Terry Young - The Artist

Terry Young, artist, composer, musician and businessman. Born a long time ago in Kristiansand, Norway.

Terry was only thirteen years old when he joined his first band. He was then in and out of several bands before he went solo at eighteen years of age because he felt that was the only way to make something of significance in the music business.

He grew up listening to bands like Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, Nazareth and Status Quo. Bands of the time who, of course, struck a chord in most young men`s hearts and, naturally, also hit something in a young musician and songwriters emotions. However, Terry does not know to what extent the music with which he grew up affected, influenced and inspired him artistically. It was, nevertheless, acts such as Wishbone Ash, Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan, and The Beatles, among others, who gave him something to think about.

Although he was only 10 when The Beatles quit, he will never forget what “Michelle” meant to him. He borrowed the single from his cousin Annemor, a girl some six or seven years older than himself, and who, by the way, he found gorgeous.

He`ll also never forget Wishbone Ash`s `The Ballad of The Beacon`.

Words like:

We`ll be leaving this town in the morning
Tomorrow we`ll be able to see
l`ve had me enough of this city
And she`s had enough out of me

Say if l climb to the mountain

Would you still follow me there
Steal me away in an echo
The mountains will always be there

Are just beautiful, and together with the lovely and tender melody, give a feeling of longing, searching, love of life, a feeling of something beyond the next door. Something worth fighting, living and looking for.

Terry Young is a man and an artist with a difference. He was already involved in business as a young man, and at one time he was one of the youngest businessmen in the country. However, his motivation to do business was rarely money. Rather, it was the pleasure of the process of building and creating that was important; to see a dream come true, a vision realised; to see an idea come to fruition. As a young man he worked for many years in the music business in Oslo and for some years he ran the branch of a Swedish record company there. He also released some singles himself in Sweden, but it was of course difficult to be an artist at the same time as a label manager. However, he composed a lot of music, and eventually he quit the industry and moved to Hamburg, Germany, and settled there to work and live as an artist. An American publisher quickly became interested in his work, but Terry was struck by an illness that required ten long years to fight. Of course, all artistic and business related work stopped for many years.

However, some songs were written from time to time and some of them have been recorded today.

No doctor, no homeopath, no medicine could help Terry, so five years ago he decided that enough was enough. He wanted to live, and he took on the battle, not knowing what to fight, with what means, with what power, or in what way. The determination was so strong that it would take the breath away from most people. With his faith in God, and the guiding and supporting hand of his wife, a long battle and journey started.

The first victory he remembers was a walk from his house to a nearby playground and back, a ten-minute walk. His experience has developed in him a good understanding of what it is to be a human being, and today he is very sorry with how people, especially in the western world, totally ignore the opportunities God has given them, the resources that we all have to solve any kind of problem, including illness. “There is power in words,” Terry says, adding, “You are what you say you are. If people knew what they were doing to themselves when they get stressed and angry because of a parking ticket they wouldn`t do it.”

Four years ago Terry was back in the studio again. He has slowly but surely rebuilt his carer: he has his own recording studio, he runs his own business within the multimedia sector, and he is working on a project to launch a world wide Internet service for musicians, songwriters and the recording and music publishing industry. Terry has reached a healthy balance between being a songwriter and an artist on the one hand, and a businessman on the other. He has been very productive over the past years, and there are projects going on in both his own studio and in that of his producer, Petter Wiik, all the time. Furthermore, he is working very hard to finalise a long-term recording and publishing deal.

Together with Petter Wiik he has also formed a group called “The Cakebox.” It was Terry`s idea to have a production team for his instrumental music, especially for producing film and TV soundtracks. His producer, an experienced composer and producer for ballet and theatre, liked the idea, and today The Cakebox is producing music for movies, TV and theatre, in addition to modern pop and rock music.

Terry Young is pleased to finally be present at the digital hi-way.