by Steven Melrose to sign them with Retone Records, and landed themselves a publishing deal with Peer Music. "It's awesome to have finally found people that still have faith in the real stuff..." says Ward. They immediately started recording their first album. Bert: "We did almost everything ourselves; we wrote, played, engineered and produced the whole thing, up to the orchestra arrangements". For the mixing they brought in top-producer Evan Frankfort (Orson, Biohazard). The boys worked at five different studios, sometimes three at the same time, to make an album that will kick everyone's ass. Van Gunn is released their self-titled debut on Retone Records in the Fall of 2006. You can find it on iTunes or order it directly through the band.