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Venke Knutson
Liodden was born into a valued
musicians’ family on October the
20th 1978. She has two big
sisters, Tone and Hege. She grew
up in a small village, Birkeland.
She didn't sing that often, but
she proclaimed a lot of poetry.
She had a high and clear voice.
Sometimes a little too high
Venke's favourite hobby as a
little girl was to lie in the
grass in the evening and look at
the stars. She liked to listen to
her father telling her about the
names of the stars, and the
history. Venke still likes to
dream away with the sky as a
ceiling. The star on the top to
the left in Orion's Belt is
Venke's favourite star. It lights
the strongest in October around
Venke's birthday. Her father was a
director at the local band, that
her grandfather founded. In
addition to playing drums in the
band, Venke sang in several choirs
and played the piano.
After Venke graduated from Junior
High School, her family moved to
Houston, Texas, in USA. she had
lived there before, but then she
was too young to see and do so
much. Inspired by her two older
sisters, Venke applied to the
music line at Vågsbygd School when
the family returned to Norway. She
was accepted without a song
audition since she still was in
Texas. "Luck" says Venke. Venke
dreamed of being an artist. But
she insists still to that she is a
person first, then an artist.
In the fall 1998 Venke started at
the teachers academy in Oslo, and
started to work with Dan
Sundhordvik. Venke sang for
several bands, and when the group
S.P.O.O.N, with lead singer Erik
Faber won the Norwegian
Championship in Rock in 1999, she
was on the stage as a backup
singer. In 2001 she married Svenn
Kåre Liodden, and she tells the
sweet story about how she met her
boyfriend: "When I was 17 and was
attending the musicline at
Vågsbygd School, I went with some
boys who where going on the danish
boat and play jazz in regarding
"Operasjon Dagsverk". I couldn't
sing jazz, and had never song in a
microphone before, but I tagged
along since I thought the drummer
was so cute. So I sang for the
first time on the danish boat, and
the drummer later became my
husband.”
On spring 2003 Venke got a record
deal with the record company
Universal working with her
manager, Jan Fredrik Karlsen, also
known as the Judge in the tv-show
"Idol". Venke tells about her
relationship with Idol: “I got
totally addicted to it. Especially
last year, then I really paid
attention. But this year
unfortunately it haven't been too
much looking at tv, but I have
tried to pay attention as much as
I can. But I really don't
understand how people dare to be
in something like that. I wouldn’t
dare it. if I'm going to criticize
the concept a bit, the lower age
should be raised to 18 instead of
16. I thought it was horrible to
see all the critic that came
towards a young and innocent girl
like Sandra Lyng Haugen who only
was 16. People were really mean
and awful to her.” “So I called
Sandra and told her to never mind
them and to keep working. Besides,
I had to thank her too for singing
"Panic". That was so funny!.”
In June her single "Panic" came
and it was the summer hit all
until February 2004. Panic was on
several collection albums, and
made it's best place on the
"VG-lista" with place nr.10. In
march came the follow up,
"Scared", and in June her album
"Scared" was released to the
stores. Venke has now completed
her education as a teacher, and is
the teacher of class 3A at Bryn
School in Oslo. Her students were
scared when they saw her on
television. Scared of her changing
job. “They didn't really
understand what their teacher was
doing on TV, but at least I got
invalidated that I was starting on
the children’s channel The
artist has no plans about leaving
her job as a teacher: “24
beautiful kids meet me here every
day”. No matter how things will go
with my record. “They have agreed
that they are very good in singing
all together in the mornings” ,
Venke smiles.
Jealous Cos I love you
