TORBEN ENEVOLDSEN
By Nicky Baldrian

Nicky Baldrian introduces you all to a stunning new guitar player from Finland who caught his attention. His name is Torben Enevoldsen. He has just released his debut album 'Heavy Persuasion' on Lionmusic. There are many guitar players out there in the world who are totally dedicated to their craft, yet many magazines apart from the specialised publications don't see any point in featuring interviews with modern guitar players, otherwise knows as 'Shredders', which is such as shame as we should be celebrating this phenomenon, not pushing it away

Enevoldsen's style triumphantly combines rock, fusion, thrash and classical elements throughout songs like 'Temple Of Hope', ' Head's Up' and 'Another Page', these songs demonstrate the kind of dazzling displays of powered virtuosity not heard since Satriani, Vai and Malmsteen made us gasp in sheer awe back in the eighties, and the reason, this guy has identity which is very rare today. There is no pretence or ego just a guy with an intense love for playing music.

Born in 1967 in a small town called Roennede in Denmark, guitar virtuoso Torben Envelodsen is a self taught musician who began studying the guitar at the age of sixteen, 'It all started when I moved to Copenhagen', explains Enevoldsen who was keen to team up with fellow musicians whilst getting himself an education.

'It felt so natural once we had moved to a bigger city, I had been playing on and off for several years, but began to take my playing more seriously after I picked up a copy of the classic Steeler album featuring Yngwie Malmsteen on guitar' Enevoldsen was naturally like the rest of us blown away by this album 'I had never heard a guy play like that before and I soon realized that I had to take my guitar playing a lot more serious in order to reach this level of musicianship.' Torben went on to play in various bands educating himself with live stage work. It was from here that he started to develop his style and experimented with his own instrumentations. 'I got free studio time from a friend of mine and released my first promotional CD called "Just In Case" in 1995. As I kept playing with different acts here in

Denmark, gaining a lot of experience, I continued to write my own music at home. I completed a master tape in July 1997 and soon after got a deal with the Dutch label Roxon Records who, in December 1998, released my debut album "Guitarisma". I went back in to the studio in May of 2000 and recorded my latest disc "Heavy Persuasion" which got released October 3rd this year by the Finnish label LION MUSIC and here we are...'

Torben's style completey impressed me, his compositions are based on strickt melody lines 'I truly believe in keeping things melodic' says Torben, 'I also try to make things interesting rhythmically, so I like to put some intricate riffs in there as well. But basically I arrange my songs as if it was vocal music, since I feel this works the best.

'I don't really plan the solos as such, although some parts are worked out of course. I build a song in the same way any vocal band would do, you know,with a verse, bridge, chorus etc. I arrange the songs at home, and in this process I work out what sort of soloing would fit the bill and just go from there.Later on in the studio, I mix it all up doing both worked out parts as well as improvising a lot.

I have a harddesk recorder right here at home for when I compose and arrange, I use my drum machine and bass to record the whole song. This way I can introduce a complete song to the band and this works brilliantly. My bass player and drummer then work on their parts and we put it all together in the rehearsal room.'

From the years of practise Enveoldsen has gained his own identity and sound that's aggressive and complexed but also very passionate and played with feeling ' I have taught quite a few students and feeling is by far one of the hardest things to teach since it has to come from within and from truly believing every note you play!!'

Inspired by players such as John Petrucci, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Yngwie Malmsteen, Steve Lukather, Dan Huff, Al Di Meola and Eric Johnson to name a few Torben also has a keen ear and lsitens to a lot of fusion, 'I'm currently hugely inspired by Allan Holdsworth, Frank Gambale, Scott Henderson' he adds 'those huys are awesome especially Scott Henderson, check him out if you can'

Torben's new album 'Heavy Persuasion' is now avalable through Lion Music, 'I hooked up with Lion Music via the internet. However, this is my second album and since the release went rather swift and smoothly, I don't feel as impatient as I did with the release of "Guitarisma", which dragged out forever, I'm just happy and expectant.
As I mentioned my influences have changed a bit since my debut album and so I wanted the new material to be a lot more hard hitting and heavy! I have been listening a lot to bands and projects like Symphony X, Dream Theater, Liquid Tension Experiment etc., so the new material naturally got influenced by this. I have incorporated
intricate rhythm parts as well as a little bit of fusion style soloing, to help make the songs as interesting as possible. You will also find some inspirations from neoclassical, but what I'm still trying to do basically, is very melodic hard rock instrumentals!'

One song that stands out on 'Heavy Persuasion' is 'Temple Of Hope' of which I totally love. 'The inspiration itself for "Temple Of Hope" expalins Torben 'came from wanting to do something in harmonic minor and to try a little neoclassical on for size, since I haven't really done that before. So I just experimented with a few arpeggios and quickly developed the intro melody piece. Neoclassical stuff imply using a lot of chord changes so to me, that was pretty much the actual challenge. (I like to challenge myself when I write, I might add!)

Another great which reminds me of Dream Theater's 'Metrolpois' is the song 'Heads Up, tell em about this song please Torben?

'I take that as a compliment since I think that "Metropolis" is an awesome song! We (the band and I) had received a lot of praise when doing "Heads Up" live, so people seem to like the synchro drum, bass and guitar thing, so that's great! When I wrote this, I wanted to do something a little different and the rhythm part of that particular riff was composed on my drum machine and then I added the guitar part. So in terms of composing and writing, that was very backwards for me.'

For the future Enevoldsen plans more live shows 'Right now I'm trying to find a decent booking agency, so hopefully we will soon! Apart from that, I am constantly working on my chops as well as writing new music, so I'm definitely keeping busy!' If your a fan of the guitar genre then be sure to check out 'Heavy Persuasion' it's a killer album.

For more info visit Torben's website at http://www.torbenenevoldsen.com or http://www.lionmusic.com