It all started with the audacity of youth. Heading south from the Cheshire plain to study for a music degree at the acclaimed Brighton Institute Of Modern Music, Luke Machin had one aim – to start a progressive metal band. With that Institute on track to becoming the British equivalent of Boston’s renowned Berklee College, you might envisage that with a myriad of technically gifted musicians crammed into the city, locating those of a similar mind would be less than arduous. Yet with the college also regularly churning out pop acts, Machin explains that it took years to finally locate and settle on a fixed line-up.
“It was a really hard thing to do,” he laughs. “I started off with this other bass player, who I used to live with, and he was into Porcupine Tree and Opeth and all that kind of stuff. So we kind of started it, along with our original drummer, Doug Hamer, and we went out playing as a three-piece. I then got into the house band and started playing around with a lot of different musicians. I was really trying to find suitable musicians who were also into this style of music. I think we must have gone through about five different guitarists with completely different styles. Some guys played classical and blues and that kind of thing, which didn’t really work out. Eventually we found someone who was into this kind of music.”
