Last August the Liahona, an LDS bookstore in Sandy Springs, started selling Stephenie Meyer's “Twilight” series of books. (Stephenie is a Brigham Young University graduate, and has been compared to JK Rowling of Harry Potter fame.)   As the young manager was putting these books on the shelf, he read the brief description on the book cover.  When he read that the characters included vampires and werewolves, he was intrigued.  He read the three books in four days and encouraged his wife to read them also. 

The manager was Mitch Hansen.  Hansen, 27; wife, Kim; and baby son, Connor grew up and went to school in Sandy Springs. He is a graduate of North Springs H S; and is working on a business degree at Kennesaw State while manager of the Liahona bookstore.

Mitch has played the guitar (self-taught) since he was 13 years old and has been singing since he learned to talk.  He enjoys composing music, but has always found writing lyrics to be a challenge.  Kim suggested he use the characters and events in the Twilight books as inspiration.  He quickly wrote and recorded "Twilight Hour", created a MySpace site and posted the song.  In just over 2 months he wrote and recorded another 13 songs and has gained fans throughout the world. 

Mitch emailed Stephenie Meyer's brother, Seth, who manages her websites.  Seth shared the music with Stephenie who made mention of Mitch and his music in one of her blogs on her MySpace site.  On a couple of different occasions she had his music playing on her site.  Mitch's fan base began to grow rapidly. 

In mid-December The Mitch Hansen Band's self produced a CD.  The band consisted of Mitch Hansen. He recorded all the songs on a digital recorder in his walk-in closet.  He recorded separate vocal & guitar tracks and did all the mixing and engineering himself.  The title of the CD is Twilight Hour which is also the title of the first song he wrote.  Following the release of the CD, Mitch wrote and recorded a 14th song (Flower In The Shade) which he posted as a free download on his MySpace site.

This spring Mitch added a band mate, Brent Cook, for some live performances which brought out a lot of local fans.  They will be playing at Smith's in Atlanta on Aug. 20th. 

Mitch & Brent will be performing at the Barnes & Noble store at Mansell Crossing (7660 Northpoint Pkwy) near Northpoint Mall on Friday Aug. 1st from 10:00 to 12:00 pm. 

Mitch was contacted by Barnes & Noble corporate office in New York.  He was asked to perform live at a release party for the 4th and final book in the Twilight series: Breaking Dawn.  The party will have a prom theme in keeping with an event in the Twilight story.  The store manager is planning some fun activities in addition to the live music.  Mitch has promised to debut a new song during the release party. 

He has also been invited to play at a Twilight convention in California next summer.  You can listen to many of the songs from the CD and see videos by going to www.myspace.com/mitchhansenband.   Also, visit his website www.themitchhansenband.com