Siena Root - A Swedish Root Rock Experience

~Biography ~Discography ~Tour History ~Reviews

Siena Root came to life in Stockholm in 2003 and is until today considered to be one of the pioneering bands in the heritage rock music scene. They persistently pulled through with releasing their first album on vinyl back in 2004, long before the retro trend had people carrying down their old turntables from the attic. The quest to bring out the beauty of analogue music produc tion to the listeners continued.

With a vast discography and a reputation of being an extraordinary live act, Siena Root will start writing on their eighth album this autumn. Driven by their passion for experiments with analog music production they go deep into the Swedish forest, where musical inspiration can only be distracted by the scent of magnetic tape. The result has always been; heavy drum grooves, solid bass riffs, screaming guitar/organ dog- fights and powerhouse vocals. All working together in a classic, yet playful and dynamic in-teraction. But there’s more to it. This legacy rock brings an authentic root rock expe-rience also to the stage, lately presented as support of Deep Purple in Germany.

Total record sales up to 2018 approx 50.000 physical CDs, LPs, DVDs and digital downloads, as well as over 1 million listeners on streaming services such as Spotify and more than 300.000 views on YouTube.

Photo by Clemens Mitscher

Discography

A Dream of Lasting Peace - 2017 - M.I-.G.

Pioneers – CD/Vinyl/Digital – 2014 – Gaphals/ Cleopatra

Conveniently Blind – 7″/Digital – 2013 – Root Rock Re-cords/ Transubstans

Root Jam – CD/Vinyl/Digital – 2011 – Transubstans/ Clear-spot/Headspin

Kalejdoskop – DVD – 2010 – Root Rock Records

Different Realities – CD/Vinyl/Digital – 2009 – Transub-stans/ Clearspot/Headspin

Far from the sun – CD/Vinyl/Digital – 2008 – Transub-stans/ Clearspot/Headspin

Kaleidoscope – CD/Vinyl/Digital – 2006 – Nasoni Records

Mountain Songs – 7″/Digital – 2005 – Nasoni Records

A new day dawning – CD/Vinyl/Digital – 2004 – Rage of Achilles/ Root Rock Records/ Nasoni Records

Total record sales up to 2015 approx 26000 physical CDs, LPs, DVDs.

Links

Homepage – http://sienaroot.com/ Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/sienaroot Soundcloud - https://soundcloud.com/siena-rootYoutube - https://youtu.be/rKttTNn2vNg Bandcamp - https://sienaroot.bandcamp.com/musicTwitter - https://twitter.com/sienaroot Itunes - http://smarturl.it/t6o06m Spotify - http://smarturl.it/1bmjti

Tour History

Since the beginning, Siena Root has mostly performed as an experimental collective, the foundation being a trio with guitar, bass and drums. Several guest musicians would complete the line-up with instruments like sitar, flute, vi-olin, hurdy gurdy, and the fans would never expect to see the same show twice. The live act came to be an uncompromising show, using all the heavy vintage equip-ment that most bands lack the strength and passion to carry along. Even a full size multi-track tape recorder was brought on tour during the recording of the live album. The immense dedication to do it all the way is what made Siena Root stand out from the bunch.

Why Siena Root?

- In the sense that blues is blue, hard rock is black, and reggae is pan African coloured, this mu-sic has the colour of siena. It is a warm colour, originally from the muddy roots of the earth. Because this sound has roots that go deep, it was also natural to let root be a part of the bands name.

A brief summary of 500 shows

2017 Tours in Europe with Blues Pills and Deep Purple

2016 Tours in Europe including sold out Desertfest London

2015 Tours all over Europe, including UK and festivals

2014 Minor tours in Scandinavia and Desertfest Berlin

2013 Tours in central Europe, Scandinavia and balkans, festivals

2012 Tours in IT, DE, DK, SE, FR, SI, AT, NL, NO and festivals

2011 Tours in central Europe and baltic states, festivals

2010 Tours in Spain and central Europe, Scandinavia and Greece, Dunajam

2009 Tours in central Europe, including Sauzipf rocks festival among others

2008 Tours in central Europe, including Burg Herzberg festival among others

2007 Tours in central Europe, including Roadburn festival among others

2006 Tours in central Europe, including Crossroads festival broadcast in WDR

2005 Tours in central Europe, including Burg Herzberg festival among others

2004 Tours in central Europe

ReviewsLive the Black Heart, London (2015-10-16)

Stockholm retro rockers Siena Root have actually been in existence in one form or another for eighteen years now, first forming in 1997. In that time they’ve released five studio albums, a live album, a DVD and a handful of sin-gles and EPs and are a familiar fixture on the stoner/prog/retro rock circuit across Europe. Given all that it’s sur-prising that it’s taken them this long to visit the UK and tonight sees them play their first ever show in London. It also marks a new era for the band, with new vocalist Samuel Björö at the helm.

Considering this is the band’s first Lon-don show, and currently Siena Root don’t have the same UK profile as many of their Swedish ‘retro rock’ con-temporaries, you could be forgiven for thinking that this gig may not necessarily be that well attended. That was certain-ly not the case, and it’s clear this band have a strong UK following already, as the gig is actually sold out and the band are welcomed like conquering rock gods by many here tonight.

It’s not difficult to see why either. From the scintillating opener ‘Be-tween The Lines’, Siena Root deliver over an hour’s worth of their potent mixture of ‘70s flavoured heavy rock, prog and psychedelic rock to a delighted audience, picking tracks from most of their pre-vious releases with some brand new material too. Reference points along the way include Wishbone Ash, Santana, Allman Brothers and Uriah Heep, although the most obvious influence on the band’s sound remains Deep Purple to my ears, aided by the fantastic rum-bling organ of Erik Pettersson. In fact at one point during the set they manage to shift effortlessly from sounding like prime Gillan-era Deep Purple on a brand new track to prime Coverdale-era for the next track, with drummer Love Forsberg adding some tasty Ian Paice-esque licks. On this evidence, the next album promises to be a belter.

Siena Root may be Stockholm’s best kept secret on these shores at the moment, but all that may be about to change. On the evidence of tonight’s superb performance, I would suggest Siena Root have the goods to not only give their more ‘name’ fellow Swede retro rock contemporaries a run for their money, but actually blow them all away.

Review by Jim Rowland for Über Rock

With best regards,

Steam Music ManagementAndrew CampbellKrokussteg 2116321 Bernau bei BerlinGermany

Phone: 0049 3338 9082392Mobil: 0049 172 3824321Mobil: +7 911 700 82 64Mail: mailto:info@steam-music-management.comWeb: http://www.steam-music-management.comhttp://www.edition-ja.com

Photo by Maren Michaelis