Bjorn Eriksson

Born in 1976, he taught himself guitar and Dobro at fourteen, already drawn to bluegrass, and at sixteen he began playing in the bluegrass band Hank Van Damme, which also included his father, Karl Eriksson, on banjo and his sister Eva on bass and was for years a house band at the Pacific concert hall in Antwerp. He chose a career in music in 1994, influenced at first by the bluegrass guitarist Clarence White, and then took up jazz and gypsy jazz after discovering Django Reinhardt.

In 1997 he formed the short-lived band Tumbleweed with Stef Kamil Carlens, who then brought him into Zita Swoon as a guitarist. Eriksson stayed until 2004 and wrote songs for the band with Carlens. He released electronic music under the name Blitzzega from 2001, formed the rock band Maxon Blewitt in 2002, made the experimental country album The Partchesz (2007) with Delcroix, and from 2006 to 2011 played with Admiral Freebee.

The Broken Circle Breakdown follows a couple who fall in love through their passion for bluegrass. Eriksson composed the original score and reworked old country and bluegrass songs, which he recorded with the Broken Circle Breakdown Band; in the band scenes the actors perform the music themselves. The soundtrack album held No. 1 on the Flemish albums chart for six weeks from January 2013, and Eriksson received the Ensor for best music that year. With the film’s stars Veerle Baetens and Johan Heldenbergh, the Broken Circle Breakdown Bluegrass Band toured Belgium and France from 2012 to 2014 and released the live album Unbroken! in 2014. Eriksson Delcroix’s first album, For Ever, came out the same year, and he has continued to write music for film and theater.