Diabla

BIOGRAPHY

Diabla started out in Oslo as a project started by Beathe Sanden (Beatrix*) and the guitarist Odd Gunnar Frøysland, back in the days when classic hard rock had become really unhip. Beathe had developed into an eager songwriter, recording her songs alone on her 4-track, but didn’t have a band at the time. However, Mr. Frøysland, who was studying music and guitar playing at the University, liked what he heard. A hunt for musicians to start a hard rock oriented band resulted in something… However, people were either not showing up for rehearsals or were more into jazz. Beathe was in a relationship with Tarald Lie, who was a very talented drummer. The music project suddenly one day lost their drummer, and it was decided that Tarald would step in until the project could find a permanent drummer. Tarald and Beathe wanted to avoid mixing their relationship with band projects, but had very similar visions and taste in music, and it soon became obvious that Tarald should stay in the band.

A new bass player was needed, posters were placed in music stores, and the band got a call from Morten Granheim, who was an experienced live performer and skiled in music theory, and lived not too far from Oslo. Morten turned out to be perfect for the band, and now the band had a line-up that constituted a good basis for working on arranging the song material that was steadily increasing.

During a long car ride, sitting in the back seat, Beathe and Tarald had a conversation which resulted in the idea of naming the band “Diabla”. Since the band had a female singer/songwriter, who certainly did not lack either opinions nor intense emotions, they immediately felt the name was perfect, and the other members agreed. Diabla started doing live gigs, and people showed interest in this new addition to the Oslo rock scene.

After a while there were disagreements between Odd Gunnar and the rest on what direction to take musically. Beathe, Tarald and Morten spent a long time working on songs without a guitarist, unable to find the perfect candidate. Many songs were arranged during this time, and Diabla went to Sweden to record a four song demo CD. Guitar virtuoso Carl August Tidemann was hired to do the guitar tracks. This record was named “Everything Passes”.

After tons of auditions, Diabla finally found a guitarist suitable for the band. His name was Stig Rolfsen (“Rock’n’Rolfsen”), and his playing was versatile, creative and had lots of attitude.

Although Diabla is rooted in hard rock, it is also influenced by diverse genres. The music industry geezers could not figure out: What are they? Are they metal or alternative? Hip or unhip? Feminist left wingers or a sleazy party band? The band had many fans who were genuinely interested in new and original music, but the Oslo scene was divided between the hipsters demanding stripped-down, low-fi indie music (hating everything influenced by the 80’s), very conservative hard rock/metal fans and the extreme metal scene, which had become huge. The music industry clerks could not make Diabla fit into any of these categories!

Diabla continued playing gigs, and became a known element in the Oslo underground scene. More song material constantly emerged, and it was time to make another recording. This time, the plan was also to make a 4-song recording. However, the studio f**ked up the recordings so bad that only two of the tracks could be saved, in a more professional studio. (The initial studio was called Studio 2000, and the owner was later sued and sentenced for fraud.) The final result was a single containing the songs “Small Talk” and “I’m The Snake”. A video was made for the “Small Talk”. It was recorded in the “red light district” of Oslo, and the plot shows a young prostitute going out to work for the first time, then getting molested by a customer, and beaten up by the members of Diabla :D The video was very tongue in cheek, and almost cartoonish, but had a serious undertone. Eivind Norbom, DJ at the very popular metal pub Rock In in Oslo, shot and edited the video. It was during this period that Stig and Morten came up with Beathe’s nickname, “Beatrix”, which she became fond of, and started using as an artist name.

In the course of time, the relationship between Stig and the rest of the band became more and more estranged from, for several reasons. Again, Diabla had no guitar player.

Diabla now had a vast amount of original songs that were screaming to be recorded. A full album was required. Per Einar “Persen” Watle, who was a professional guitarist, very busy with several projects covering a wide range of musical styles, agreed to do the guitar parts on the album. His career had taken another direction after his escapades in the eighties, when he was the main shredder of the well-known hard rock/classic band Intruder. However, he was still fully capable of delivering awesome hard rock guitar work, and understood exactly what the band wanted for its songs.

By this time, Diabla’s song arrangements had become more and more advanced, and the band set out to make a smooth, fully professional album with big vocal arrangements and keyboards, while keeping the aggressive edge always present in the Diabla songs. The band chose Marius Strand/Strand Studio for the recording. He was an eminent metal producer/sound engineer and musician, and did all the sound engineering on the album. Diabla and Marius produced the album together, and Marius’ friend and fellow musician Bjørn Marius Borg helped Beatrix* refine and perfect the keyboard parts she had made for the songs.

The recording and production of “I’ll Be Damned” took a long time. Diabla was an unsigned band, and had to work on the album in between work and everyday tasks.

After many auditions and trial periods with diverse guitarists, Kjell Åge Karlsen had joined the band. He was very talented, and did some gigs with Diabla. He also took part when the band appeared on NRK’s “Metal Blender”, a show featuring hard rock and metal acts on national Norwegian TV, and played guitar on two of the songs that were to constitute part of the “I’ll Be Damned” album. However, due to an extreme difference in personalities, interests and opinions, he didn’t stay very long, and went on to start the band Breed. He did, however, do the guitar work and some backing vocals on “Uh! All Night”, and also the riffs for “Moonless Night”, which was also included in the album.

Diabla contributed on two tribute releases during this time: “Wings Of Steel”, consisting of cover/tribute versions of songs by the great and very popular melodic rock pioneers Stage Dolls, and “Gods Of Thunder – A Norwegian Tribute to KISS”, with the song “Uh! All Night”. The KISS tribute album was an official Voices Music Entertainment release.

Eirik Ulvo Langnes (previously in Madder Mortem), an excellent guitarist with a lot of blues, attitude and groove, joined the band, and not long after, the young guitar shredder and virtuoso Edvard Nyløvold completed the line-up. Diabla now had two guitar players who complemented each other, and this was necessary to fully cover the variety present in Diabla’s repertoire, and the “big” sound they wanted to achieve.

Both guitarists did some guitar parts for the album, which was now almost finished. The band continued playing gigs, but the album release kept being postponed. The band wanted to make a physical CD release, but were by now quite broke. Beatrix* was exhausted at this time, needed a break, and moved out of town. The band was put on hold. After living in a smaller town for a while, she regained her enthusiasm and desire to continue doing music, and there was still a completed album to release…

Meanwhile, Beatrix* had met her new fiance, guitar player Giovanni Gee. He originally came to Norway via Berlin, where he had briefly worked with French/German band Kosmik Vortex. Giovanni and Beatrix* stayed in the Caribbean for a while, soon got married, and had a child.

Tarald had throughout Diabla’s history been doing small music projects and gigs on the side. Getting a reputation as a great drummer in the metal scene, he eventually started playing for Solefald when they would go on tour. This did not conflict with his role in Diabla, and it sharpened his drumming skills even more. He would then do the same for Tristania when their drummer was unable to join. He would do this more and more often, and this is how Tarald eventually became an official member of Tristania, after Diabla had been put on hold.

By now, the music industry had become so digitalized and simplified in many ways, that it seemed very easy to make an independent digital album release in no time. The “damned album” was finally to be released, and just in time for Halloween 2013, it was published online through CD Baby.

Beatrix*, Tarald, and Morten have agreed to continue with Diabla, and Giovanni Gee is joining the band as a new member. Giovanni is an experienced guitarist who has played in many bands and also was a solo artist for a while. He has lived and played in the States, Europe and Mexico, with bands like The Nuns, Destroytion, and the afore mentioned Kosmik Vortex, among others. He has also worked with Diana Wolf, a famous Mexican rock singer. One of Giovanni’s main influences is Ritchie Blackmore of Deep Purple.

Since the members of Diabla are currently living in different areas, there are challenges to overcome, and planning to be done in the near future, but there is a great wish within the band to reunite for gigs.

A new webpage is about to be launched, and there are also plans of shooting a video for one of the songs off of the album. This is more or less the story about Diabla so far.

To be continued…