From Amit’s Official Site!

Amit, former member of the A*teens and a driven entrepreneur will during 2007 release his first solo album. The songs are a positive, sincere pop with influences ranging from the Cure to Queen and Robbie Williams. The material is his own, and he has co-produced the upcoming album “Songs in a Key of Mine”.
Amit Paul, 23 years old, born on the 29th of October in 1983 in Piteå in the far north of Sweden. His father came from India some 10 years earlier and his mother was originally from Värmland in the west of Sweden. Amit was born into an entrepreneurial family where humility and hard work was always in focus. Early on in it became clear that music would play a major role in Amit’s life, even if everyone thought that his academic career would become his major source of income.

Amit has always been into music, at least that’s what he says when I ask him when his passion started. It began with his grandmother (an accomplished organist and choir leader as well as music teacher) and mother playing for him since before he was born. At the age of two he enjoyed classical music and used to conduct the Vienna symphonic orchestra every year in front of the TV on New Years day. “I’ve always loved classical music such as Mozart, Hayden, Beethoven and Bach, it feels as if that’s where my musical root is. That’s the music I grew up with” says Amit. At the age of four he started taking piano lessons and were already singing soprano in his grandmothers choir. In the family there are stories of how, whenever Amit was upset they would put on music and it would calm him down and sooth him. At the age of 10 Amit applied for one of Sweden’s best schools for musical education, Adolf Fredrik’s school of music. Amit spent the following 9 years of his life singing classical choir pieces while learning musical theory almost as a second language. Combined with great academic results Amit’s understanding of music deepened vastly during these years.

On the other hand Amit was always very involved in sports and athletic activity. “I’ve always liked to keep my options open doing lots of things at the same time.” he states with a laugh “I’m at my best when I’m in balance but really, really busy.” For instance at one point he played seven different organized sports, one practice for each day of the week, simultaneously. This however presented a problem when it got more serious and practices started happening several times a week. At the age of 13 Amit took a ‘real’ dance class for the fist time in his life. This happened when his two years younger sister, who had taken lessons since she was a kid, switched dance studios and Amit, wondering if he might enjoy it, tagged along. This got him into Lasse Kühlers dance studio. And lead to that he found his first real love. “It was the first time that I really felt that I didn’t mind spending two or three times a week taking class and most of my Saturdays in the studio” Amit says. After skipping through levels, due to his natural talent for dance and rhythm, he was placed in a group with boys who had been training for a lot longer than him. This was also where Amit met with his future band mate Dhani for the first time. The studio, at the time, was known for it’s jitterbug and the students also took ballet jazz, funk, street and tap. The time with the studio taught Amit a lot about acting on stage, “Kühlers really taught me the art of showmanship in a way that you can only learn if you get great guidance and a lot of practice”. At this time Amit was 15 years old, he was dancing with Marie, Dhani and Sara all later members of A*teens and studying at Adolf Fredrik’s school of music and in 1998 during one November weekend his life was to change drastically. “When we came to the audition we only knew that it was secret and that only a few selected people from the [dance] studio were allowed to come. All we knew was that it had to do with some type of group that were to be formed”. What Amit and the others auditioned for and got that November was the job in Sweden’s first manufactured pop band. This was the moment where the harsh realist Amit, for the first time, understood that music could actually become a serious carrier option for him. In 1999 A*teens was on the charts everywhere, what was meant to be something local in Sweden, a tribute to ABBA’s 25th anniversary of their Eurovision Song Contest-win (1974), had become a massive hit in all of Europe. 5 years later the band called it quits and during these hectic 6 years Amit and the others had traveled about 250 to 300 days a year, toured every continent except Australia and Africa, on their own as well as with superstar acts such as Brittney Spears, *N Sync and Whitney Huston. Sold more records than the Beatles in Chile. Been in the studio with three albums and a greatest hits, recorded a song with rock legend Alice Cooper, and collected gold and platinum records from all over the world. They also achieved rock star status in Mexico, were greeted by thousands of fans on Santiago’s airport and did more than 1500 live shows. “A*teens was the best trip of my life, we had so much success and I’m blessed to have participated in such a huge project, it made me to the person I am today in very many ways”. But why did you decide to call it quits after all this success? “Well for starters we figured that it’s better to stop when you’re still on top. And during all the traveling we’d done we had worn on each other. For me personally though the main reason was that I had started writing songs during the years, and I was beginning to feel that I wanted to do something just for me, in my way.”

Another aspect to Amit is his focus, drive and ambition. During his adventure with the A*teens he has also had a focus on what would come afterwards. He, when the others decided to quit school, chose to remain in school, studying on airplanes, tour-busses and in hotels, when his colleagues were sleeping, shopping or hanging out. On the weeks they had off Amit had exams, in order to finish high school. “I come from an academic family, not to get a degree or not even finish high school was never really an option for me” Amit states. He finally graduated high school one year before the A*teens decided to take a break, but was so restless that he applied to read a university course of law the following term. Even though Amit always has imagined himself as an engineer, with the university course in law and reviewing his career opportunities decided that it might fit him better to get a business degree. “At this point, when we finally decided to take the break I was sick and tired of the music business, I didn’t know what I wanted to do and I yearned for ‘ordinary life’ again. So I figured ‘I’ll take a break’ and I did. I applied to Stockholm School of Economics (SSE) and because of the hard work I had put in I was admitted and started in the fall of 2004.”

But however much Amit enjoyed the student life and his normality there was always a longing to get back into the music industry using the knowledge he had acquired and, this time, do it his own way. So after careful consideration and getting halfway through his studies at SSE Amit decided to take the material he had written during the last couple of years and make reality out of his dream. After finding Patric Jonsson and Jimmy Wahlsteen, during a songwriting session, Amit felt he had finally found someone who understood his artistic ambition. This led to Amit approaching the pair with whether they wanted to produce his upcoming album “Songs in a Key of mine”. The collaboration was a success and the diversity of the co-workers really brought the songs to a whole different place. Amit, being the control freak he is, kept the boys on a short leash, trying to be involved in every step of the way finally got to see and hear his vision be embodied in the tracks. With Jimmy Wahlsteen and Victor Buck on guitar, Hasse Sjölander on drums and Martin von Schmalense on bass as well as engineering and mixing, four of the tracks were recorded during an intense two-day session in October. And after that they were co-produced by Amit, Patric Jonsson and Joakim Övrenius. “We spent pretty much every waking hour for one and a half months in the studio getting the rest of Stay and My Elysium done” says Amit “it was intense but real fun, and I love the tracks that came out of it.” And in the beginning of December (2006), Amit finally stood with two singles mastered and done in his hand ready to face the world, on his own, in his own way. “I really don’t like the way the music industry seems to be rejecting new technologies. I see threats but first and foremost opportunities in the Internet and the so-called ‘new economy’ and my ambition is to exploit these possibilities and use the situation instead of whine about it. I would like to build something that will be around for a while, and also help other aspiring artists get somewhere. But I realized that I still have much to learn, so I figured that I would start with myself and put down a foundation. […] Where I’ll end up? Well that’s something I will leave for the stars to decide.”

After shopping for a record deal as well as management all around Sweden Amit finally succeeded in hooking Peter Åstedt and Dead Frog records with his catchy pop. The collaboration started in January (2007) and has already born fruit. Amit’s first single Stay will be released in the end of February (2007) in Sweden. 2007 will be intense for Amit, as if releasing your first single is not enough Amit will have to finish the production of the rest of the album as well as tour Sweden with an intimate live set. “I’m really looking forward to bringing my music to people and see what they think about it. I love playing live this way, it is so different from the show we did with the A*teens. This is more of an actual concert, me with a microphone, and my two musicians singing and entertaining.” says Amit. “I’ve always loved great live bands and now it’s my turn to give other people that warm feeling you get after seeing a great artist do a great show.”

More coming soon!