Sune Rose Wagner

Sune Rose Wagner is the songwriter, guitarist, and vocalist for noise pop duo, The Raveonettes. He has been a member of three successful bands, had twice as many albums figuring on the US Billboard Top 200 and scored a 2 million $ recording contract with a major label before turning 40.   At the age of 15 Sune Rose Wagner formed the band “Western Front” that by 1992 had evolved into “Psyched Up Janis”. After three album releases the group split in 1999. After playing for a while in “The Tremelo Beer Gut” he formed his most successful band “The Raveonettes” with fellow Dane Sharin Foo. The Danish indie rock duo combines pleasant two-part vocal harmonies with rough electric guitar sounds and considerable quantities of noise. Although the music is reminiscent of the careless rock of the '50s, there is a concurrent malicious texture to it, produced by the often obscure thematic of the lyrics (lust, use of drugs, suicide).   The duo met in Copenhagen and recorded their debut album, “Whip It On”, in 2001 with contributions from guitarist Manoj Ramdas and jazz drummer Jakob Hoyer. After releasing their debut album on the influential Danish Crunchy Frog label the band made quite an impression on Rolling Stone editor, David Fricke, at the Danish SPOT festival in Aarhus. Fricke’s positive review of the duo immediately resulted in a number of offers from major labels. A bidding war for the band started and culminated in a $2 million contract with Columbia Records in 2002.   “Whip It On” was named "Best Rock Album of the Year" at the Danish Music Awards in 2003, and in the same year Rolling Stone and Q Magazine proclaimed the group one of the forerunners of the "Next Wave" of contemporary music.   The band's first full-length album, “Chain Gang of Love”, was recorded in Denmark and in New York and is notable in that all the songs are in the key of B-flat major. Anders Christiansen (bass, percussion, organ) joined in for the recording of the follow-up album, “Pretty in Black”. The album featured guest vocals from Ronnie Spector of The Ronettes as well as guest instrumental spots from Maureen Tucker (The Velvet Underground). The duo's third studio album, Lust Lust Lust, was released in November 2007 in Europe and February 2008 in the U.S. The album received positive reviews.   In December 2008, Sune Rose Wagner released a solo album, simply titled “Sune Rose Wagner”. All of the songs are sung in his native language of Danish. The Raveonettes' fourth album, “In and Out of Control”, was released in October 2009, with "Last Dance" as the lead single. “Raven in the Grave”, The Raveonettes’ fifth album, was released in April 2011 and has produced three singles to date. The duo released their latest album, titled “Observator”, in September 2012, following the release of the two singles “Observations” and “She Owns the Streets”.   During live performances Sune Wagner uses a number of Jazzmasters. In the studio he also uses other types of Fenders besides several Gibsons, and Gretsches.