Jens Fredrik Ryland

Jens Fredrik Ryland (born 5 May 1974) is a Norwegian guitarist most notable for his work with the progressive black metal band Borknagar. He is known also for being the founder of the Inferno Festival in Oslo which he led its first two years.

Biography

Ryland was born in Narvik, Norway and grew up in Evenes. He started playing organ very early and moved on to guitar at the age of 10. At 16 he bought his first electric guitar and started playing in a band with friends. In 1991, he and some friends formed Gangland, a '70s and '80s hard rock cover band. They did several gigs in the two-year period they were together before everyone left Evenes to go to school. Jens joined the army in 1993.

In 1994 Jens came to Tromsø to study and formed a cover band. He left them the summer of 1995 and moved to Oslo.

Jens joined Borknagar in 1997. He technically left the band in 2003, but performed at all concerts between 2003 and 2007. In this period Borknagar recorded Epic and Origin without Jens' participation. He formally rejoined again in 2007 and participated in the recording of Universal. Jens has played on all concerts done by Borknagar

In the fall of 2010 Jens started working on his own Music and Media project which were launched in March 2011 and called Artisan. While he still maintained his position in Borknagar the Artisan project also contained a lot of material about Borknagars movements.

In 2011 Jens was also invited to join the band of his good friend ICS Vortex

Jens currently lives in Oslo with his fiancee and has two sons.

He is known to play the video games like Age of Conan, a video of him playing the game was uploaded on the ArtisanNorway channel. He also made a fan video with Artisan, named Road To Khitai, which featured a full song.

Inferno Festival

Ryland founded Oslo's famous "Inferno Festival" in 2001 because of a desire for the Norwegian metal community to unite, focusing on extreme music. In that year, the festival already included 22 of the biggest names in the metal scene, like Borknagar and Enslaved. After two years, Jens decided to leave.

Discography

Borknagar

• The Archaic Course (1998)
• Quintessence (2000)
• Empiricism (2001)
• Universal (2010)
• Urd (2013)
• Winter Thrice(2016)