Band of the Day: Flight Of Eden

We’re flying off to Eden with today’s Band of the Day…

Simple things first – where are you guys from?

We’re based in Reading, England.

How did you meet?

Me and Christian have known each other for nearly 20 years, and have been playing in bands together for as long as we can remember. Our first proper band, Zodiark, was how we met Kurt, who joined as a vocalist. After this band concluded, we formed Flight of Eden and eventually Gualter joined on the drums.

How long have you been playing as a band?

We’ve been playing together as musicians across a few projects for many years, with the exception of Gualter, who joined us a bit later on. We wanted to form a new progressive metal project, and that’s where Flight of Eden started. Our first release was the EP “Transitions” in 2018.

Before you get sick of being asked… where does the band name come from?

We came up with a list of potential band names when we started the project, and it was our favourite. It sounded the most fitting for a prog metal band!

What are your influences?

All of us have very different influences as musicians. For me personally, my biggest influences on the guitar are John Petrucci, David Gilmour, and James Hetfield, but Christian’s influences are bass guitarists like Billy Sheehan & Jaco Pastorius, and Kurt’s are vocalists like Mike Patton and Bjorn Strid. It makes for a unique melting pot!

Describe your music. What makes you unique?

I think our goal is to make progressive metal that is as accessible as possible and a bit less dependent on technical proficiency – although there’s nothing wrong with that and we definitely have our moments! We’re probably a bit more riff-focused and we love a big chorus. Throw in your usual prog metal themes, odd time signatures/polyrhythms, and song structures and it makes for an interesting blend. Think something like Dream Theater meets Soilwork.

Do you have any particular lyrical themes?

Our first EP, Transitions, doesn’t particularly have an overriding theme. Each song has its own theme. However, our next EP (released on April 9th) is a concept EP called Dante’s Inferno and it’s based on the epic poem by Dante Alighieri.

What’s your live show like? How many shows have you played?

We’ve played quite a few shows over the last couple of years! We take a lot of pride in presenting a really tight show to make sure we do the music justice, but to also make sure the show has a lot of energy. We’re usually completely spent at the end of it! We also put a lot of thought into the setlist to make sure that the show flows well. I’m a big fan of our usual set closer, “Epilogue”. It’s got such a great energy.

What’s the wildest thing you’ve seen or done at a live show?

Playing at 4am at the Monte Verde Festival in Portugal was pretty wild. Their festivals tend to start late and continue through the night. We were originally due to go on at around 11pm, but were pushed back as we were so loud it was interfering with Joss Stone’s acoustic set on the main stage! It was probably my favourite gig I’ve ever played – the crowd were insanely good!

What kit do you use / guitars do you play / etc.?

I use six and seven string guitars. Mainly Ibanez RG, although I’ve been using a PRS Baritone live quite a bit recently. I’m using a Fractal Axe-FX II into a Matrix amp for my live rig; in the studio it varies. For example, the Transitions EP was a Mesa/Boogie Mark V, but Dante’s Inferno was all recorded direct with an Axe-FX. Christian is endorsed by both Dingwall Basses and Ashdown Amps, so uses those exclusively. Gualter uses Mapex Drums and a mix of cymbals, mostly Zildjian.

What, if anything, are you plugging/promoting at the moment?

We’ll be releasing a new EP, Dante’s Inferno on April 9th. We’ve been working on it for the past year and we’re all very proud of it. It’s essentially all one big song, split up into 9 parts on the EP. It’ll be released digitally and on a limited edition CD. We can’t wait to release it and get out there and play it live!

What are your plans for 2020?

Most of the rest of this year will be focusing on promotion and releasing content for Dante’s Inferno and gigging as much as we can. We’ll be out on tour in April with LestWeForget which we’re really looking forward to. Towards the end of the year, we’ll probably start writing for our first full-length album, but for now we’re fully focused on Dante’s Inferno.

If you were second on a three-band bill, which band would you love to be supporting and which band would you choose to open for you? A chance to plug someone you’ve toured with, or a mate’s band we’ve not heard of before!

This might be very different for each of us! For me, it’d be amazing to open for Dream Theater. I’d also love to open for Haken, Scar Symmetry or Periphery. Recently, we’ve gigged with a couple of superb bands. Axiom and Ghosts in the Photographs were particularly good, they’re both instrumental bands. Would love to gig with them again!

Flight Of Eden: facebook | bandcamp | spotify

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