Band Line Up 2018

often referred to as a power-metal band, germany’s ORDEN OGAN have developed their very unique style of hard yet melodic heavy metal, that makes them totally stand out from the crowd. having their roots in traditional german power metal ORDEN OGAN implemented folk, symphonic and elements of modern metal into their sound, transferring the german legacy into the new millenium and creating their very own genre.

having entered the german album charts with “To The End” in 2012 at #41 and with their latest record “Ravenhead” (2015) at an outstanding #16 (and stayed in for three weeks!), having hit the swiss album charts at #56, being featured on germanys biggest tv station RTL in trailers of the formula 1 broadcast with “we are pirates!” (approx. 11 million viewers), having played several european tours with bands like hammerfall, powerwolf, grave digger or van canto, to name a few, having played to packed festival fields like WACKEN OPEN AIR (GER), 70000 TONS OF METAL (USA), SUMMER BREEZE GER), TRONDHEIM METAL FEST (NO), MADE OF METAL (CZ), ROCKSTAD: FALUN (SWE), PROG POWER USA (USA), ROCK FEST BARCELONA (ES), ROCK HARD FESTIVAL (GER), being tweeted by megadeths dave mustaine (“listening to orden ogan. anyone heard of these guys before? pretty cool me thinks. what is an orden ogan anyway? =)“) and having reached millions of views on their youtube clips - ORDEN OGAN today is an internationally established heavy metal act with a big and growing following.

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HISTORY

FOUNDING ERA

another era, a different chapter… a lot of misinformation from different (wrong) sources can be found in the internet concerning the history of the band. essentially ORDEN OGAN singer/guitarrist/founder Sebastian “Seeb” Levermann started playing music with longtime drummer Sebastian “Ghnu” Grütling in 1996. the (by that time) pupils mostly hung out at their rehearsal room, ate pizza and pasta and learned to play their instruments. between 1998 and 2008 the band featured several lineups. noteworthy musicians are sebastian severin (bass), christian decker (keys), marc peters (guitar, later “solar fragment”), verena melchert (flute) and stefan manarin (guitar). these lineups spawned three demos: into oblivion (1998, cassette tape), soli deo gloria (1999, cd) and testimonium a.d. (2004, cd). other sources name more ex-members, but those people were either just friends of the band, who never played anything, or guests. thanks a lot, internet…

needless to say the band was inoperative for several years . in the end of this period the band actually split up…

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PROFESSIONAL CAREER

bandleader Seeb counts the history of ORDEN OGAN , as you know it today, from 2008, with a reminiscence to the garage days, when it comes to the name.

2008 the debut record “Vale” was released via yonah records, featuring an new, strong and  stable lineup with drummer Sebastian “Ghnu” Grütling, keyboardist Nils Weise, guitarrist Tobias Kersting and bassplayer Lars Schneider. the artwork was created by artist Andreas Marschall, who is known for his works with bands like blind guardian, running wild, kreator, hammerfall or nightwish to name a few. a trademark the band sticks to until today. “Vale” also shows band-mascot “ALISTER VALE” - an immortal who is cursed and has to move on and on, but everything he leaves decays behind him… an elaborate CGI videoclip for the song “The Lords Of The Flies” was released the same year.

the band also signed with direct management and dragon productions for the management and booking issues. due to impressive sales, strong press response and a good festival appearances ORDEN OGAN quickly gained the attention of several bigger record labels, signing with longtime partner AFM RECORDS, who re-released “vale” as a remixed and remastered digipack version. the same year the song “We Are Pirates”, shortly before released on youtube, was featured in the tv trailer of the formula one broadcast (monza 2008) on german tv station RTL (approx. 11 million viewers).

2010 the even more successful follow up “Easton Hope” was released via AFM with guest performances from Thomen Stauch (former blind guardian) and Majk Moti (former running wild). the release was followed by festival appearances at wacken open air, the renowned rock hard festival and their first european tour supporting tiamat. 2010/2011 ORDEN OGAN toured with van canto (“we sing some metal songs” tour), did another european tour with grave digger (“the clan comes to your town” tour) in 2011 and another tour with van canto (“no silence to the end” tour) in 2011. due to the timeconsuming touring activities longtime drummer Ghnu, keyboardist Nils and bassplayer Lars left the band and were quickly replaced by the professionals Dirk Meyer-Berhorn (drums) and Niels Löffler (bass).

2012 the highly anticipated new record “To The End” was released via AFM RECORDS and hit the german album charts at #41. the videoclip of the first single “The Things We Believe In” today counts over 3.5 million clicks on youtube. “To The End” was voted rock hard (ger) album of the year #15, metal storm #3 readers choice / #1 staff choice, powermetal.de album of the year #14, and the band reached high positions in several magazines soundchecks and readers charts.

two more videoclips were released for “to the end” – “Land Of The Dead” and “Masks”, at the same time title track for andreas marshalls horror movie “Masks” that features the film music of ORDEN OGAN mastermind Seeb.

the limited digipack version of “To The End” contains a dvd with the 2010 live show from the wacken open air.

the release was folled by a european tour with rhapsody and freedom call (“born to sound cinematic” tour) and impressive festival appearances in 2013, such as rock harz open air and summer breeze open air.

2014 ORDEN OGAN entered Seebs GREENMAN STUDIO to (as usual) to work on the new record “Ravenhead”. Seeb, who mixed records of  “rhapsody of fire”, australias “vanishing point”, or Victor Smolskis “almanac”, to name a few, evolved stronlgy as a producer.

carl frederic from metalunderground.com states “the album is phenomenally produced (by Levermann himself, who has quickly become one of the best producers in Europe)”.

the band only left the studio for a few selected festivals like trondheim metal fest (no), made of metal (cz), metal splash (ger) and their first ever usa performance on sept 12th at prog power usa (atlanta, ga) that was met with euphoric acclaim.

on january 16th 2015 “Ravenhead” was released on the kick-off date of the world-wide-(r)evolution-tour, supporting hammerfall. “Ravenhead” hit the charts at #16 in germany and stayed in the charts for three weeks in total (#16, #69, #88) and reached position #56 in switzerland as well, while the tour was a huge success with a majority of sold-out-shows! the “Ravenhead” single “F.E.V.E.R” quickly surpassed 1.4 million views on youtube.

in the end of 2015 ORDEN OGAN supported powerwolf on a european tour, followed by the first european headlinetour in early 2016,  with Victor Smolski’s (ex-rage) new band almanac and swedish powermetallers manimal supporting.