Everon
| Everon | |
|---|---|
| General information | |
| Genre (s) | Progressive rock |
| founding | 1989 |
| Website | http://www.everon.de/ |
| Founding members | |
| Oliver Philipps | |
| Ralf Janssen | |
| Michael "Schymy" Schymik | |
| Christian "musk" moss | |
| Current occupation | |
Vocals, electric guitar, piano, keyboard |
Oliver Philipps |
Electric guitar |
Ulli Hoever (since 1997) |
Electric bass |
Michael "Schymy" Schymik |
Drums |
Christian "musk" moss |
| former members | |
Electric guitar |
Ralf Janssen (until 1997) |
Keyboard |
Oliver Thiele (2000 to 2002) |
singing |
Judith Stüber (in "Islanders" on the album "North" ) |
| Rupert Gillet (in "Test Of Time" , "Wasn't It Good" and "From Where I Stand" on the album "North" ) | |
Everon is a progressive rock band from Krefeld, founded in 1989 .
Music genre
Everon combines a strong presence of electronic synthesizers with the aggressive use of electric guitars . Even if there are clearly classical influences, the style of music can best be described as a mixture of progressive rock and progressive metal .
Everon was directly influenced by groups like Rush , Saga, and Pallas . The album North is more likely to be assigned to Neo-Prog . The music is heavily based on Progressive Metal , with Dream Theater often cited as a reference.
Band history
Ralf Janssen, Christian Moos and Michael Schymik played together for a few years. This time was rather shaped by pragmatism and determined by the search for an own style, a musical direction and a suitable singer. In 1989 Oliver Philipps became aware of the band through an advertisement in a music journal. Philipps had already recorded two albums with his band " Jester's Palace ", but unfortunately this formation had broken up. The three previous members of Everon were impressed by Philip's talent as a songwriter, keyboardist and guitarist. Finally, Philipps was also able to convince as a singer. The technology was upgraded through the use of keyboards and other electronic sound generators and thus a high-tech sound was placed around the songs, which resulted in a mix of melody and power.
The band came into contact with Eroc . The former drummer of the band Grobschnitt has already produced for Philip Boa , among others . Eroc offered Everon the use of Woodhouse Studios to record an album. Everon accepted the offer and recorded the debut album Paradoxes under the guidance of Eroc. As the album neared completion in late 1992, Everon was already receiving offers from almost all independent progressive rock labels . Ultimately, Everon signed with SI Music .
While searching for a record cover , the band came across a few sketches by Australian artist Gregory Bridges . It took a while to find out the artist's name and contact him. After Bridges had played the first demos of the unfinished album, he canceled everything else and offered Everon the design for the entire album.
Paradoxes was released in May 1993 and was also noticed outside of the progressive rock scene. It quickly became one of the two best-selling albums in the SI Music catalog. The album received nine out of ten points for “Heavy oder Was” (Germany), eight out of ten points for the Japanese metal magazine “Burrn!” And the band was hailed by various papers as the discovery of the year.
In the same year Everon played together with Fish in front of a few thousand visitors at an open-air festival in the Netherlands .
Paradoxes was already in the top 10 of the Japanese import charts for several weeks when it appeared in a second release by the label " Zero Corporation " on Toshiba / EMI . Four other Japanese record companies were interested in the album. With their debut album, the band had exceeded everything they had hoped for.
In 1994 Everon returned to Woodhouse Studios, which had been completely modernized in the meantime. Now equipped with more experience and additional technical possibilities, work on a “real” album could begin: Flood was again produced by Eroc and Gregory Bridges did the design. Eroc noted that this was the loudest album he had ever recorded.
Unfortunately, SI Music soon went bankrupt and within a very short time all further plans were canceled. For the band this was a big disappointment and for a while they thought about breaking up. After just a few months the band found new motivation in their own music and started a second attempt with new material: They put all the frustration and anger, but also passion and enthusiasm into the new album Venus , which was released in 1997 by Mascot Records . Again Gregory Bridges did the artwork. Oliver Philipps and Christian Moos established their own recording studio “SpaceLab”. Even if Eroc didn't produce the album this time, it was still a great help to Everon.
After the release of Venus , Ralf Janssen left the band due to a lack of motivation and decreasing interest. Ulli Hoever joined the band for him.
In 1998 SpaceLab successfully started producing demos and albums for various European bands.
The fourth album, Fantasma , was released in 2000. Ulli Hoever played the electric guitar for the first time and the live keyboardist Oliver Thiele also joined the band. That was the strongest line-up of the band so far. The album was recorded at SpaceLab Studios and produced by Philipps and Moos. And again the album cover was artistically designed by Gregory Bridges.
Even if the sound of the band is technically very high and complex, the music is still played entirely by Everon himself. Fantasma is another important milestone in the constant development of the Everon sound. While Progressive Rock may be a fairly appropriate category for this sound, it is difficult to find something comparable. The same goes for the lyrics. You look in vain for fantasy stories or orgies of symbols. Instead, one finds sensitive and easily accessible texts about all possible types of human interaction, albeit often assigned to a specific topic, such as the topic of "loss" on Fantasma . Each of the band members had personally experienced their own losses over the past two years. Especially the tragic accident of longtime friend and crew member Detlef Dohmen, which ended fatally, was musically processed in Fantasma . The album is dedicated to him.
Shortly before the two new albums were released in 2002, keyboardist Oliver Thiele left the band. Bridge and Flesh again achieved fantastic reviews. Like all albums before, Gregory Bridges once again made the cover artwork. After months of searching in vain for a new, suitable keyboard player, Oliver Philipps decided to take over the piano and keyboard himself on stage.
In 2003, Everon made more appearances than ever before. Among other things, Everon performed at the "French Progressive Festival" in Sarlat (France). In the same year a single CD was released. The title “Missing From The Chain” was intended exclusively as a radio promotion.
The previous album, North , came out in April 2008.
Discography (studio albums)
- 1993: Paradoxes
- 1995: Flood
- 1997: Venus
- 2000: Fantasma
- 2002: Bridge
- 2002: Flesh
- 2008: North