Author: Web Rock Radio News Dept

“How we got here is as irrelevant as who we are – what matters is the music and the message.”

So Sleep Token singer Vessel told Metal Hammer in 2017, in the very first interview this mysterious figure ever conducted, and one of only a scant handful that has been done since. Except that quote isn’t quite accurate.

Who Sleep Token are behind the masks and under the robes may not be a concern to a fanbase deeply protective of the band’s true identities, but their journey from tech metal curios to the biggest success story of the 2020s is a different matter.

Since releasing their debut single, Thread The Needle, back in 2016, Sleep Token’s fame has grown exponentially. Post-pandemic in particular, their ascent has been dizzying, with Sleep Token headlining arenas in the UK and US and, most impressively, about to headline Download’s Main Stage.

The mystique surrounding the band has played a big part in their popularity, but there’s more to it than the spectral hand of Sleep, the mysterious deity that guides the band (according to the mythology). This is how Sleep Token became the most successful metal band of the decade, in the words of some of the people who were part of it.

Sleep Token were shrouded in mystery from the start. The initial concept of an anonymous band was in place even before they released a note of music, as was a broad version of the lore on which the band would be built, though Vessel was initially known as ‘Him’.

George Lever [Sleep Token producer 2016-2021]: “The starting point was removing this idea of the music you listen to being related to the person making it. By being anonymous, the listener is forced to relate to what they’re actually hearing.”

James Monteith [Tesseract guitarist/publicist at Hold Tight PR]: “We used to run the press area of [UK tech metal festival] Techfest and, in 2016, I was approached by Tom Quigley, who was a scene regular and ran a few blogs at the time. He said he was working with this new band, would we maybe be interested in doing their press? We ended up talking for an hour, and he rolled out the whole concept, the imagery and everything about it… other than the music.”

George Lever: “The lore/narrative was pretty loose still, but it definitely existed.”

James Monteith: “There was nothing specific as such, more this idea of creating an occult vibe and feeling, led by this prophet-like character who leads a religion. I remember thinking, ‘This is all very interesting, but where’s the music?’”

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The wider world got their first taste of Sleep Token in September 2016 with the release of Thread The Needle, a song whose haunting atmosphere, gentle piano and emotive vocals were punctuated by jarring tech metal-style breakdowns. The song was accompanied by a video featuring abstract visuals that gave no clue as to the band’s identity.

It was followed three months later by the self-released three-track One EP, which brought them to the attention of Basick Records, who had helped break bands such as Enter Shikari, Sikth and Bury Tomorrow.

George Lever: “A lot of the first EP was actually us trying stuff out. We recorded the drums on a whim at Monnow Valley Studio in Wales. I introduced him to one of my friends, who actually still drums in them now.”

Nathan Barley Phillips [co-founder of Basick Records]: “I really liked One. We [Basick] wanted to put something together where we could amplify what Sleep Token were and what they were doing. It was still relatively scrappy at that time, but it was clear there was a vision from day one.”

James Monteith: “We shared an office with Nathan, so we discussed it with him. Then an email popped into our inbox with one of the early demos of Calcutta [which would eventually appear on 2017’s Two EP]. It all clicked instantly. I’d never heard anything like it before. It sounded like Meshuggah mixed with Bon Iver.”

Nathan Barley Phillips: “People assumed everyone got onboard from day one, but that wasn’t the case. There were some raised eyebrows around the anonymity and the presentation, even the songwriting.”

James Monteith: “In the tech metal world there was a lot of buzz and excitement early on, but outside of that it seemed to be really slow going. The press didn’t really know what to make of it.”

Nathan Barley Phillips: “In its simplest terms, we described it as ‘Sam Smith meets Meshuggah’. Those were the layman’s terms we used to describe it to people who might not get it. Believe me, there were people in those early days who didn’t!”

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Part of the reason behind that bafflement was due to the fact that the band didn’t give interviews – even the similarly anonymous Ghost had spoken to the media in their early days under a pseudonym. In May 2017, they finally relented and conducted their very first interview, done via email for Metal Hammer’s website.

James Monteith: “We always got requests, but the band said from the start they were anonymous and wouldn’t do them. It helped create more curiosity because nobody could get access to them.”

Matt Benton: “You can’t do an introductory piece without an interview. We managed to get an agreement [from Sleep Token] for an email interview with Metal Hammer. Even then, the band knew they didn’t want to have a voice.”

Nathan Barley Phillips: “There were a lot of decisions that were super-interesting to be involved with, especially in that development stage where we were making decisions about how it was presented, the language we would use, whether we should do interviews. That was the acorn that informed a lot of how things are still handled today.”

Vessel (in the Metal Hammer interview): “As musicians we are inspired by the human condition and a plethora of artists, but we are deeply moved by His words and continue to do our utmost to bring them to life. As followers we are bound by a duty to combine our crafts to create music that conveys some of our most primal, and powerful emotions.”

Matt Benton: “It’s one of only a few interviews they’ve ever done. It’s something I’m glad exists, because it’s like getting the Word Of God.”

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Sleep Token’s second EP, Two, was released in July 2017. It found the band expanding their mix of tech metal, metalcore, pop and R’n’B across its three tracks. The buzz around the band was growing, despite the fact they’d yet to play live – a mooted headlining show at Camden’s Black Heart pub was scrapped when they got an offer to support Norwegian psych rockers Motorpyscho at London’s Islington Academy in October 2017.

A month later, they opened for synthwave trailblazer Perturbator at ULU in Central London.

George Lever: “I had freedom to offer interpretations of what I was hearing. It was a very fortunate combination of personalities and ideals. There was never any, ‘We’re going to take over the world’-type chat. It was more, ‘Do we like this?’ ‘Let’s do more of that.’”

Nathan Barley Phillips: “After Two came out, I started getting calls from booking agents and promoters who I’d not heard from in a while. They wanted to speak to me about Sleep Token.”

Matt Benton: “The first time seeing them in the flesh onstage was pretty strange. They were wearing these quite rudimentary masks. But even at the Motorpsycho show, there were some people there who very obviously knew the songs. When they did the Outkast cover [Hey Ya!, originally released in 2017], you could hear a pin drop. Vessel had such a command of the room through his vocals – something that’s not really changed.”

James Kent [Perturbator]: “We’d been given a few options for bands that wanted to open that show, but I remember selecting them because I thought they sounded really good.”

Kamran Haq [promoter and Download festival booker]: “The Perturbator gig was more like a showcase for Sleep Token. A lot of people had never seen or heard the band before but were blown away: ‘What the fuck is this?!’”

Matt Benton: “You could see this was a band who were finding their feet and organically growing. They had such a strong idea of who they wanted to be both on- and offstage.”

James Kent: “It sounded and looked so brilliant, so professional. I had no idea it was only their second show.”

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The calculated caution surrounding Sleep Token’s early live appearances soon evaporated. After opening for Loathe and Holding Absence in Manchester and London in March 2018, they hit the festival circuit hard that year, playing The Great Escape in May, Download in June (on the fourth stage), Techfest in July, and Reading and Leeds in August, squeezing in a session for Radio 1’s Rock Show amid it all.

Matt Benton: “The Great Escape was the first point they’d started to get industry legitimacy. There was still a sense of, ‘Who is this band? What are they gonna do?’”

Kamran Haq: “That Great Escape show was incredible. It was super-hot and the room was absolutely packed – you couldn’t move in there. I reckon they only played four songs. But it was special too because it was the first time a lot of tastemakers were seeing the band.”

Adam Ryan [Great Escape festival director]: “In terms of acts that would go on to really blow up, we had Fontaines D.C., Sam Fender, Slowthai… It was a fantastic year. But Sleep Token ended up being the talk of the festival.”

Nathan Barley Phillips: “Trying to keep some sense of anonymity was a real mission. Particularly getting them to and from the stage without anyone seeing who they were.”

James Monteith: “Techfest felt like a nice full-circle thing, because that’s where we’d first heard the concept and now they were playing to a completely overpacked room. It was the first time I knew something special was going on – we’d never seen anything like it before.”

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For all the increasing live activity, Sleep Token had yet to play their own headline show. That changed on October 11, 2018, when they performed at the intimate and atmospheric St Pancras Old Church in North London.

James Monteith: “It was their first sell-out event, which also became a big part of their legend.”

Matt Benton: “That was the first affirmation that what they were doing was going to work. Everything really picked up from there too.”

Nathan Barley Phillips: “It really felt like a coming of age for the band. It was the first moment where everything felt fully formed and fully realised. It was like, ‘This is what it could be.’ You could trace a kernel of some of the things they were doing at the St Pancras show to some of the massive shows they’ve done since.”

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Having signed to Spinefarm Records, a subsidiary of major label Universal, Sleep Token spent the early part of 2019 recording debut album Sundowning with George Lever in a studio in Wells, Somerset. The first song from the album, The Night Does Not Belong To God, was released in June 2019, with each subsequent song dropping on YouTube at sunset at fortnightly intervals.

By the time the album was released in November 2019, the band had already embarked on their first US tour, opening for metalcore outfit Issues on a bill that also featured Polyphia and rapper Lil Aaron.

George Lever: “We did Sundowning in three months – we went from demo to final master being released in just 12 weeks. We didn’t have days off; we’d do seven in the morning until seven, eight or even nine at night every day for three months. We were in each other’s pockets; we’d go to the gym together, swim, do the sauna… All this stuff to recover from being sat down all the time. There was a lot of time to spend holistically being friends making this record. We didn’t know how to make this thing, but we had a confidence that we’d get there in the end. That’s my favourite three-month period of my life.”

Skyler Acord [Issues bassist]: “Our booking agent sent us this EP Sleep Token had released and I was blown away. It felt like I could see the future. Usually, you walk in during the opener and get a beer and talk as loud as you can, right? But everyone was engaged. It was like seeing Slipknot in ’99 or something, except, it was different from the nu metal of yore. A lot of that had this trailer park, ‘I’m insane!’ vibe. Sleep Token is poetic – less malt liquor, more wine.”

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Sleep Token were on an upswing as they entered 2020. Their first UK headlining tour in January saw them return to Islington Academy, where they’d played their first gig as openers for Motorpsycho just over two years earlier.

The plan was to enter the studio in March 2020 to record their second album, This Place Will Become Your Tomb, with producer George Lever. Then Covid upended everything.

George Lever: “We started making that album and the first day was when lockdowns began. Tomb… was tough for all of us emotionally. There were lifestyle pressures as a result of the lockdown that made it not very conducive to making art that is supposed to be welcomed or welcoming. A lot of those songs are, in one way or another, about love, love being lost or remorse, they are compassionate tales that are designed to bring the listener towards the artist. It’s hard to do that when it feels like the world is going to end.”

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This Place Will Become Your Tomb was eventually released on September 24, 2021, three months after Sleep Token made a memorable appearance at Download Pilot, the first major post-Covid festival. It reached No.39 in the UK charts, giving the band their first Top 40 album.

Since then, devotion towards the band has only intensified. In January 2023, Sleep Token put out singles Chokehold and The Summoning, the latter going viral on TikTok, leading to a dramatic increase in their streaming numbers.

When third album Take Me Back To Eden was released in May, it hit No.3 in the charts. In December, Sleep Token played Wembley Arena – their first ever arena headlining show. Just a year later, they performed at the 20,000-capacity O2 Arena in London.

James Monteith: “In January 2023, Tesseract ended up playing a festival with them in the Netherlands. Architects were the top of the bill, we were main support, then Northlane were below us and Sleep Token were opening. Within 12 months, they were an arena band. Crazy!”

Kamran Haq: “It took Bring Me The Horizon 10 years to get into arenas. Architects, 14 years… Sleep Token did it in less than five. It’s pretty nuts.”

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On March 13, 2025, Sleep Token released Emergence, the first single from their hugely anticipated fourth album, Even In Arcadia. It was followed on April 4 by another new song, Caramel.

As is usual in Sleep Token’s world, everything is enveloped in enigma – an online puzzle gave fans a choice between ‘House Veridian’ and ‘Feathered Host’, with no explanation as to what either was or how they plug into the wider Sleep Token lore. But once again, the silence has only fed the appetite of fans, something underlined by their upcoming debut headlining appearance at Download festival in June, and their subsequent US arena tour later this year.

Kamran Haq: “To go from playing Download’s fourth stage to headlining the festival is spectacular. I don’t think we’ve ever had it happen, especially in such a short space of time. The only thing I can equate it to is something like My Chemical Romance or Linkin Park.”

Matt Benton: “Sleep Token have become an industry in their own right. I’ve got friends in merchandising and they say Sleep Token shift more merch than any other UK heavy band – more than even Iron Maiden.”

James Kent: “The imagery definitely helped. The fact it’s all pretty accessible too – they have a lot of R’n’B, electronica, some aggressive djenty stuff… it’s a good gateway. I had no idea it’d blow up like it has. Now I’d love to open for them!”

Nathan Barley Phillips: “Bands like Ghost and Sleep Token aren’t successful because they wear masks. They’re successful because they write great music. Masks don’t mean anything if the music isn’t any good.”

Matt Benton: “I’ll be interested to see, when the first official TV movie of the band gets made, the difference between the reality of what happened and the story that gets told. In a way, the myth becomes the reality.”

Kamran Haq: “We all thought the band was special, but nobody in a million years thought they could be what they are now.”

Even In Arcadia is out now via RCA. Sleep Token headline Download Festival on June 14 and tour the US later this year.

Staff writer for Metal Hammer, Rich has never met a feature he didn’t fancy, which is just as well when it comes to covering everything rock, punk and metal for both print and online, be it legendary events like Rock In Rio or Clash Of The Titans or seeking out exciting new bands like Nine Treasures, Jinjer and Sleep Token. 

In 2010, As The Pineapple Thief geared up to release eighth album Someone Here Is Missing (which hadn’t been named yet) Prog conducted our first interview with band leader Bruce Soord about his career to date.

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“Not that I needed any extra passion or energy, but it’s given me a boost knowing that it’s not going out on a tiny label so only those in the know will get to hear it.” Bruce Soord is talking about his band, Somerset quartet The Pineapple Thief, and their forthcoming, as-yet-untitled studio album. It will be their eighth in 11 years, but added excitement comes from it being the second to be unleashed from the wholly prog-oriented Kscope label.

“People used to deride prog because of the capes, wizards and pixies, but Kscope knew there were a lot of bands out there with progressive influences doing good stuff,” Soord says. “It was just a different world from [former label] Cyclops. I was on there for eight years; and as much as I owe them a lot for pressing stuff and getting us known, it was just one guy and he had no money to promote us.”

Kscope is also home to solo albums from Richard Barbieri and Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree – and it was Wilson who initially pointed the label toward Soord. Comparisons have been made between the bands over the years, and it’s not an unreasonable link; they share initials, a prickly protagonist within their names and, of course, a similar musical style.

“If there’s one thing I regret, it’s picking that name!” laughs Soord ruefully, when talking about the association. “I’ve met Steven a couple of times and we exchange emails. He gives me a lot of good advice because I think he can relate to our journey.” Another parallel is that both bands signed to Kscope around a decade into their careers – Porcupine Tree on their fifth album and The Pineapple Thief on their seventh.

“The fans you get from building up from nothing are not fickle and they’re really dedicated,” Soord says affectionately. “We’re so grateful – I know we wouldn’t be on Kscope now if it wasn’t for the fanbase we built up.”

Simply by engaging with their fans via message boards and the wonderfully-titled Brucey Blog on the band’s website, The Pineapple Thief have ensured a level of relationship that demands the fans put as much love and attention into listening to the music as it does from the band to create it.

The rapport led to a band-versus-fans five-a-side football competition before a hometown charity TPT show in Yeovil in 2009. But as the band’s profile grows, Soord understands the need to keep a bit of distance for the music’s sake. “It’s whether you want to maintain this illusion that you’re some superhuman being,” he says. “The past 18 months where we’ve been playing bigger venues, it’s been different.

Some closed-minded people need 18 million time changes and a drum solo in the middle, or they’ll hate you – but you get that in every genre

“When we were playing to 50 people you’d just go and have a chat by the bar, but I think there’s a line where the performance and the anticipation are more important. It’s not an arrogance thing – it’s just about making it a good show.”

Quality control is important to him as Kscope have set about realising the potential of the band’s back catalogue, and he’s polishing that material himself. “My studio’s so much better now,” he explains. “I’m not going to change the songs. I’m just going to make them sound more transparent and hi-fi. Some of the early mixes… blimey!”

He reflects: “Some of the engineering I did was mainly out of necessity. In an ideal world I’d do as much as I could here and then take the files to a studio. After you’ve listened to a track 100 times, you can’t see the wood for the trees, and everything you do seems to make it worse. That’s when it’s time for someone else to finish it. This time I’ve got some friends who are good engineers.”

That’s good news for those hoping to hear the finest TPt album yet. Even better news is the reissue of the much sought-after bonus discs of 12 Stories Down and 8 Days Later. “Because we gradually got bigger and bigger they got very collectable,” Soord says uncomfortably. “It’s pretty depressing – they’re changing hands for hundreds of pounds, and I don’t like seeing fans paying stupid amounts of money for stuff.”

The concept behind 8 Days Later was to write and record one song per day. While that may suggest those tracks were less important than the ones on the parent album, Soord says he took much from the process. “I’ve learnt that writing a good song doesn’t mean you have to spend ages on it. I used to go in and just get a couple of chord changes in six hours, because I thought you really had to work at it to make it sound great. That’s actually a load of crap – the best songs I’ve written took 10 minutes.”

Asked about the flipside of releasing an album on a larger label, he replies: “I do wonder at the back of my mind what people are going to think. But I love the progressive scene because the fans are so eclectic and open-minded. There are some closed-minded people who need 18 million time changes and a drum solo in the middle, or they’ll hate you – but you get that in every genre. What I love about the progressive world is that it’s just full of music lovers.”

Linkin Park performed at the pre-match festivities of the 2025 UEFA Champions League final in Germany on Saturday night (31 May).

The recently re-formed nu-metal icons performed The Emptiness Machine, In The End, Numb and Heavy Is The Crown at the Allianz Arena in Munich before French outfit Paris Saint-Germain thumped Italian giants Inter Milan 5-0.

While the performance was a hit with fans in the stadium and online, at least one prominent football pundit was less than impressed.

Dutch legend Marco van Basten said: “The Linkin Park performance was garbage, absolutely garbage. It’s a disgrace that UEFA allows this.”

While van Basten directly mentioned the band in his rant, it was seemingly aimed more at UEFA having a pre-match performance at all, rather than a comment on Linkin Park or the quality of their performance.

Linkin Park’s huge world tour continues through to November. The full list of remaining dates is posted below.

Linkin Park 2025 remaining world tour dates

Jun 12: Nisckelsdorf Novarock, Austria *
Jun 14: Hradec Kralove Rock For People, Czech Republic *
Jun 16: Hannover Heinz-Von-Heiden Arena, Germany ~
Jun 18: Berlin Olympiastadion, Germany ~
Jun 20: Bern Bernexpo, Switzerland
Jun 24: Milan I-Days, Italy *
Jun 26: Arnhem Gelredome, Netherlands $
Jun 28: London Wembley Stadium, UK $&
Jul 01: Dusseldorf Merkur Spiel Arena, Germany ~&
Jul 03: Werchter Rock Werchter Festival, Belgium *
Jul 05: Gdynia Open’er Festival, Poland *
Jul 08: Frankfurt Deutsche Bank Park, Germany ~&
Jul 11: Paris Stade De France, France
Jul 29: Brooklyn Barclays Center, NY +
Aug 01: Boston TD Garden, MA +
Aug 03: Newark Prudential Center, NJ +
Aug 06: Montreal Bell Centre, Canada +
Aug 08: Toronto Scotiabank Arena, Canada +
Aug 11: Chicago United Center, IL +
Aug 14: Detroit Little Caesars Arena, MI +
Aug 16: Philadelphia Wells Fargo Center, PA #
Aug 19: Pittsburgh PPG Paints Arena, PA #
Aug 21: Nashville Bridgestone Arena, TN #
Aug 23: St Louis Enterprise Center, MO #
Aug 25: Milwaukee Fiserv Forum, WI #
Aug 27: Minneapolis Target Center, MN #
Aug 29: Omaha CHI Health Center, NE #
Aug 31: Kansas City T-Movile Center, MO #
Sep 03: Denver Ball Arena, CO #
Sep 06: Phoenix Footprint Center, AZ #
Sep 13: Los Angeles Dodger Stadium, CA !&
Sep 15: San Josa SAP Ceter, CA &
Sep 17: Sacramento Golden 1 Center, CA &
Sep 19: Portland Moda Center, OR &
Sep 21: Vancouver Rogers Arena, Canada &
Sep 24: Seattle Climate Pledge Arena, WA &
Oct 26: Bogota TBA, Colombia
Oct 29: Lima TBA, Peru
Nov 01: Buenos Aires TBA, Argentina
Nov 05: Santiago TBA, Chile
Nov 08: Rio De Janeiro TBA, Brazil
Nov 10: São Paulo TVA, Brazil
Nov 13: Brasilia TBA, Brazil
Nov 15: Porto Alegre TVA, Brazil

Festival performance *
With Queens Of The Stone Age !
With Spiritbox $
With AFI =
With Architects ~
With Grandson ^
With Jean Dawson #
With Jpegmafia &
With Pvris +

Stef wrote close to 5,000 stories during his time as assistant online news editor and later as online news editor between 2014-2016. An accomplished reporter and journalist, Stef has written extensively for a number of UK newspapers and also played bass with UK rock favourites Logan. His favourite bands are Pixies and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Stef left the world of rock’n’roll news behind when he moved to his beloved Canada in 2016, but he started on his next 5000 stories in 2022. 

It’s Prog‘s brand new Tracks Of The Week! Six brand new and diverse slices of progressively inclined music for you to enjoy.

Congratulations to US quartet Kill The Robot, whose tribute to their late friend Taylor Hawkins, Western Shores, won last week’s TOTW. It was a close run thing, with the atmospheric folk prog of Shannon Pearl in second place with Frant1c in third.

The premise for Tracks Of The Week is simple – we’ve collated a batch of new releases by bands falling under the progressive umbrella, and collated them together in one post for you – makes it so much easier than having to dip in and out of various individual posts, doesn’t it?

The idea is to watch the videos (or listen if it’s a stream), enjoy (or not) and also to vote for your favourite in the voting form at the bottom of this post. Couldn’t be easier could it?

We’ll be bringing you Tracks Of The Week, as the title implies, each week. Next week we’ll update you with this week’s winner, and present a host of new prog music for you to enjoy.

If you’re a band and you want to be featured in Prog‘s Tracks Of The Week, send your video (as a YouTube link) or track embed, band photo and biog to us here.

JONATHAN HULTÉN – SONG OF TRANSIENCE

Enigmatic prog artist Jonathan Hultén released his second studio album, Eyes Of The Living Night, through Kscope back in January which somehow seemed to slip under the radar. That’s a real pity as the new single from the former Tribulation guitarist, the mesmerising waltz vibe of Song Of Transcience is a real earworm of a track.

“In the form of a melancholic yet whimsical waltz, Song Of Transience playfully explores one fundamental question: “On your deathbed, will you be smiling or in tears?”,” says Hultén, “The video, filmed by Anastasia Lihnka in France in November 2024, reflects the mystical and relentless aspects of time, which can be both uplifting and disheartening. Edited and filmed with special lenses to capture a dreamlike, colourful atmosphere, the video also emphasises how beautiful the world really is — especially when seen from the perspective that our presence here is so fleeting, and therefore so very precious.”

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IHLO – EMPIRE

Young Scottish prog metallers Ihlo were picked up by the Kscope label, who let’s face it, know a thing or two about modern prog music, and they reissued the band’s debut album, Union, last year. Now the band are back with their second full-length release, Legacy, which, having been fortunate enough to have heard it, promises to catapult the band forward, fulfilling the immense promise they shown thus far. First single from the album is the intricate and powerful Empire.

“Empire was the song that really kickstarted the album writing process and helped guide us towards the finished product,” the band reveal. “Underneath the deceptively bouncy rhythms and uplifting harmonies, there hides a dark and brooding atmosphere that became integral to the feel of the entire record. This track showcases the shift into a more natural sound for the band, while retaining the attention to detail in every single element, and the modern production quality we love. Our first studio output in 6 years, this track contains a little bit of everything you want in an Ihlo song, and we’re so excited to finally be able to show it off to the world!”

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HIROE – COLLIDER

US post-rock quintet Hiroe are back with another impressive track from their upcoming debut album, Wield, which they will release through the Pelagic label on June 20. Collider is a ten-minute epic of a track which blends moments of gritty intensity with broad progressive flourishes that are bound to appeal to fans of post-rock bands unafraid to veer closer to the prog lane. The band’s name is pronounced ‘hero-way’, in case you were wondering.

“Collider is a song that when we play live seems to be a crowd favourite,” explains guitarist Eric Kusanagi. “It’s the longest song in our catalogue, at about 10 minutes long, and we wanted to take the listener on a journey that goes through a lot of peaks and valleys.”

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GRACE HAYHURST – TAKE OFF

Young UK prog rocker Grace Hayhurst should be familiar to some Prog readers as she is an occasional contributor to the magazine. Grace will release her new album, The World Is Dying, through her Bandcamp page on June 27. As the title implies, the conceptual piece is a no-holds-barred attack on global warming, with contributions from her mates in Kyros, Robin Johnson (drums) and Shelby Logan-Warne (mixing). It’s a message that also comes through on her new single, Take Off.

“This track tells the core message of the record – all of our frustrations with tossers like Elon Musk trying to drain the planet’s resources and run away on spaceships, leaving the rest of us commoners behind to fend for ourselves.” She doesn’t hold back, our Grace!

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HEMELBESTORMER – TURMS

Belgian quartet Hemelbestromer have been described as “post-doom instrumentalists”. No, we haven’t got a clue what their PR is on about either! What we do know is they mark some pretty intriguing, dark and thought-provoking music. The band will release their new album, The Radiant Veil, through Pelagic Records on July 25 and new single, the eight-minute plusTurms, features Caspian’s Philip Jamieson, and should appeal to those who enjoy something darker in their music.

“Turms is without a doubt the leading track and beating heart of the album,” the band explain. “Hemelbestormer is known as a pure instrumental band, but this track will surprise you, as Phil from Caspian did some phenomenal and hauntingly beautiful sounding vocals for this track, lifting it to another level.”

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NAD SYLVAN – MONUMENTATA

Steve Hackett vocalist Nad Sylvan will release his latest solo album, Monumentata, through InsideOut Music on June 20. It’s perhaps his most diverse collection so far, a reflection of Sylvan the individual, rather than playing a character. The gentle, sometimes Beatles-y title track is the third single he’s released from the album so far.

“Monumentata is about being orphaned and serves as a homage to the father I never really had or got to know properly. It reflects the loss of what could have been,” Sylvan explains. “I lost my parents, and knowing that they’re gone—and that one day, I’m probably next in line—that felt “monumental” to me. That’s where the word ‘Monumentata’ came from. “Tata” means “Father” in Hungarian, and my dad was half Hungarian. So, I combined those two words to create something new. It’s about losing someone and the disappointment.”

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EDEN CIRCUS – AGNOSTIC APOLOGY

German quartet Eden Circus released their debut album, Marula, back in 2014, and are only now getting ready to release the follow-up, Irrlicht, which translates as will-o-the-wisp, through Lifeforce Records on August 22. The band’s sound, as typified by new track, Agnostic Apology, sees them mixing prog, post-rock and touches of atmospheric metal.

“The musicians from northern Germany focus on crafting intense atmospheres and moods through deliberate arrangement,” say the band’s label. “Accordingly, “Irrlicht” unfolds with delicate intricacy and emotional weight, its songwriting brimming with dynamic contrasts — far more than one initially perceives.”

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Writer and broadcaster Jerry Ewing is the Editor of Prog Magazine which he founded for Future Publishing in 2009. He grew up in Sydney and began his writing career in London for Metal Forces magazine in 1989. He has since written for Metal Hammer, Maxim, Vox, Stuff and Bizarre magazines, among others. He created and edited Classic Rock Magazine for Dennis Publishing in 1998 and is the author of a variety of books on both music and sport, including Wonderous Stories; A Journey Through The Landscape Of Progressive Rock.

Dominic ‘Yungblud’ Harrison is 10 minutes late for our interview. “So sorry,” he says apologetically when he does turn up. He’s just had a boxing session, and is still wearing the gear he sparred in. He took up boxing a year ago and does it every morning.

“God, man, I’m literally fucking obsessed with it,” he says in his proudly undiluted Doncaster drawl. “I’ve got all this energy, and sometimes when I don’t use it all, it turns into anxiety and shit. If I do it every morning, 30 per cent of that anxiety goes away and I’m a lot more clear.”

He speaks like this all the time: a verbal rally car driver opening the throttle and flooring the accelerator, swerving this way and that, almost flying off the road, but always getting to his intended destination somehow. “I’ve got a million thoughts going through my head, I’m insecure about ten different things a minute, my ADHD’s like, bing-bing-bing-bing-bing, I’m always thinking about the next thing,” he says, not inaccurately.

Today, all that enthusiasm is focused on his upcoming fourth album, Idols Pt 1. It represents the sharpest of left turns for the 28 year old. Where previous albums had taken a grab-it-all approach, mixing pop, punk, hip hop and anything else his magpie mind alighted on, this is a rock album to its marrow, and an outrageous one at that.

The first single and opening track, Hello Heaven, Hello, is a magnificent nine-minute blow-out that channels the spirit of Bowie, U2, The Who and Queen. The rest of the album is only slightly less ambitious. There are guitar solos and real-life orchestras, Britpop influences and swirling psychedelia, big billowing ballads and gutter level rockers, not to mention a broad if indistinct concept and a second part to follow next year. In the context of his earlier albums, it’s the maddest thing Harrison has made. In the context of Harrison himself, it makes perfect sense.

“It’s the most ambitious I’ve ever been,” he says. “I went there with this: ‘I’m going to put everything I’ve got into this shot at doing something extraordinary.’ Let’s make a double album in two parts that references Dark Side Of The Moon or Rumours or A Night At The Opera, and has an idea and a through-line and a story, as opposed to ‘how many songs we can get in the fucking Top 10.’ Because why the fuck not? Let me at least try. Let me have a shot at the big boys’ table.”

There’s so much to unpack about Idols, and Harrison is here to unpack it. For the next hour he’ll talk exhilaratingly and entertainingly about everything from musicians that inspired it (“Freddie” as in Mercury, “Stevie” as in Nicks, “David” as in Bowie and Gilmour, all endearingly delivered in first name terms) to watching his unlikely friend and mentor Ozzy Osbourne slicing a salami sandwich with a machete knife while giving him careers advice. “He said, ‘You get this opportunity because you are not afraid to say the things other people will be. So when you stop fucking doing that, you ain’t a rock star any more.’”

But at the heart of it all is Harrison himself: a 28-year-old who has built not just a successful career but an entire community centred on inclusivity and tolerance and compassion and fury at the injustice of the world. The success of last year’s inaugural Bludfest – the festival he’d created, put money into, curated and headlined – rubber-stamped him as a misfit Pied Piper for the 2020s.

But the Yungblud of Idols is a different beast. It sees him deconstructing the idea of fame and what it means to be adored, wondering who he is and what he’s doing. This is Dominic Harrison changing, moving forwards and taking a shot at greatness.

Between finishing the campaign for his third album, 2022’s Yungblud, and starting Idols, Dominic Harrison found himself in a dark place.

His career had been one continuous upswing since he released his debut album, 21st Century Liability, in 2018. 2020’s Weird! and follow-up Yungblud both reached No.1 in the UK. There were high-profile collabs with everyone from Denzel Curry to his onetime partner Halsey. He was the golden boy with mad eyes, wild hair and his mouth permanently open with his tongue sticking out.

Except the Yungblud of it all was wearing off. He was getting tired of other people’s expectations of him. “The idea of being this loud, brash staple of youth was really hard to live up to all the fucking time: ‘Do the face! Be loud!’” he says. “It was just suffocating me. I’d had four years of people either questioning whether I was real or authentic, or loving me to the point of suffocation. You walk in a pub and you don’t know if people fucking love you or hate you. I needed to take a second and evaluate what I wanted to do.”

He began drinking heavily and bingeing on food to deal with it. The way he explains it, his lifestyle was partly an attempt to reclaim his own life. “I was borderline having an eating disorder: ‘If I’m gonna eat this and do that, at least I can control it.’”

He was approaching 27 at the time, a mythical number in music for obvious reasons. It’s something he wasn’t unaware of. “I think the 27 Club is a load of bollocks, but it’s in the back of your mind,” he says. “People were worried about me. I was not well.”

It didn’t help that he hadn’t really wanted to make the Yungblud album, either. “After Weird!, I went, ‘Cool, I’ve been on this beautiful journey, now the evil eye of the mainstream is looking at us, let’s make something fucking mental, let’s really create an adventure.’ I was at a turning point.”

Harrison grew up loving the music his guitar shop-owner dad listened to: Bowie, Queen, Fleetwood Mac, Pink Floyd. He wanted to make an album that could stand alongside those – not a period piece, he says, but a living, breathing modern version.

He began writing songs that would eventually end up on Idols: the psychedelic Britpop of Lovesick Lullaby, phones-in-the-air anthem to body positivity Zombie, the self-deconstructing Idols. He played them for his American label, expecting them to be as excited as he was.

“And they did not get it,” he says. “‘Time changes? Fucking harmonies? What?! We’ve just had a Number 1 album.’ So I was dissuaded from doing it.”

Instead, he found himself in London and LA, working with other songwriters on Yungblud, an album whose arena-pop ambitions were tattooed all over it. Commercially it was a success. Yungblud became his second No.1 and breached the Billboard Top 50. Artistically? Less so.

“I was repeating myself in the name of listening to other people,” he says. “I’d really lost who I was.”

He wouldn’t make the same mistake next time. After he’d done with Yungblud, he took control of his drinking and his eating, began boxing training and picked up where he’d left off a couple of years earlier with Idols.

This reset wasn’t just mental, it was geographical. He recorded Idols at a converted Tetley brewery in Leeds, 30 miles from where he grew up in Doncaster. He says the old foreman’s house where he worked on the album was haunted by the spirits of two men who had died there. “I like the ghosts,” he insists. “I talk to the ghosts. It was, like, ‘This fucking feels right.’”

There was more than paranormal activity behind the decision to work in Leeds. It was a chance to reconnect with the person he was in danger of losing.

“I needed to be in the north,” he says. “Timothy Taylor’s ale and my best mates and the smell you get in northern England when the rain bounces off the gravel because the roads haven’t been tarmacked properly for years. I needed all that just to be, like: ‘Who the fuck are you, man, as a human?’, without anybody else’s opinion, good or bad.”

This kind of self-searching is all over the new album. The reason he called it Idols, he says, is because he decided to stop looking to other people for answers. He’s not embracing his own idols, he’s pushing them away. And he wants other people to do the same with theirs, up to and including Yungblud himself.

“It’s about self-reclamation,” he says. ”It’s a concept album about relinquishing your idols and finding the answers to your own life. You look at a photograph on a wall, you want to be that photograph. In my case, you end up as that photograph. But then you realise the photograph never had any answers, it’s me who had the answers all the time.”

A video that went viral on social media illustrates this idea better than Harrison can. It was filmed in Amsterdam in March 2025, just a couple of weeks before we speak, and features an impromptu interaction with a fan.

“You saved my life,” the fan tells him, teary with emotion.

“No you saved your own life, I didn’t save your life,” Harrison replies. “Maybe the music was the soundtrack, but you saved your own life OK?” He gives her a hug. “I love you. Don’t be sad, be happy.”

@dailymailshowbiz ♬ original sound – Daily Mail Entertainment

“And I got back to the hotel and I really digested that,” he says. “Like, this is the fundamental thing that I want to say on this album. The answers are within us all. When you relinquish the glorification of something, it all comes down to what’s inside you.”

Self-awareness is the lyrical engine that drives Idols. This is Yungblud breaking down not just what it means to be famous, but what it means to be Yungblud. The choice to deliver it as a modern day rock concept album at a time when rock’s cultural power is diminished makes is a bold-verging-on-insane one. Weird!: The Sequel it isn’t.

“The thing about rock is that it’s got such a fucking turned-up nose,” he says, with the passion of someone who knows the subject well enough to draw attention to its flaws. “Fuck the comments sections, fuck the people that will hate on it. I want to inspire young kids in bands. Make it, say it, do it, fucking live it. Bollocks, it doesn’t matter.”

That kind of talk makes for great copy but there’s another dimension to this. Viewed from one angle, Harrison has had it easy so far. Yes, his music and natural ebullience has attracted a lot of very vocal detractors, which in turn hasn’t done much for his mental health. But he’s built the kind of devoted fanbase that rarely happens these days.

There’s a danger that Idols could baffle or even alienate some of those fans. Part of the pull of Yungblud is that he’s the relatable outsider, the wild guy doing the crazy things that most people never get a chance to do. Releasing an album that is so obviously his shot at becoming one of the all-time greats is one of the least outsidery things he could do.

“No, because I’m not trying to be like them,” he counters, meaning his own heroes. “I’m doing what I want, with my best friends, going ‘Fuck the people who love me, fuck the people who hate me, fuck the journalists, fuck everyone!’”

What if people don’t get it?

He laughs. “Fuck it! You’re all idiots! I love it!”

No, seriously. What if it falls flat on its arse?

“No, that’s my point. If I have to leave everyone behind, can I honestly stand behind this album and say, ‘Yep, this is my statement, this is my truth’? And I can. I believe that if it falls flat on its arse right now, people will get where I was at someday.”

Whether Harrison would be as bullish if Idols doesn’t live up to expectations is hypothetical at this stage, though in his defence he probably would be. But it would also be hugely unfair if that happens. Idols deserves an audience that appreciates its ambition. This isn’t an album that’s bowing before the greats that Harrison worships. It’s an album that wants to elbow its way among them and say, ‘Listen to this.”

He’s certainly confident enough in it to be releasing a second half, Idols Pt 2, next year. “I see Idols Pt 1 as the light and Idols Pt 2 as the darkness,” he says. “I’d say Idols Pt 2 is a little heavier musically.”

He toyed with the idea of releasing the whole thing as an old-school double album, but figured that might be overwhelming. “I want to prolong the journey, as opposed to being: ‘Here it is, all now! Fucking stimulate yourselves and then forgot about it, like every other song on the radio!’”

Idols is released on June 20, the day before the second Bludfest at Milton Keynes Bowl. He plans to play a good chunk of the new album at the festival, but he’ll be airing it in full on his own tour later in the year.

“My vibe is I’m going to play the album from start to finish with an orchestra, have an interval, then come on and play some hits,” he says of the latter. “It’s gonna be an adventure when you see it live. One minute you‘re going mental, one minute you’re crying, one minute you’re turning to your mate and telling them you love them, one minute you’re moshing. I want it to be like a religious experience.”

He could carry on like this for days, but the whirring wheel of colour and noise that’s constantly spinning in his head needs to temporarily take a back seat to the practicalities of being a musician with a new album on the horizon. There are meetings to be had, decisions to be made. Grown-up stuff, basically.

“I didn’t write this album because I need to grow up,” he says. “I wrote it because I was changing, I am changing.

“I’m going to a different place in terms of my security within myself and my confidence. I wanted to make an album for myself again.”

Idols Pt 1 is out on June 20 via Locomotion/Island Records. Bludfest 2025 takes place June 21 at the Milton Keynes Bowl. Check out our exclusive Yungblud T-shirt featuring hand-drawn lyrics, only at the Louder store.

Dave Everley has been writing about and occasionally humming along to music since the early 90s. During that time, he has been Deputy Editor on Kerrang! and Classic Rock, Associate Editor on Q magazine and staff writer/tea boy on Raw, not necessarily in that order. He has written for Metal Hammer, Louder, Prog, the Observer, Select, Mojo, the Evening Standard and the totally legendary Ultrakill. He is still waiting for Billy Gibbons to send him a bottle of hot sauce he was promised several years ago.

French keyboard wizard Jean-Michel Jarre has announced that he will release a new live album, Live In Bratislava, through Sony Music Enetertainment on September 5.

It’s a recoding of his historic open-air Bridge From The Future concert, performed on May 12, 2024 in Slovakia, along the banks of the Danube, to over 100,000 people, where he was joined by Queen guitarist Brian May.

The full 22-track performance is available across a range of deluxe formats, including an unseen Director’s Cut of the concert film, remastered audio, exclusive vinyl, and a 40-page coffee table photo book documenting this once-in-a-lifetime production.

“Since that very special night in Bratislava, we’ve worked with a brilliant creative team to bring together the most complete, cinematic version of the concert possible,” Jarre says. “The sound on this release comes from the live TV broadcast of the concert, capturing the raw, in-the-moment energy of the performance. I’m proud to finally share this with everyone. Not only those who joined us in Slovakia or watched online, but all who want to relive the experience.”

It was Jarre’s first ever collaboration with Brian May, who joined him on stage for a new arrangement of Dvořák’s New World Symphony as well as newly adapted works Bratislava Time and Rendez-vous Bratislava.

Live In Bratislava will be released as a 2 CD set, a Blu-ray featuring the unseen Director’s Cut and the Ultimate Colector’s Box, which features the 2 x CD, Blu-ray and a 10″ blue vinyl featuring the unreleased track Bridge From The Future, performed as the audience arrived, as well as a deluxe 40-page coffee table photo book with behind-the-scenes and performance images.

Jarre recently announced his very first European tour for nine years for June and July 2026.

Pre-order Live In Bratislava.

Writer and broadcaster Jerry Ewing is the Editor of Prog Magazine which he founded for Future Publishing in 2009. He grew up in Sydney and began his writing career in London for Metal Forces magazine in 1989. He has since written for Metal Hammer, Maxim, Vox, Stuff and Bizarre magazines, among others. He created and edited Classic Rock Magazine for Dennis Publishing in 1998 and is the author of a variety of books on both music and sport, including Wonderous Stories; A Journey Through The Landscape Of Progressive Rock.

While Emerson, Lake & Palmer made a great deal of majestic music, the supergroup’s reputation for pomposity and excess often did them no favours. That was partly down to the their strong personalities. But ahead of ELP’s final concert in 2010, Prog pointed out that they’d struggled even when one of those personalities was missing.

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Preposterous, Excessive & Egotistical… Musical, Challenging & Dynamic… Emerson, Lake & Palmer. No other band in the history of prog rock has engendered such extreme reactions as ELP. In fact, they’ve come to embody the best and worst of the genre – depending on your viewpoint.

The first true supergroup of prog, it was the coming together of three established talents, a trio of individuals who couldn’t even agree on a band name; even Ginger Baker, Jack Bruce and Eric Clapton settled on Cream.

“In the end, we had to go for our own names,” keyboard master Keith Emerson once said. “But that caused problems. In what order should names appear? What we had was alphabetical – but you try telling Greg Lake and Carl Palmer that!”

From taking a 58-piece orchestra on the road in America to Lake’s infamous Persian rug, this band led the way when it came to doing things in the most ridiculously overblown manner. But they also created some of the most inspiring music of the 1970s.

There’s an obvious reason why there was constant tension between the three – all of them were personalities and leaders in their own right. None of them could act as a conduit or sounding board for the others. There were no sidemen.

It might have been different had Emerson and Lake secured Mitch Mitchell, their first choice drummer; he was used to playing second fiddle in the Jimi Hendrix Experience. He could even have been the catalyst in persuading Hendrix himself to join the band, as was once strongly mooted.

Without a low-key member, there’s an imbalance – and ELP were definitely never balanced. Emerson noted: “I’m the sort of guy that likes to go on stage with a whole band. They’re all around and once you get warmed up and you’re playing for the audience, I don’t mind if they leave the stage for me to do a couple of piano solos.”

Lake’s voice simply wasn’t suited to Asia’s songs… He was also reading the lyrics from a teleprompter

Still, there was an underlying, albeit grudging respect between Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Evidence lies in the myriad of subsequent projects which involved two of the three. Every possible permutation has occurred.

Consider the pressure they were under when they got together: unlike Yes, Genesis or Pink Floyd – all of whom developed organically – as a union of high-profile musicians, ELP were expected to be supercharged and successful from the start. Anything they achieved was under the most intense of spotlights.

The same might be said of the decision to bring Lake into Asia in 1983, thereby re-uniting him with Palmer. Themselves a supergroup, Asia had parted with vocalist/bassist John Wetton after the release of second album Alpha. So Lake joined Palmer, guitarist Steve Howe and keyboard player Geoff Downes in Tokyo on December 6, 1983.

It was the first gig ever to be simulcast by MTV via satellite to the US – but the performance wasn’t a huge success. Lake’s voice simply wasn’t suited to the songs, many of which had to undergo a key change. He was also reading the lyrics from a teleprompter – and it was obvious to everyone.

It was no surprise that he quit early in ’84, with Wetton returning. But did he ever really stand a chance? The first reunion of ‘two from three’ (as it were) wasn’t so much a failure as something that never had the opportunity to develop.

In 1985, it was Emerson and Lake’s turn to regroup. When Palmer declined to join a full-blown reunion, preferring to stay with Asia, there was an attempt to secure Bill Bruford. But he was committed to King Crimson and his own Earthworks, so the pair turned to Cozy Powell.

By the time it came to making a second Emerson, Lake & Powell album, there wasn’t any money left

“Cozy was a very old friend of mine,” said the keyboardist. “He called up and said, ‘If you need a drummer, I’d love to do it.’ So Cozy came down to my studio and we started working on this album. And then we realised, ‘Oh my goodness, we have the same initials – it’s ELP again!’”

The trio’s subsequent self-titled album, released in 1986, was actually quite a success, generating the hit single Touch & Go as well as featuring a cover of 60s hit The Loco-Motion and the classical piece Mars, The Bringer Of War. The balance within the band worked well. Unlike Palmer, Powell could act as a sounding board. He was prepared to underplay his role to bring out the best in the others.

“I’d worked with Ritchie Blackmore, David Coverdale and Michael Schenker,” Powell said, “so I was used to dealing with those sort of people. After them, Keith and Greg were almost a dream.”

Sadly, there was no second album; but that was down to finances, rather than any inherent problems between the three members. “By the time it came to making a second album, there wasn’t any money left,” Emerson admitted. “Greg said, ‘Well, if PolyGram isn’t interested in putting any more money up, I’m not interested’. And, of course, Cozy was being offered jobs and he got fed up with the indecisions and said, ‘I’m leaving!’”

Surprisingly, Palmer was delighted to see Emerson, Lake & Powell working, because it gave him the chance to get Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s back catalogue re-activated – by then he’d almost taken over protecting the trio’s heritage. “If they hadn’t gone out with Cozy Powell, I couldn’t have gotten the record company to spend the money on the catalogue that they spent,” he said. “I’d already made 16 albums which Cozy was promoting for me and the band. It was a much better thing for them go out with him than to not go out at all.”

Unlike the situation with Lake and Palmer in Asia, a pairing had managed to record. But even so, there reamained a feeling of unfinished business.

Very few people who’ve come out of successful bands have really sustained solo careers

Next on the reunion cycle were Emerson and Palmer. In 1988 they got together with American Robert Berry to form 3, releasing one album, To The Power Of Three. But it was to be another short-lived liaison. The record was heavily criticised for being too bland and commercial – although Emerson launched a staunch defence at the time: ”If people want ELP, then they can check out what we’ve done before. It’s all there.

“This isn’t supposed to be a rehash of the past, but something all three of us want to do right now. Is it bland? Well, if you want to consider well-crafted songs that way, then fine. To me, Carl and I are being very creative, and Robert’s the right man to be involved. He’s contributed a lot to 3.”

But the trio appeared to be doomed when they played at the Atlantic Records 40th anniversary show in 1988, billed as ‘Emerson And Palmer’ (3 were signed to Geffen, hence the reason that the band themselves weren’t credited). All they did were covers of America, Fanfare For The Common Man and Dave Brubeck’s Blue Rondo À La Turk. Even a subsequent tour failed to take them further. Once again, it appeared that pairing two from the ELP trio couldn’t quite cut it – there was always something missing.

Of course, the trio had each pursued their own solo projects during the intervening years, with moderate success. Perhaps it was Lake who summed up the band’s dilemma best: “After a lifetime of being in high-profile bands, all of a sudden there’s a feeling of disorientation.

“Interestingly enough, there are very few people who’ve come out of successful bands who’ve really sustained solo careers. It’s a very difficult thing to do. I’m not quite sure why that is – whether it’s because of their previous identity, or simply because the artist in question just feels a greater degree of discrimination.”

So there was perhaps an inevitability about the decision to reunite the three-piece in 1992, for the Black Moon album and a highly successful tour. But the initial enthusiasm soon waned; in 1994, they released the hugely disappointing In The Hot Seat, and over the next few years, interest seemed to be on the wane.

Yes, we were pompous – we’re English! You have to be pompous

They called it quits again in 1998, amidst more arguing. Emerson publicly berated Lake for not rehearsing enough; Lake moaned that he wanted to produce the band’s next record; Palmer merely stated, “I thought the albums were rubbish. Every band has its day, and possibly, from a creative point, we might have had our day.”

Their overpowering personalities and overwhelming sense of self-importance (however justified) has to be destructive for any project involving two or more of ELP. Perhaps Palmer gave a decent insight into the psychological mechanics of the three when he said: “Yes, we were pompous – we’re English! You have to be pompous. We weren’t a blues band. We weren’t a rock band. We played classical adaptations similar to what I do now. We played folk tunes; we were quite eclectic.

“We dealt with technology, we didn’t have a guitar player, and we never played 12-bar. We were pomp because that’s where we come from. We’re not from the South, or from Mississippi – we’re English!”

If, as is being heavily rumoured, there’s to be a 40th anniversary tour, one can only hope it lasts long enough for the trio to celebrate the positives of their union, yet ends before old problems are resurrected. Ultimately, these are three highly gifted men with the capacity to behave like spoilt brats in each others’ company.

Malcolm Dome had an illustrious and celebrated career which stretched back to working for Record Mirror magazine in the late 70s and Metal Fury in the early 80s before joining Kerrang! at its launch in 1981. His first book, Encyclopedia Metallica, published in 1981, may have been the inspiration for the name of a certain band formed that same year. Dome is also credited with inventing the term “thrash metal” while writing about the Anthrax song Metal Thrashing Mad in 1984. With the launch of Classic Rock magazine in 1998 he became involved with that title, sister magazine Metal Hammer, and was a contributor to Prog magazine since its inception in 2009. He died in 2021.

Dream Theater‘s Mike Portnoy says he’s worried about his future after seeing a spate of high-profile drummers lose their job recently.

Josh Freese was let go by the Foo Fighters this month, The Who fired Zak Starkey a few weeks ago and Guns N’ Roses parted with Frank Ferrer in March.

Last year, Jason Bonham was replaced in Sammy Hagar’s band.

Reacting to those firings, Portnoy jokes that he is looking over his shoulder.

As well as his role in Dream Theater, which he returned to in 2023, Portnoy works with a number of other groups and artists.

He tells Office Hours Live With Tim Heidecker: “I think it’s the Spinal Tap conspiracy. I think nobody is safe. Ringo’s son was fired from The Who. John Bonham’s son was fired from Sammy Hagar’s band.

“I mean, if the spawn of Ringo and Bonzo are not safe, nobody is safe.”

On Freese’s shock departure from Foo Fighters, Portnoy says: “Frankly, it’s shocking. I thought Josh was perfect. So, yeah, it’s scary. It’s scary times for drummers.

“I’m scared for my life and career at this point. And I’m in, like, 15 bands, so I have 15 times the chance of getting fired right now. The odds are very much stacked against me right now.”

On Starkey’s firing from The Who, which came weeks after he was fired then almost immediately rehired, Portnoy adds: “The whole thing with Zak Starkey started … they did a show last month at the Royal Albert Hall.

“They were doing The Song Is Over and Roger came into the second verse early and stopped the band, turned around and blamed it on his mix, that the drums were powering out his mix.

“Now, mind you, Zak Starkey is on an electronic kit. They already downgraded it off of an acoustic kit. They have him playing an electronic kit, which is fully controllable in terms of volume through the sound guy.

“So, if anything, he should have fired the monitor guy, not Zak.”

Dream Theater released Parasomnia, their first album with Portnoy for 15 years, in February.

Stef wrote close to 5,000 stories during his time as assistant online news editor and later as online news editor between 2014-2016. An accomplished reporter and journalist, Stef has written extensively for a number of UK newspapers and also played bass with UK rock favourites Logan. His favourite bands are Pixies and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Stef left the world of rock’n’roll news behind when he moved to his beloved Canada in 2016, but he started on his next 5000 stories in 2022.