ARJEN ANTHONY LUCASSEN's STAR ONE:

By Chris Jamele

Best known for his progressive rock project, Ayreon, Arjen Anthony Lucassen has chosen to expand his artistic identity with a new project album called 'Star One'.

THE PROJECT NAME: "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. Now in contrast, he has gone to the other extreme to create a completely unbridled heavy metal album.

So why not just call it Ayreon? Arjen replies, "Ayreon has come to be known as having many different musical styles, while Star One focuses mainly on just the heavy side of my music. The songs are more straightforward and guitar-oriented but they are still progressive. This album was never intended to be an Ayreon album, so calling it Ayreon just wouldn't feel right to me." The name Star One is derived from an episode of Arjen's favourite science fiction TV series called 'Blakes 7'.

THE CONCEPT: "SPACE METAL"

Unlike the Ayreon albums, 'Space Metal' isn't a continuous story or a rock opera, yet it is still very much a concept album. Instead of a continuous story, the individual songs are all based on space movies and are designed to act as vehicle to that takes the listener on a journey through Arjen's mind and memory; A place where they 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. I wonder how many people are going to recognize the films on which I based the songs!".

THE MUSICIANS: A STARSHIP FULL OF TALENT

Arjen Lucassen set a trend in conceptual recordings 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 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 began to surface all over the world. Arjen comments: "Yes, I've noticed it! And I regard it as a compliment. But I have also noticed that on many of these operas the singers sound the same, and you need the CD booklet to tell them apart. To ensure that this didn't happen on 'Space Metal', I used very different sounding singers. Though appearing in the same songs, the different singers were used to convey different moods". Dan Swano (ex-Edge of Sanity, Nightingale) sings the low parts, Russell Allen (Symphony X) sings the powerful rough parts, Damian Wil! son (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.

Of course the same consideration was given to the instrumental sections. Ed Warby played the powerful drums, and Erik Norlander once again added his huge analog synth leads. Arjen also managed to get Jens Johansson (Yngwie Malmsteen, Dio, Stratovarius) who played some incredibly fast synth leads as well. And Gary Wehrkamp (Shadow Gallery) played two explosive and speedy guitar solos. Arjen even succeeded in getting Hawkwind's Dave Brock to make a guest vocal appearance, something no one has ever managed to do before. Arjen talks 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".