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Change
Change
It started out as a friendship between Magnus Thor Sigmundsson and Johann Helgason who had know each other since they were playing in the band Nesmenn. They soon got a record deal with Falkinn and started to write music and their first album was released in 1972. They thought their music should be heard outside of Iceland, which had been quite unusual for Icelandic musicians until then. There was at least one label interested, Mercury, but still they did not release an album.
Magnus and Johann decided to change the musical style a bit and went to the UK accompanied by drummer Sigurdur Karlsson and guitarist Birgir Hrafnsson. They sigend a record deal with the UK label Orange and released couple of singles in 1973, Yaketty yak, smacketty smack as Change but changed the name of the band was changed to the Pal Brothers for the second single, Candy girl. The Brits were not to thrilled but the albums became popular in Iceland.
When Orange decided to withdraw from releasing albums and continue with making musical accessories like amps etc the kept Change on a deal as well as pianist John Miles. Change started working with Icelandic keyboard player Jakob Magnusson and the arranger H.B. Barnum who had been working with T-Rex and The Osmonds when Change recorded two more albums. After the release of those albums singer Bo Hall and bassist Tomas Tomasson joined in and the band got a deal with Campell/Robinson who was in close contact with EMI.
Change managed to perform for millions of people in the BBC TV show Bay City Rollers but went back to Iceland to play Top 40 gigs in the summer of ´75. After a three weeks vacation in Spain they went back to England and soon realized that they would have to start all over again after few monts absense from England and during Christams in 1975 they decided to quit.