In March 2001 Casper Vellekoop (vocals/guitars/programming) and Rogier Jansen (grunts/guitars) started Swansdown, which was named Among Thorns when we first started. Danny Barnhoorn (bass) joined us only a month later. We are from Groningen in the Netherlands. On April the 24th we had our first gig at the Poetry Night, an annual event organised by the English department (we played only one song, though). Shortly after we changed the band name into Swansdown to avoid being confused with the American gospel band Among Thorns. When our search for a singer or drummer resulted only in an Elvis impersonator who wanted to sing techno versions of Elvis's hits, we decided to continue with just the three of us. The mix of black/doom metal and dance developed further and further. A first recording got us some positive reactions, and two gigs in Brabant in November & December 2001 were the result. By then we began to believe in a bright future. A future that got even brighter when Mari�t Gast joined the band at the end of the year to play the keyboard. With her coming Swansdown's musical horizon broadened, and the music became more elaborate. In 2002 we've had almost no gigs. Instead we focused on recording our demo: ... With Eyes Downcast. The first copies were ready in July. It contains four songs varying from doom and black metal to ambient. The 14th of November 2002 we played in our home town Groningen for the first time: in Simplon, together with Prey. By the end of 2003 Rogier, being a big black metal fan, felt that the emphasis on the synthetic element in our music had become too great. Shortly after two gigs in Roden and Leeuwarden, he therefore decided to leave Swansdown and to put more energy in his other projects: Walpurgisnacht and Volc Vermaledide. Fortunately, we didn't have to look far for a new guitarist: for the song Weeping Willow we had invited Jobbe Holtes to play the clarinet; since he also plays the guitar, we asked him. After Jobbe joined the band, Swansdown continued to put more emphasis on electronics. New songs are catchier than the old ones, and you can dance to many of them. Beside writing some new songs, we used the first half of 2004 to teach Jobbe some of our old songs, and the second half to work on our new demo Solitude. In march 2005 Swansdown presented this demo to the people of Amphiskios in Simplon. In the fall we played at the 11th GMC fest and at the annual Halloween fest in 'de Dobbe' in Roden.
(Source: MySpace profile)
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The Netherlands
2001
