Alyson Avenue
| Alyson Avenue | |
|---|---|
| Origin | Helsingborg, Sweden |
| Genres | Melodic rock, hard rock, pop rock |
| Years active | 1997–2006 2008–2013; 2015-present |
| Labels | Avenue of Allies, AOR Haven |
| Associated acts | Sapphire, Cloudscape |
| Website | alysonavenue.se |
| Members | Niclas Olsson Anette Olzon |
| Past members | See below |
Alyson Avenue is a melodic rock band from Helsingborg, Sweden. The band was formed by keyboardist Niclas Olsson along with then bassist Thomas Lyöskä, the band was originally going to be fronted by a male vocalist until 1995 back-up singer Anette Blyckert became a permanent member.
Their musical style is described as AOR and melodic rock.
Alyson Avenue was formed in 1989 by a couple of friends who intended to play melodic rock in the way Treat and Europe amongst others did. At that time Alyson Avenue had a male vocalist.
Anette Olzon was taken in to the band as a back-up singer, but did a great job on a demo recording, and then became a permanent member soon after the band was founded. With a female vocalist, the band’s sound was to be compared with that of Heart and Robin Beck. Their music drifted towards a much more "poppier" sound for a while, but at the rehearsals, the band was only heard playing everything from hard rock to even soul. When playing live, however, Alyson Avenue always had concentrated to perform AOR/hard rock only.
In 1995, the main discussion was in what direction the band should go. Some demos with melodic rock had been recorded over the years, and as people obviously liked it, they decided to stay with it.
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, but the band got together 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.
In 2003, a little more than 3 years later, Alyson Avenue released a new album titled "Omega".
In 2007, Alyson Avenue had slowed down a bit, so when Nightwish went public with the information that they looked for a new lead vocalist, Olzon decided to make a go of it. Some of the members of Alyson Avenue helped Olzon with the demo recordings.
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