Autumn 2013 Aurora and her Management (Made) decided to sign up Aurora to the big, yearly newcomer event in Oslo; By:Larm 2014. Aurora was set up to play the 28th of February and the 1st of March. With no time to loose, Aurora was then sent to various stages to get some more practice to perform live. Sometimes it was just her and a stage piano, but she needed to practice with a band as well. 

The first members of her band consisted of Silja Sol with backing vocals and keyboard, Odd Martin on guitar and Magnus on drums, and I believe they played together for the first time at the Nabovarsel mini-festival in Bergen on February 20, 2014. This was just one week before the big By:Larm festival, and it was a little dramatic:

"We started the preparations quite late. It was therefore scary when the pianist we had finally found could not join anyway. Fortunately, Silja Dyngeland came in as a pianist and saved us. She was more than a good replacement."

Close call for both Aurora and Silja Sol there 🙂... but, happily, it ended well:

"It was magical. Both family and friends showed up to watch us. It was nice to not be alone on stage for once."

As you may understand, she wasn't very well prepared or "stage-safe" before she was to head for the capital of Norway by the end of February, not even a full year after she had her first talks with Made Management.

I should probably say something more about the By:Larm festival, but so much happened there. I have to save that story for another day. I think maybe I will like to introduce her band members a little further first.

I hope you are still hanging on....

Photos from @amrothian by:

Photo 1 and 9: Silje Nergård

Photos 2-7 :Emil Weatherhead Breistein

Photo 8: Magnus Skylstad 

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Aurora Aksnes was born at Stavanger University Hospital, the 15th of June 1996. According to national weather history, it was a cloudy day without rain, and aproximately 10 degrees temperature. Aurora was born on a Saturday. 

Her family lived in a place called Høle ("Hole"). It was then a small municipally with only about 400 inhabitants. As you can see from the clip above, this was a 36 minutes car ride from the city Stavanger, and the close connection to nature is evident through the images I included. Her parents lived there for 15 years, which means that both of Auroras sisters, Miranda and Viktoria, walked their first steps here too.

Aurora lived in Høle for three years, before moving to The Fjord Of Light at Os - about a 30 minutes car ride outside of the 2nd largest city of Norway, Bergen. This means that Auroras first words were spoken there, her first humming and singing, her first experiences with all that excited her in the nature. Her curiosity was probably born her too, and she began to experience the joy of dancing. 

There was no TV or radio in Auroras childhood house. The family had a record player and a few LPs. This was how she came to love Leonard Cohen, David Bowie and Enya. These are often named as her source of childhood musical inspiration. 

When it comes to Leonard Cohen, and her love for him, I'm happy to say that this is a story for another day.

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As I stated yesterday, Aurora and her family moved from Høle (Hole) to Lysefjorden ("The Fjord Of Light") in Osøyro when she was three years old. Her 10 year older sister, Miranda, must have turned 13 by then.

Miranda was tutored on how to play the piano when she was young. My guess is that she didn't want to continue playing after she moved from her childhood home, but that she kept the piano in her new room for a while, until she had it stowed away in the attics. Another theory is that she got rid of it after its "ON"-button stopped working. 

Aurora had a great love for music as a child. She remember her parents used to sing in a local choir, and she remember playing out the scene from Titanic where Jack leads Rose up to "fly" at the front of the ship. She was about four years old, and she was standing on a rock in her garden, arms out to the side, singing "My Heart Will Go On". She hadn't seen the whole movie, but had caught this scene when her older sisters watched it one night (when Aurora probably should have been in bed...)

As a six-year-old, Aurora went to their attics on some kind of a treasure hunt, and there among the stabled stuff, she found Mirandas old electric piano. She then remembered that she missed hearing her sister's playing in the house, and she plugged it to power to test it. Unfortunately, the "ON"-button would not stay down, so she had to hold it with one hand and play with the other. 

This was how she discovered that the music in her head was hidden within the black and white keys of this instrument she fell in love with.

As days and weeks passed by, Aurora often found herself sneaking up to play at the piano. After some time she found a way to keep the "ON"-button down by taping it. Probably she from then turned it on and off by plug it in and out of power.

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AURORA:

"IT WAS A LOT of rain that day. All the colors out there were dark and gray... Along with the calm light and the sound of the rain, I had a pretty nice day at school. The bus ride home was also lovely... It could take me ten minutes to walk home from the bus stop. But I never kept my focus... I was chasing a happy little cat. I found some nice leaves which I later put in pressure and dried. 

I HAVE ALWAYS loved the rain... I liked the way the forest smelled when it was wet. I remember feeling such happiness in the woods that day, for I had only attended school for a few weeks. I didn't like school very much. It was so noisy there... I felt I didn't fit in, and was often very tired and exhausted after a day at school.

The special thing this day was not the rain or the forest. That was when I got home... My mother never yelled at me, but I knew she would not be happy that I had spent so much time outside on a day like this. But when I got home, it was completely quiet. Mom brought me a towel and I dried myself and changed into dry clothes. It smelled good in the house. Food. The fireplace. I was home. Safe. Quiet. 

MOTHER PUT ON "Suzanne" by Leonard Cohen. I sat by the window listening to the whole song. It wasn’t all words I understood, but I could understand the emotions and the calmness in it. The way time stopped. The way I forgot that tomorrow it was school again. That was when I really realized how much music can mean. How it can save us from all that is chaotic in this world. And how it can give us breaks. 

On this day, I touched a piano for the first time. On an old electric piano in the attic. Then I knew I wanted to make music that could do the same thing that music did for me that day. It just let me exist... I found something to belong to. A strength in dark moments... I learned that belonging, happiness and peace can be found in other things than people and confirmation. That there are things inside us that can make us glow. That there is a best friend in music."

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Already at a very early age, Aurora felt discomfortable at school. She liked to learn, and was a curious kid, but she didn't really connect with the the other kids, and the classroom was a noisy place. Aurora always preferred the quiet of the forest.

She also got into some trouble due to how easily she got distracted. I guess she sometimes spoke out of place, wandered about when she was supposed to sit still and plucked at other things than school work. I don't actually know the truth here, but she have spoken about teachers speaking down on her for not paying attention. 

She didn't really got bullied or harrased. She had friends. It's just that her interests didn't match the interests of the other ones that well, and she was known to act weird and dress herself weird. She often felt out of place in school. This might be due to high intelligence:

When she was about 11-12 years old, Auroras teacher had the class do an intelligence test. This is not common practice in Norwegian schools, so I wonder why the teacher decided to do so... Anyway, Aurora performed very well at this test. She did so well that the other kids made fun of her. They laughed, and said things like: "Now we understand why you are so weird. You're autistic!". Aurora explained in the HAIK documentary that she didn't understand why they laughed, but she understood that they where being rude. 

She have been diagnosed with autism, by the way.

At one point Aurora realised she tried to be someone else than herself, to be someone who "the cool girls" would like to be friends with. She realised she pushed herself too far, just to be accepted by someone who would never appreciate who she really was This is the background story for the song "I went too far", which she began writing at the age of 9. This corresponds well with the time Aurora started to put lyrics to her music made by the piano at her attics, but that is a story for another day...

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We know Aurora started to play with the piano as a 6-year old girl, at the same time she discovered music can affect peoples emotions. Rumor has it that she learned to play Beethovens "Moonlight Sonata" just by ear. A rumor I easily believe. We know she haven't been thought how to play, and that she doesn't know how to read sheet music.

When she was 9, she started to put lyrics on her self-composed music. In a December 2015 interview with the Sun newspaper, Aurora said the first song she ever wrote was inspired by "seeing a drunk man sleeping on the streets".

By the age of 16, she had 32 full song completed, along with poems and short lines that could be used with other songs. The first song she ever performed in front of people was "I had a dream", which was recorded and still to be found on YouTube. This was a song written as a school project at 10th grade, the last year of elementary school.  

Aurora had a high school teacher who recommended her to contact a local studio recorder (who goes by the name Tomtom). There she recorded the song "Puppet", and here it's kinda interesting.... Aurora posted the song herself on Facebook, and a friend of hers downloaded it and posted it on "Urørt" (Untouched). This is a website connected to the national radiostation NRK P3. Here artists can upload new, original music and be voted to "Song Of The Week". Puppet won the week she uploaded the song. Auroras song became a big, local radiohit. 

I have also found that Aurora uploaded a christmas song to Soundcloud sometime during winter 2012-2013. My best guess us that this was "Walking in the air", a song Aurora loves deeply. Sadly, this recording is no longer possible to find on net.

At the same time, there exists stories from Aurora that states that she went to record a song as a gift for her mother, so "she could listen to her without herself beeing in the room". I do not know what song she gave to her mother, I'm no longer sure if it's Puppet... Unless, of course, the gift wasn't a Christmas present, but just a gift... That's definitely a possibility. 

If all this is correct, Made Management with Geir Luedy, had three songs on the table before making contact with Aurora and her family. I guess that will be my next part in this story 

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After her school performance of "I Had A Dream" was uploaded to Facebook, and her success with "Puppet", different managements made contact with Aurora and her family. She turned them all down. She had no dream of being an artist, her goal was to finish high school and become a scientist. Her family, her parents and her two sisters, knew Aurora was potentially a great singer-songwriter, and was praising her, probably hoping she would leap to the chance of becoming a full-time artist. 

One day, spring 2013, Auroras mother recieved a call from Geir Luedy, head manager at Made Management. They had tried multiple times to get a meeting with Aurora, but Aurora hadn't wished to. 

Auroras mother later spoke with Aurora. She told her that her music made her feel good. Auroras mother had listened to Auroras music, and her emotions had been touched in a healing way. "You have a gift", her mother said, "If your music can make me feel like this, it may also help other people. If you have the ability to help someone, it would not be a good thing to keep it for yourself". 

After giving it some thoughts, Aurora finally agreed to meet Geir and the management, probably not promising anything, but she would listen to what they said and then decide what to do. It was also important for Aurora if the people she was to meet was someone she felt she could like and trust.

Thus was how she finally met the management in Bergen. I will continue later with the first meeting and her building up towards the famous concert at By:Larm 2014, where she also recieved some prizes 🙂.

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Aurora and her parents met her future manager, Geir Luedy, and the CEO, Per Mygland, around May 2013. These guys proved themselves as honest, patient, professional and experienced men, and they was careful not to put too much pressure on the then 16-year old girl.

They advised her to not agree to any contracts with any management for a while. Not even with them from Made. Instead, they came to an agreement to take time, get to know each other, and try to make some music together. Geir has all along pressed the importance of having fun with the music, and not pushed her more than what she was ready for. A sentiment I really appriciate.

During the year 2013 she did some smaller performances and photoshoots. This was to get her more familiar with the music industry, and to help her "find her voice and looks". Geir Luedy har described this as "building the product"; meaning what and how to perform, how to dress and do the make-up, with whom and how to produce the recordings and where to perform and do interviews.

Through the year 2013 she performed at Nordahl Grieg high school in February, June, August and December. My guess is that this was booked directly with her, since this was the school she was attending. After a few days in August 2014, she decided to quit the third high-school-year.

During autumn 2013 Aurora started to do minor shows in galleries and academic quarters. Her first gig outside of her hometown area was "Høstlarm" in the capitol, Oslo - Cafe Mono, the 3rd of October 2013. This gave her some attention, and helped her break through at By:larm 2014, as the rumors had preceded her and people where standing in line to watch the show at "Herr Nilsen". More on this in future...  

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After agreeing to cooperate with Made Management, Aurora was sent to various small venues in her local area. This was to help her get accustomed to stand on a stage and sing in front of strangers. She was very nervous the first year. 

Her first trip outside the Bergen area (and the west coast of Norway) was to Oslo, the capitol. This was at an event/festival called "Høst:Larm" (Autumn:Noise") the 3rd of October 2013. She was presented like this in the festival flyer:

"The 17-year-old AURORA AKSNES is from Os outside Bergen is western Norway's young new super talent. She has already managed to become one of NRK Urørt's most played artists in the last year. Now she has aroused interest abroad, and almost without having played live. Aurora composes on piano, and she brings her piano and band to Høstlarm. This is stylish, melancholy pop outside the super-commercial sphere."

Clearly, she did well at this autumn festival. The site @musikkfestoslo had this to say about Aurora: "Aurora Aksnes impressed a lot during yesterday's #høstlarm at #cafemono. Small girl, big voice.

The Norwegian singer @Minnie_oh was equally impressed: 

"This is some of the best I have heard on Norwegian stages in a long time. Susanne Sundfør has an heir in Aurora Aksnes. Magically beautiful. Had I been A&R in a label, I would have signed her on the spot."

Her name was soon to be known everywhere, and I guess her performance at this festival gave her some attention - enough to build up the hype an excitement in the music industry prior to her well known performance at By:Larm in February/March 2014 - but that's a story for another day.... 

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Already in November 2013, Aurora got a publishing agreement with the German record company Budde Music. This company believes it is important to bring artists together. They organize songwriter-gatherings internationally and have their own dedicated studio spaces for this in Berlin.

In October 2014 (less than a year later), Aurora signed an agreement with Decca Records to release her music in all countries, except the USA, South Africa, Australia and Mexico. In these countries, Glassnote Music will release her records. Petroluem Records is the record company that releases her music in Norway.

Geir Luedy has said in an interview that it is better for Aurora to spread the agreements over several companies, but it also creates some challenges for her. Agreeing on times to release her music is one of them. It also means that some of her releases are not available everywhere, as the various companies have slightly different agreements. Her EP "Running With The Wolves", for example, was never released in Norway. It was Decca Records and Universal Music that got this publishing deal.