About The Convent

THE CONVENT came together as a concept in late 1985 and throughout the band's evolution some members have come and gone , and all of them have been at one time or another, vital to the band's development. That they were able to continue to grow for over ten years and generate genuine affection amongst lovers of guitar music in Germany, is a testament to passion and the power of it, the root of all fine art.They began with an occasional independent single, which in turn led to the band's first cd "COUNTING THE STARS" ,self financed and distributed for the most part at the numerous concerts the band played across Germany and Holland (the singer's homeland). The band began to gather a strong reputation and came to the attention of 'STRANGEWAYS RECORDS' based in Hamburg. STRANGEWAYS agreed to take over the distribution of "COUNTING THE STARS" as well as finance the band's second album "TALES FROM THE FROZEN FOREST". Mark Burgess, former lead singer of the UK indieband THE CHAMELEONS', who was also a big fan of the band, was invited to produce the album. He was already partially involved in a production role on the first album. JoJo Brandt However with STRANGEWAYS came a degree of inflexibility as the realities of working within the constraints and financial motivations of the music industry began to seep in. A band of visionaries, dreamers, idealists, found the compromises too great and it was decided that they would strike out on their own once again. Besides, the group's two leading lights, Carlo van Putten and JoJo Brandt were beginning to move beyond the boundaries of the traditional band set up. As the nineties influences took hold JoJo began to yearn for a more progressive approach, whilst Carlo began to paint his canvasses in a wider arena, resulting in a collaboration with ADRIAN BORLAND, the leading light with THE SOUND, an English band Carlo admired very much. It also saw him reunited with one of the founding members of THE CONVENT, Florian Bescht. This collaboration, entitled "WHITE ROSE TRANSMISSION" was released in 1995 and was a watershed in Carlo's development as a singer and lyricist. THE CONVENT came together again the following year, 1996 to record the band's third album. Produced by Yves Altana, a Corsican musician/producer living in Manchester England "CRASHED CARS & LOVE LETTERS" contains some truly great moments. The band were able to well and truly put the eighties behind them and embrace the nineties, "crash the car, and walk on down the hall." The Convent 2000 But THE CONVENT were once more alone, without national distribution or promotion and 'CRASHED CARS' was almost a victim of it. Thus RED SUN, a concept that had previously existed in a spare bedroom in Vollersode, was truly born. It's driving force, Carlo van Putten, it's aim, not only to further the cause of THE CONVENT, but also the music of others, unheard mainly due to the lack of commitment on the part of a stale and apathetic music industry. Great music deserves to be heard, that is RED SUN's aim. The latest release of THE CONVENT is the album "...about Kings and Queens and stolen bicycles..." Carlo brought out his third white rose transmission album "bewitched & Bewildered" in November 2006 and just finished a new album with his new band Dead Guitars called "Airplanes" which came out in June 2007 on Echozone Records. Jojo & Stefan have a band in Germany called "Sonnenbrandt". At the moment there are no plans for the band. We'll see what happens next...