Andre Andersen
André Andersen was born on December 16 in Moscow, Russia. He studied piano since he was 5 in a music school in conjunction with his regular school.
At the age of 14 he discovered a different genre of music aside from classical, by accidently getting Deep Purple's In Rock. From that point on, he started to combine his classical chops with the rock form in every piece of music he writes.
André speaks of Mozart and Paganini's work as his biggest inspiration aside from people like Rick Wakeman and Jon Lord, who invented the "rock approach" to the keyboards.
Playing and recording with different bands brought another passion into his life - producing. He worked as a sound engineer in various studios aside from playing club gigs with different bands and perfecting his songwriting skills.
In 1984 he moved to Denmark. After a while he built his own working place - Mirand Studio (now expanded and removed to a recently established North Point). Having an opportunity to record all of his ideas without watching the clock, he started to create a whole set of compositions and songs where the elements of classical music, progressive and straight hard rock were mixed to create a unique signature sound.
André reinforced and polished his "invention" by working with countless projects until the day when Royal Hunt was formed and the final bricks - the music and musicianship of every individual - would fall into place.
Steen Mogensen
Steen Mogensen - born in December in Copenhagen, picked up the bass for the first time at the age of 13. He was inspired by his brother who was playing guitar in a rock band.
After school he began jamming in a garage with a friend who was playing drums. They soon realized they needed some help, so they joined the music school and began playing Santana and Beatles songs with some friends from school.
After a year, Steen realized that he wanted to play some harder stuff, so he formed a band and started doing some Thin Lizzy and AC/DC covers.
At the age of 18, Steen wanted to improve his playing and started to take private lessons on bass and piano, where he got introduced to J.S Bach and Mike Oldfield. Around the mid-eighties, Steen joined a band called "Rebellion" featuring ex Witch Cross players. They did a couple of demo tapes and played a string of club gigs, but the style was too traditional with no room for experimenting with different music forms.
In 1988, Steen joined forces with André Andersen in "Apart", which after a couple of line up changes and musical adjustments, became Royal Hunt in 1989.
Jakob Kjaer
Jacob Kjær - born on January 22 - started his musical career at the age of 14 playing the drums, but after awhile it began to bore him. After listening to bands like Judas Priest and Thin Lizzy, he picked up the guitar in 1985 (16 years old).
Over a period of seven years he played in different cover and original rock bands, one of which were Jaded Heart with the lead singer Henrik Brockman (later frontman in Royal Hunt). That was the reason why Henrik invited Jacob to audition for the band in 1992, when Royal Hunt was looking for a permanent guitarist. The musical style and personalities jelled so well together that JK stayed in the band ever since.
His strong influences are mostly George Lynch and Michael Shenker. Along with JK's beautiful melodic phrasing and crying bluesbends, he has developed a unique style of his own, contributing to a signature sound of the band.
John West
John West was born on October 29 in New York. He began his musical career appearing as a drummer / singer in local bands in Cortland, N.Y at the age of 14. He became frontman at the age of 18. In 1992 John moved to Los Angeles to join Badlands, replacing vocalist Ray Gillen. He toured with them until the bands eventual break-up.
John moved to Northern California (Redding) and began touring with Michael Lee Firkins until 1996. During this time, John contributed to Marc Ferrari's "Guestlist" album, and recorded all the vocals for Cozy Powell's "Especially for you" release. Later in 1996 John joined the band Artension, and recorded 4 studio albums between 1996 and 1999. He also has two solo albums, entitled John West's Mind Journey (1997) and John West, Permanent Mark (1998). Furthermore, he made a guest appearance on James Murphy's "Feeding the Machine" (1999).
However, John was still looking for an opportunity to join a real touring band, where he could become a permanent member. In the summer of 1999 he was approached by Royal Hunt to fly to Copenhagen and do an audition. After a couple of days in the studio, both parties felt comfortable with each other. A few weeks later, the decision was made. John West was on his way to start the recording of his first album with Royal Hunt - "Fear"
Source: http://www.royalhunt.com/
