Biography

It all started back in 1989 where Claus and Søren put their heads together and composed the music for the danish movie “Frække Frida”. While René had a job as DJ in Norway where he spotted Lene in a Norwegian television show called “Casino”. She was singing the cover track by Randy Crowford “Almaz” and René was all lost in her.
René contacted Lene and after a some persuasion they both headed for Copenhagen and got together with Søren and Claus.

At first the band name was Joyspeed, and they released on single, but only in Sweden. It only it the chart for one week. The four members came up with the idea of changing the name to Aqua and they thought that they weren’t being treated properly where they were and broke of the contract with the label company, and decided to start over with a new name.

The new name came from a poster hanging in the four guys rehearsal room. The poster said “Aquarium” and quick it became that this was the new name for the guys.
They started to write some songs and they soon got a contract with Universal Music.

They year was 1996 and the single was “Roses are red”, which is Aquas debut single. It got straight to the charts and stayed for several months, so many that the band shipped gold. After this the single was released in Norway and was in top of the charts there as well.
Not only did the single ship gold, Aqua were also nominated for a Grammy (Danish Award) for “Best dance release”, and won. They have a whole lot of Grammy’s behind them.

“My oh My” was Aquas second single and was released in Denmark February 1997. It was immediately in the top of the single chart. Aqua shipped gold with “My oh My”, after only 6 days in shops. When we are talking Denmark, that’s amazing.

Later on came “Barbie Girl” which sold 4 million copies and lead Aqua to the top around the whole world. It actually happened because a danish radio station sent a copy of “Barbie Girl” to an American radio station. As time went by, it was actually the most demanded song ever, and a fabulous summer track.

For many countries around the world “Barbie Girl” was the official debut single from Aqua. And the single got directly to number 7 of the Billboard Hot 100 I USA. That’s the highest a band has ever gotten on a debut single.

In the UK Aqua were number 1 as well, and actually beated Spice Girls’ “Wannabe” and Elton Johns version of “Candle in the wind”.

Now everything cant be a walk in the park. Aqua and MCA Records got sued by the toy company Mattel. It was a 9 month long trial about Mattel losing money on dolls because of “Barbie Girl”, they said it didn’t hold the law for copyright. There were also a problem with the lyrics of the song, Mattel thought that the song had sexual carnations and said “Sexual and other unsavory themes with Mattel’s Barbie products”. In the five pages long report about the case MCA says “has suffered, and continues to suffer, loss of reputation and losts profits in an ampunt that is not currently ascertainable by MCA”.
The problem with the lyrics was specially this: “Kiss me here, thouch me there, hanky panky”. Luckily the case was rejected, but that meant that work that was suppose to be done was now delayed, among other a video from Aqua with a speciel recording with “Barbie Girl” live.

The first album “Aquarium” was released soon after. The album was filled with hits and shipped gold after only two days. The special thing about this album was, that the whole album was released, that doesn’t happen very often in the music business. “Dr. Jones” which also were to find on the album proved that Aqua were no “one-hit-wonders”, it was announced to be the strongest number from the “Aquarium” album, stronger than “Barbie Girl”, it was on top of the charts as well.

After that came “Lollipop (Candyman)” which hit number 5 in the Australian charts, the song wasn’t released in many European countries, but of course Scandinavia. Originally the theme for the video was a horror kind a thing. Aqua changed the theme to space instead. The reason for the chaining was Backstreet Boys new video “Everybody” which is a horror video.

Next single from Aqua was “Turn Back Time”. It hat already had its debut in Great Britain and was number 1, it later went to Australia where it also crawled to the top of the charts. The song was the theme song to the movie “Sliding Doors” with Gwuneth Pathrow as the head character, and was on the soundtrack as well. It has a darker atmosphere and the colors aren’t there. There is a huge contrast between “Turn Back Time” and “Barbie Girl” and any other songs Aqua has made, its on of the only ballads on “Aquarium”

The last single from the album “Aquarium” was “Good Morning Sunshine”, not as popular as the previous single, but still good. The video for the single was a bunch of recorded live shows where Aqua sings this song.

After that single, Aqua went back in the studio to work on the new album, they started writing in the summer 1998. When they were done writing they had 50 songs, and 12 where chosen for the second album.

The second album was written, recorded and mixed by Aqua themselves, and in 2000 “Aquarius” was born. The album was born together with the single “Cartoon Heroes” which hit the streets January 31st. Soon it showed that the second album wasn’t as amazing as the first one. The album “Aquarius” was a flop in sales. Maybe because it sounded like the first album, new songs but same flow. Despite the low selling, they had a huge release party in The Diamond in Copenhagen, and still released four singles from the album. “Cartoon Heroes” January 31st, “Around the World” April 17th, “Bumble Bees” August 9th and last “We Belong To The Sea” November 13th in 2000.

Aqua held on to their latest statement, they weren’t just a Barbie band, and there should have been a fifth release from “Aquarius”, the song “Freaky Friday” was remixed and the cover was made. Unfortunately the last single was not released because lack of interest for the band.

Soon after that, in 2001 Aqua split up, but you still here a lot from them. René released a few singles “Let It All Out (Push It)” and “The Uhh Uhh Song”. He never released an album. Lene on the other hand released both singles and one album. Unfortunately her first single wasn’t well received in her hometown of Tønsberg in Norway. It only sold three copies, and was number 74 of the Norwegian chart. Despite the bad selling of the single “It’s your Duty”, it hit number 3 on the Danish chart. Next single from Lene “Pretty Young Thing” was potential hit, but it had even less success than the first single and that meant that there were less promotion. There should have been a third single “Here we go” which is a cover of the band Moonbaby. There are made promo’s but it was canceled again, just like “Freaky Friday”. Lene did release an album “Play with me” September 21st in 2003 both in Europe and Canada. All together with Lenes solo career her and Søren got married in Las Vegas. That happened May 22nd 2001, and they now have the children India (2004) and Billy (2005) together.

Søren was also quite for some time, or you should think, he has his small music projects on the side (Hej Matematik and Lazy Boy), meanwhile he writes songs to other artist. He has written the winner song at X-Factor 2010.

All together Aqua has sold 18 millioner albums and 10 millioner singles in the world.