A short bass bio in Werners own words

It all started in the summer of 1975, one day i heard a beautiful voice crying out my name, it was a six stringed Fender VI Bass from the 8 of august 1962, we fell in love and i just had to get that lovely thing in to my life!

This was the starting point of my new life, no more sporting activities. I did my first gig in the autumn of 1975, and realized that this was really what i wanted to do. So it was time to get busy, many hours of practicing, taking lessons, playing in local bands, having fun and listening to all the bass heroes.

At the age of 18 i started working as a bassplayer, touring and recording with different artists, top 40 bands, and doing all kinds of shows in scandinavia and other countries.

In the fall of 1989, after i had been playing 3 shows a day, 6 days a week, 6 months in Cyprus I started my own band W.T.B (Werner Theunissen Band. I played bass and sang lead vocals, we were performing all over the place. Doing our own shows and acting as a backup band for swedish artists.

Here are some bass highlights:

Beeing a bassplayer in the swedish New wave / punkband Grisen Skriker was a whole new deal. Crazy and energetic shows. Rickenbackers were my main choice at that time. Had also a real cool Kustom amp (Jamerson style)

I also had a disco-funk group called F.C Sound with my good friend and awesome drummer Johan Åkerfeldt. BTW Johan and me and a girl named Nanne Grönvall studied together in school but she was to shy to be in the band.

My first record deal was with the swedish rap-disco-funk group STOP. Me and a friend, Jonas Siljemark decided to make something new. So we a sat at my moms place and wrote this song and pitched it to a record company, and they wanted to relase it. Our first song / single was ”Kool Katt” (Cool Cat) and it came out in early 1983. We toured all over the country and had the first breakdance unit in Sweden. Alot of fun and a great deal of funky slapbass. We also did a second single "Don´t stop". Later on, Swedish television used our music and dancers in the TV show  "Bagen".

Performing with the New York based rapper Grand Master Funk, was always a thrill! There are some cool stories to tell about this unit, but they will be told another day ;-)

One of the memorable W.T.B gigs was at the athletic world championships in Gothenburg 1995, it was powerful! What a great party audience, almost 60.000 people singing and dancing.

Another highlight and great honor was to sing lead vocals and play bass with Elvis Presleys original bandmembers Scotty Moore and DJ Fontana, back to roots of rock n´roll! What a trip!

To be the bandleader and bassplayer with swedish rock icon Eddie Meduza, was like nothing else i ever had experienced. Burning souls and rock n´ roll!

Playing jazz with the Johnny Olsson Band gave me the opportunity to meet many great performers. Monika Zetterlund was one of many highlights.

Touring with guitar virtuoso Kee Marcello of Europe, was great fun! He is a good friend, and Kalle Sändare freak, many laughs!

I was the bandleader and bassplayer with Tommy Nilsson on and off for 10 years, great times!

My good friend Sven-Gunnar Pettersson a fantastic keyboardplayer and producer from Karlskrona, Sweden. We have always a good time when we meet. We have played in various bands. he is the keyboard player in W.T.B and we have also toured together with Tommy Nilsson.

Did many tours with swedish legend Pugh Rogefeldt not as the bassplayer (even tough i did one or two gigs as the bassman) but as the Tour manager, back-up vocalist, percussionist, sidekick, guitar tech, sound and light designer (ljus-Jesus), mom & dad and much more :-) I did also get a new nickname during this times "Bommen" but that´s an other story Lol.

It was rocking good times with the Sthlm Cowboys.

Playing bass and doing back-up vocals with Swedish superstar Nanne Grönvall is always a blast! She´s the bomb!

ABBA The Show is a great unit with lo´ts of fun!

Gil Edwards & The Knuckleheads is a cool band.

It is and has been a great privilege to be performing with all the mentioned and unmentioned wonderful musicians, crew members and artists through the years! Thank you, guys and dolls! Let´s see what the future brings.

See ya´on the road!

Rocking regards - Werner

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