Biography Ove Stoilen.
The early years
Ove was born and raised in the lumber district of Gjovdal, Åmli in the south of Norway.
He attended Minnewaukan High School in North Dakota at the age of 17.
He participated in various music activities, and he even won the gold medal at the state championship in classical vocal from the High School Activities Association, North Dakota.
He went back to Norway the next year and finished High School with a major in music. He joined the Kristiansand Oprah Choir for two years and got to be a part of the play “The elixir of love” by Donizetti and “Faust” by Gounod at Agder Theatre.
Then he chose to change track and took an education to be a store manager as he worked as for a couple of years.
Later Ove got to be a social worker for the municipal of Kristiansand.
Ove Stoylen got married to Wenche in 1998 and got their first girl named Linn Amanda. Their second child named Ove Alexander was born in 2000.
The chase of a dream
Then one night he watched a TV commercial for a bank company.
The slogan was: “So many days that came and went – Little did I know that this is was LIFE”
That night he decided to do much more with his life, then just making money. He was going for his dream, to make more out of his music.
The next day he went to his boss and resigned his regular safe job and with that his steady income. He took his family with him on the plane and landed in Lanzarote, the Canary Islands. He worked as a hotel musician for four month and then flew back to Norway and worked as a pub musician for 1 year.
The big surprise
But then one Monday morning a stranger called him. He had seen his duo-act on stage that Saturday night and wanted to finance his first album. His name was Asbjørn Songedal.
Then Ove began to write his own songs on topics like who he was, about his family and friends and even the local country club in Froland called Dusty Boots.
His regular bass player Espen Skeie made the arrangements to Ove’s songs and produced the album in a studio in Kristiansand. The record company Kultur & Spetakkel signed Ove when they heard the post mix of the CD and then it all began.
Ove Støylen’s debut album called Dusty Boots was released in November 2003 and got amazing critics in Norway and in the rest of Europe.
The biggest country radio hit on this album was the song “100% absolute woman” and “Tonight’s the night”
A country magazine in the Netherlands named him immediately Europe’s Alan Jackson and then his booking phone started to ring.
Since the start in January 2004 have Ove Stoylen played about 50 concerts a year in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, The Pharo Islands, Germany, The Netherlands and Spain.
Church Concerts
In the fall of 2006 they decided to make concerts in churches and that was a success from the start. Ove sings songs from his own albums and songs from great artist like Randy Travis, Johnny Cash and Brad Paisley to mention some of them.
In the spring of 2005 came Ove’s second album called “It’s about time” and it contains radio hits like “Your roses” and “The Hitch-hiker”.
Plans ahead.
Ove Stoylen is writing new songs constantly and there will be made a third album soon. In the meantime – be sure to come to one of his concerts around Europe this year and enjoy his great show.
The Europeen Highway men.
Ove has also started to work together with Arly Karlseen and G.Thomas, both well known country music artists in Europe.
They make a show together called “the European Highwaymen” as a tribute to the original Highwaymen; Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash and Kirs Kristofferson. These shows have been very successful and they are filling up big sportshalls with these concerts.