Athena

Athena is a ska punk band from Istanbul, Turkey. Its current line-up is composed of Hakan Özoğuz, Gökhan Özoğuz, Alican Tezer and Alp Ersönmez.

Athena was formed by twin brothers Gökhan Özoğuz and Hakan Özoğuz in 1987. They started their musical life as a metal band, but switched to the ska genre sometime later.

Until 1999 they performed numerous concerts and paved their way to their first album Holigan. Athena's ska sound and songs were welcomed by the local record buying public so much so that the title song Holigan was adopted as a march by football supporters of all ages at the stadiums. The album hit various Turkish charts and stayed at the top for a considerable amount of time. Shortly after releasing the Holigan' album, Athena took a large scale tour in Turkey.

The second album Tam Zamanı Şimdi was released and the first single Yaşamak Var Ya was an instant hit. The album sales reached gold status in an extremely short time. Their tour was sold out as a result of their exploding popularity. They performed a series of concerts in Germany. After the tour, their song Devam Boşver included on the album World of Ska Volume 11 which was released in Europe. Then came one of the major events in Athena’s career, the 12 Dev Adam (12 Giant Men). This song, they recorded for the Turkish National Basketball Team, had also an immense success in Europe.

In 2004 the band Athena was asked to represent Turkey at the Eurovision Song Contest. In the Turkish national final Athena sang three songs and the winner was chosen by televoting and SMS voting. The song For Real won and came 4th at the ESC.