And so it begins...
Ayreon mastermind and multi-instrumentalist was born Arjen Anthony
Lucassen April 3rd, 1960 in The Hague. Both Arjen and his older brother
Gjalt were good students, but unlike Gjalt, Arjen wasn't interested
much in studying. A notorious trouble-maker in class, Arjen decided to
persue a career in the music business after graduating highschool.
During his teens, Gjalt always teased Arjen a lot, and ever since the
Ayreon albums were released, Arjen has been paying him back by playing
jokes on his brother in the credits of his CDs. If you look carefully,
you'll find a Gjalt 'joke' in every booklet of CDs released after 1995.
Arjen's love for music was sparked in the 60s, when he became a big
fan of the Beatles. He started buying albums in the early seventies
when the glam rock era started and bands such as T-Rex, Alice Cooper,
The Sweet, David Bowie were rising stars. Arjen really wanted to be in
a band but he was too lazy to learn to play an instrument so he started
a play-back band mimicing his heroes Alice Cooper, Slade, The Sweet. He
actually did get a lot of gigs in schools and already then he was a
busy guy.
Then one day one of the older pupils came up to him and said:
You have to listen to this. Handing him a copy of Deep Purple's 'Made
in Japan'. "Glam rock is ok, but this is really great." When Arjen
listened to it and heard Ritchie Blackmore play, he knew that is what
he wanted: to play guitar! So he learned to play guitar and went
through a stage where he had a lot of different bands until 1980. One
of these bands was called 'Mover'.
Bodine
Arjen had heard that the Dutch band Bodine had been looking for a
new singer, and though he didn't consider himself a great or gifted
vocalist, it was his favorite band, so he wanted to get involved. http://ayreon.com/aal/aa_media/aa_images/photo_bodine_01.jpg">
The first album with Jay van Feggelen on vocals was one of his favorite
albums. He figured that he would audition as a vocalist, and bring his
guitar, hoping they would give him the position of second guitarist in
the band. And they told him that he had good ideas, good lyrics and
good melodies but his voice was not what they were looking for. So
Arjen told them he had brought his guitar. Those were the days of
guitar tandems in bands such as Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Thin Lizzy.
Arjen pulled out his guitar and his amps and just began to play some
Bodine songs that he had been working on for a month. And they said:
Ok, you're in! Arjen stayed in Bodine from 1980 to 1984 and did two
albums with them: 'Bold as Brass' and 'Three Time Running'.
Vengeance
Then Arjen got a call from a young and fresh band named Vengeance
asking him if he knew a guitarplayer. Arjen thought just a moment,
thinking about how great Bodine was, and what amazing things he had
learned from the older much more experienced musicians, but also how
limited he felt about expressing his own musical ideas. He couldn't
develop himself as a composer and realized that there was a lot of
spirit in Vengeance. So Arjen answered: "Yes, I know a guitarplayer...
me!" Vengeance was surprised and very happy, but wondered about his
commitment to Bodine. Arjen told them that it was time for a change. He
joined Vengeance shortly after that phonecall http://ayreon.com/aal/aa_media/aa_images/photo_vengeance_02.jpg">
and considers the time with them great, wild and quite enjoyable. He
had more freedom to do what he wanted and to compose songs. But still,
he had to make concessions since he was in a band and also had to deal
with record companies demands. Not every band member agreed on his
ideas, which made sense given the fact that they all hailed from
different musical backgrounds. In 1989 the band replaced singer Leon
Goewie with English native Ian Parry, but the band had a hard time
getting a new style off the ground. In the early nineties the grunge
and alternative rock genre exploded on to the scene. Arjen wished to go
into a Rainbow direction with keyboards and bombastic sounds, and other
guys wanted to explore Bad Company or Thin Lizzy styles. Because of
this they wondered what the audience wanted to hear and started to
write songs to please the fans. That was a bad decision. After a very
successful farewell tour in 1992 Arjen parted ways with Vengeance.
Ayreon
One particular album released during the 60s left a huge impression on
Arjen. The album had everything Arjen was looking for, the music took
him on an adventure, lyrics drew him into an emotional story, and
reading lyrics along to discover that famous vocalists were playing
parts. It became the ultimate tool for escapism for Arjen. The album
was Andrew Lloyd Webber's Jesus Christ Superstar. This album was
followed by other similar albums such as War of the Worlds featuring
Phil Lynott, The Who's Tommy, Pink Floyd The Wall. After tjat Arjen
realized that time had come to do it himself, and to do it his own way.
Not limited music to one style. He used all his styles, prog, metal,
folk, beatles. Though Arjen was convinced people would hate not being
able to pigeonhole the music, metalheads would not be impressed with
the folky style with mandolins, folk fans were going to raise their
eyebrows over the metal sections. Arjen was pretty sure it wasn't going
to fly, but he simply wanted to do it. At least one time in his life he
wanted to make an album that he supported 100%, no compromise, just
doing only what he loved. This album became Ayreon - The Final
Experiment. He found a small Dutch label interested in the project and
the album simply took off.
The Final Experiment (1995)
'The Final Experiment' is Arjen Lucassen's first rock opera. The full
title is 'Ayreon: The Final Experiment' with no band-name given. Later
on the label suggested the name Ayreon would be used for any similar
projects by Arjen.
Actual Fantasy (1996)
The second CD released under the Ayreon name is 'Actual Fantasy'. It
has no continuous story with a beginning and an end, but the CD's
entire concept is fantasy. The songs are based on fantasy and sci-fi
movies, or on stories Arjen wrote himself.
The first ten thousand copies of Actual Fantasy featured a bonus
CD-rom track; a full-length animated video clip for 'Stranger From
Within'. The second version of the CD featured two bonus tracks: 'The
Dawn of Man' and the single version for 'Stranger From Within'
replacing the video.
Into the Electric Castle (1998)
The third Ayreon release is a 100+ minute double CD and like 'The Final
Experiment' it tells a story. Eight stereotypical characters from
different eras in time suddenly find themselves in another dimension as
subjects of an experiment conducted by an alien race.
The characters on 'Into the Electric Castle' are blown out of
proportion. Arjen rented a few old B-movies for inspiration to see how
Romans, Barbarians and Egyptians were stereotyped in those years. "I
like this tongue in cheek-thing, although I take the music itself very
seriously."
"Into The Electric Castle' is the most pleasant sounding album I've
made so far', says Arjen. "And that is mainly due to the analog
equipment I used. Like vintage synthesizers from the 70's, which still
have that warm, instantly recognizable sound. I had enough of triggered
drums, samples and prefab digital sounds. I'm a sucker for
contradictions. 'Into The Electric Castle' is one to start with. But I
also like the idea of telling a sci-fi story and using equipment that -
in some cases - people might find out-dated."
Universal Migrator Part One: The Dream Sequencer &
Universal Migrator Part Two: The Flight of the Migrator (2000)
The Universal Migrator parts I & II were released at the same time,
but were for sale independently. Part I: 'The Dream Sequencer' mainly
features laid-back, atmospheric material with songs focussing on
melody. Initially the album was meant to only feature female singers,
but not enough singers were available so Arjen changed his plans.
Whereas 'Into the Electric Castle' has an opera-like set up, in which
main characters sing dialogues in one song, on 'The Dream Sequencer'
Arjen chose to have only one vocalist sing each song. As a result each
new incarnation of the last Colonist on Mars, the main character of the
story, has its own distinct personality.
Ayreonauts Only (2000)
'Ayreonauts Only' is a collection of previously unreleased Ayreon and
Ayreon-related material. It is sold at a low price and meant to appeal
specifically to die-hard fans of Ayreon. Some Ayreon tracks feature
different singers, and others tracks are completely different (demo)
versions of songs. The CD also features a preview of Ambeon, a new
project that Arjen had started after finishing The Universal Migrator
albums.
The Human Equation (2004)
In May 2003 Arjen managed to wrap up all Star One business, and
retreated into his Electric Castle studio to work on the 6th Ayreon
album called 'The Human Equation'.
"Initially I wanted to create something mellow as a reaction to the
heavy Star One project, but as always� these things never really allow
themselves to be planned. The musical direction of the new Ayreon is
very diverse. As usual I take you from one extreme to another, but this
time the quiet parts are even more quiet, the folky parts more folky,
the proggy parts more proggy and the heavy parts more heavy! There are
a few more major differences compared to the other Ayreon albums
though..."
"First of all I decided to only work with musicians who had never
guested on Ayreon before. The one exception to this rule was the use of
drummer Ed Warby, for he had truly become a part of my sound and music.
I chose a wide variety of singers from different styles of music and
from all corners of the world, most of them quite original and
surprising choices, I think. For details on how the recording sessions
went, please take a look at the studio reports available on the
website. I will tell you one thing: just as on 'Into the Electric
Castle' there is a lot of 'dialogue singing' again; sometimes one song
features up to ten different singers!"
"Secondly, I wanted to get away from the usual science fiction and
fantasy concept in order to keep things fresh and original for both
myself and the fans. Since 1995, when I released my first Ayreon album,
a lot of other Sci-Fi and Fantasy projects have surfaced. So being the
'pig-headed git' I am, I decided to go against the grain once again and
do something very different this time. Instead of venturing out in
space, as most would have expected, I took a look inside man himself
and explored the realm of emotions hidden within. So this time: no
castles and aliens. Or..."
The Ayreon Re-Issues
After Arjen departed the Transmission label prior to The Human Equation
release, Ayreon got a new home at InsideOut Germany. All albums had
been sold out for quite some time, and InsideOut had to repress all
editions. For this occasion Arjen created special editions.
Strange Hobby
(taken from 'De Telegraaf)
What do you mean, 'Strange Hobby'? Is it strange for a
musician to record the music that once influenced his music and that
still has a place in his heart? Still, Arjen Lucassen named his side
project 'Strange Hobby' and to make it even more strange; the booklet
didn't say who was responsible for the disc. The album mastered at
Abbey Road Studios was a comply mystery, with the crčme of rock and
surprising arrangements.
In the end former Vengeance-guitar player Arjen Lucassen appeared to
be responsible for this album. After the break-up of his once very
succesful hardrock band he came up with the Ayreon project,
rock-opera's ('The Final Experiment' and 'Actual Fantasy') in their
purest form.
"Ayreon proves to be extremely successful. In Japan, in Europe, just
incredible." I'm talking to a grinning Lucassen. He has reason to grin.
The success he has with his fantastic Ayreon albums is unusual for a
Dutch project. The profit from the first Ayreon album enabled him to
build a complete studio. "I'm living in a fairy-tale." he says. "A
beautiful home, my own studio, the music that I want to make...it
really is incredible."
The 'Strange Hobby' album was meant to freak
out for a change. But on his own way. "I might have been a bit too
driven, also in creating this album. All those vocal lines, all those
choirs, I did them myself. It has to be recorded perfectly, so I never
stop until it is."
DRIVEN
The guitar player has been so driven,
that he didn't realise that he might have overdone it. Song after song
has been recorded perfectly, and that 18 times! "This might be my only
disadvantage," he confesses, "when I'm making music I don't know how to
slow down. Besides, you shouldn't forget that songs in those days
normally had a duration of about two minutes. I couldn't make an album
with only ten songs in this case....".
About 'Strange Hobby' as a side project:
"After I finished the
second Ayreon album I really felt like freaking out. On the Ayreon
discs everything is produced superbly. Every detail, no matter how
minor, has been designed, has been thought about. I wanted to break
free from that for a while. I wanted to run and dance through the room
while recording. That's what I did."
"From the start I intended to keep it a secret, who made this album.
I just wanted to do that; it seemed fun. I heard names man, Prince,
Status Quo, Barry Hay, even Paul McCartney. Well, it may not be smart
from a commercial point of view, but it was fun."
DREAM
"That I was able to master this disc at
the Abbey Road Studios, actually was a gift from the director of my
record company. A great guy. When I told him what my dream was, he got
on the phone and immediately booked the studio. That was magic. How
many times do you think I crossed that famous cross-over? Half of the
songs I recorded there, were originally recorded there once. The man
who did the mastering even worked on the 'Beatles Anthology'-series. He
didn't know that I made this stuff, but he liked it. Though I had
warned him that the songs were really distorted." (grin)
"I really like doing the things I do now. I don't feel a need to
become bigger. I think Ayreon holds everything that defines me; all
musicality within me is united in Ayreon. As long as I keep selling
enough copies to be able to make another one, I'm more than happy."
Ambeon
Ambeon was a mysterious and ambient project of Arjen Anthony Lucassen,
and featured a young, and very talented female vocalist, Astrid van der
Veen. Though Arjen mistakenly called Ambeon a band in the Ayreonauts
Only liner notes, he rectified that; it is a project of Astrid and
Arjen. http://ayreon.com/ambeon/am_media/am_images/ambeon_06.jpg">
Originally Arjen set out to record an ambient instrumental album
based on certain electronic patterns, chords and melodies derived from
the recorded tracks of existing Ayreon songs (to test his new studio
hardware system). In the process some new songs evolved, and Arjen
figured female vocals on one or two songs would add a warm human touch.
Arjen heard a recording of a 14-year young Dutch singer named Astrid
van der Veen. This was exactly the voice he was looking for, and so he
asked her to write lyrics and melodies to go over some of these
re-constructed ambient tracks and then sing them. This arrangement
worked out extremely well. So before he realized it the album had
developed from an instrumental album with two vocal songs to a vocal
album with two instrumentals.
http://ayreon.com/ambeon/am_media/am_images/ambeon_03.jpg">
To get as much outside input as Arjen could in order to not make it
sound too much like an Ayreon album, he decided to involve several
musicians who could bring in their own ideas, just like Astrid did.
Stephen van Haestregt, who helped Arjen out with the technical issues
of his new hard disk recording system, turned out to be a very good and
versatile drummer.
The experienced Walter Latupeirissa (Snowy White, Steve Lukather,
Pat Travers) played some great bass and fretless bass. And two guys
from the band Celtus, John and Pat McManus, added to the folk
atmosphere by playing flute, pipes and fiddle.
Name
The name Ambeon is a combination of the words ambient and Ayreon.
Single
The Cold Metal single was released to support the
release of Fate of a Dreamer and contains one new, spontaneously
recorded song based on 'The Dawn of Man'- Merry-Go-Round.
1. Cold Metal (3:46) Remix single version
2. Merry-Go-Round (4:43) Previously unreleased track
3. High (3:26) Remix
4. Cold Metal (7:05) Album version
More Ambeon?
Although Arjen is not ready to retire this project, there are no plans yet for a follow- up to 'Fate of a Dreamer'.
Star One
When Arjen makes a new CD, it is often a reaction to his work on a
previous album. Prior to 'Star One', Arjen created a softer, more
atmospheric album under the name of Ambeon. In response, he went to
other extreme to create a completely unbridled heavy metal album.
Arjen Lucassen set a trend with his Ayreon albums. Many laughed when
he recorded his first rock opera 'Ayreon - The Final Experiment' in
1995, and most record companies were hesitant to sign him. But
especially after the highly successful release of his third Ayreon CD,
the rock opera 'Into the Electric Castle', many musicians and producers
have followed in his footsteps and new rock operas with multiple
singers are beginning to surface all over the world. Arjen comments:
"Yes, I've noticed! I regard it as a compliment. But I have also
noticed that on some of these operas the singers sound the same, and so
you need the CD booklet to tell them apart.
http://ayreon.com/starone/so_media/so_images/photo_star_one_01.jpg">
To ensure that doesn't happen on 'Space Metal', Arjen used very
different sounding singers appearing in the same songs -- different
singers for different moods". Dan Swanö (ex-Edge of Sanity,
Nightingale) sings the low parts, Russell Allen (Symphony X) sings the
powerful rough parts, Damian Wilson (ex-Threshold) sings the high clear
parts, and to top it off, Floor Jansen (After Forever) sings the really
high choruses. Robert Soeterboek (Ayreon) sang the backing vocals with
his huge smoky voice.
Name
Why not just call it Ayreon? Ayreon is known for
having many different musical styles. Star One focuses mainly on the
heavy side of Arjen's music, and so the songs are more straightforward
and guitar-oriented but still progressive. This album was never
intended to be an Ayreon album, so calling it Ayreon just didn't feel
right. The name Star One is based on an episode of Arjen's favorite
science fiction TV series called 'Blakes 7'.
Hawkwind's Dave Brock
Arjen succeeded in getting
Hawkwind's Dave Brock to make a guest vocal appearance, something no
one has ever managed to do before. Arjen about Brock's guest
appearance: "Hawkwind were the inventors of Space Rock, so I thought it
would be a cool idea to record a Hawkwind medley for the album. I asked
Dave to sing on it, and to my surprise, he did it! This is a dream come
true as he has been a huge influence on me".
Limited Edition Disc
The Hawkwind medley is available on
the special limited edition version of Space Metal, a beautiful book
that includes an extra CD with various bonus tracks. A strange version
of David Bowie's 'Space Oddity' sung by Arjen himself is also featured
here as well as a special Dolby Surround mix of 'Starchild', two other
Star One tracks that didn't fit the album and a surprise hidden track.
Concept
Space Metal isn't a continuous story or a rock opera like the Ayreon
albums. Yet it is still very much a concept album. The individual songs
are all based on space films. The album is a journey through Arjen's
mind and memory, so the listeners can relive those great science
fiction space films that made such an impact on him.
Arjen talks about the concept: "I based the songs on films that take
place entirely in space. It's really hard to write a song based on a
film and then not use names or make the references to the original too
clear. I really wanted to write about my impressions of the films and
not just tell the same story over again.
Stream of Passion
After Dutch guitarist/composer/producer Arjen Anthony Lucassen had finished his latest endeavour,
the Ayreon rock opera The Human Equation, he wanted to do two things: showcase the many talents of
Mexican singer Marcela Bovio, one of the vocalists on the Ayreon album, and form a band for the
first time in 10 years.
"The response of critics and fans to Marcela's vocals on the Ayreon album was really great. People
were simply blown away." Arjen explains, "However, already when she was in my studio recording for
the Ayreon project, I realized that she had many more talents that I regretted not being able to use
at that time. So, hating to let a good thing go to waste, I decided to construct a project completely
centered on her singing, composing and writing."
Two years ago, Marcela entered a vocalist contest through Lucassen's website. The winner would have
a chance to sing on the highly successful Ayreon rock opera series. "When I first heard Marcela's
recordings, it sent shivers down my spine. To find a vocalist who sings with that much passion and
power, is rare. Very rare." And Lucassen should know, he's worked with over a hundred different
vocalists for his many musical projects in the past.
"I refused to start the project with a musical direction in mind, because I wanted Marcela to feel
completely free to experiment with some simple acoustic guitar demos I had made. She added her
musical ideas, and I went into the studio to work on the songs some more. Then the other band
members added their ideas. The music had to develop as naturally as possible, as would happen with
a real band, which was an interesting challenge considering that at the moment some band members
live thousands of miles apart. The whole thing turned into one big world-wide jam session. Which
is very unusual, exciting and a lot of fun."
To form the band, Lucassen used the Internet to tap into the numerous talents that reside all across
the globe. A year ago, Dutch drummer Davy Mickers downloaded a special track from Lucassen's
website to enter a musicians contest, and used it to showcase his incredible drumming skills. And
just recently Lucassen discovered Lori Linstruth, an amazingly skilled American female guitarist
residing in Sweden, among the members of the online Ayreon Yahoo group. Completing the band are
Mexican pianist Alejandro Millán and Dutch bass player Johan van Stratum from the Rock Academy
in Tilburg.
The band's creative juices flowed to and fro between computers stationed in all corners of
the world - recording, writing and matching up musical ideas to form songs. The end result was
as diverse and driven as each individual band member.
Blending mysterious gothic vocals, metal guitars and atmospheric trip-hop, with haunting pianos
and live celli- and violin quartets. The album Embrace the Storm was released fall 2005
through various labels.
went by his middle name Anthony. On this album Arjen played all
instruments himself, except bass guitar which was played by Peter Vink
and keyboards which were played by Cleem Determeijer. He didn't know
what he wanted to do musically so the album became a hodge-podge of
styles. Country, pop, rock, prog all sorts of different songs, and,
eventhough three singles were released and Arjen performed on various
radio shows and small clubs, the album flopped. But to those who listen
to the album can hear that there are a few songs that became the basis
for a massive project that was still to come.
Njegovih ostalih projektov pa zaenkrat še nisem poslušal.
Person-man wrote: