Eidolon

BraveWords Interview: EIDOLON – Life After ‘DETH (Once More, With Feeling)

By Carl Begai

In 2006, long suffering Canadian cult favourites Eidolon released their seventh album, The Parallel Otherworld. The record unintentionally signalled the end of a decade-long career just when Eidolon had clearly hit their stride with Pagan’s Mind vocalist Nils K. Rue behind the mic, but the move to call it quits didn’t come as a surprise considering founders Glen Drover (guitars) and Shawn Drover (drums) had been devoting their time to Megadeth as of 2004. As fate and musical inpiration would have it, however, Glen and Shawn have decided to close out 2015 with a new Eidolon track, “Leave This World Behind”, featuring Rue and long time bassist Adrian Robichaud. The song marks the first Eidolon recording in 10 years.

“To be honest, we never called it quits, we basically just decided to put the band on the shelf,” says Glen. “I mean, at that point yes, Shawn and I were now half of Megadeth, and way too busy to consider anything else regardless of the fact that we had finally found an all around amazing and professional singer who couldn’t be matched. We had a lot of negative feedback in the past about some of our previous singers. All of those people were silenced when we brought Nils in.” Continue reading BraveWords Interview: EIDOLON – Life After ‘DETH (Once More, With Feeling)

THE CALMING – Drover House Rules

By Carl Begai

The Drover family name is well known in metal circles, associated first and foremost with Megadeth. Brothers Glen (guitars) and Shawn (drums) rose to international fame as part of Dave Mustaine’s strike force for four and 10 years respectively, but some Canadian metalheads were locked into the siblings back in the early ’90s when they launched their powerprog outfit Eidolon. Now, a third Drover has entered the fray, namely Shawn’s 23 year-old son Ryan. Working under The Calming moniker, Ryan has released his first full throttle song entitled ‘Return To Life’. One listen and it’s quite clear the proverbial apple doesn’t fall far from the trees in the Drover backyard.

“I worked really hard on it so it’s great to hear you say that. And yes, this is my first shot at recording my own music. I got my hands on a copy of Pro-Tools about six months ago and Glen was nice enough to show me a couple of beginner tips and tricks. I have loads of material that I’ve been working on and I’m really excited to share it with everyone.”

At this point of his budding career, Ryan is a solo artist lucky enough to have friends willing to help him move forward with the assorted musical madness rattling around in his brain.

“There is not an actual group,” he says. “That being said, I asked a couple of my good friends to help me out vocally and lyrically since I’m unfortunately not a vocalist myself. The screaming vocals and lyrics were done by my friend Jacob Kresak, whom I met in the local metal scene, and the clean vocals and lyrics were done by my other friend, Mike Motter, who has been one of my favorite singers/songwriters for a while now. I’m very happy with how the song turned out on their end and could not be happier that those dudes were nice enough to lend me their talents. As for the instruments, I played and recorded everything myself.” Continue reading THE CALMING – Drover House Rules

GLEN DROVER – Piece By Piece (One Fret At A Time)

By Carl Begai

As of October 2012, guitarist Glen Drover’s second official solo album was reportedly half finished. Six months later and the only real buzz out of Drover’s neck of the woods is his recent and brief association with vocalist Geoff Tate’s new incarnation of Queensrÿche. Contacted initially to discuss the ‘Ryche situation – some folks might call it a debacle; depends on who’s side you’re on – Drover revealed that his new solo album is still in the works. It would have been finished by now if not for his decision to go back and remix last three albums – Coma Nation (2001), Apostles Of Defiance (2003), The Parallel Otherworld (2006) – from his pre-Megadeth / pre-King Diamond band Eidolon.

“Without getting into all the details of why we’re doing it, the way technology is now we realized that we could really make the quality of the albums a lot better than it was,” says Drover. “It’s a major step up in overall production. There were things that we weren’t 100% happy with, but I guess most musicians go through that. Something just came along that made us decide it was a good idea to go back and remix the albums. Me and Pat (Mulock/vocals) and Shawn (Drover/drums) are really excited, and Jon (Howard/vocals) from Threat Signal is helping out on it, too.”

“It’s a really cool project. We’re taking our time, going through one song after the other. We started with Coma Nation and it’s half finished. It’s a remix and not a remaster, so we’re changing the face of the whole thing for the better. If there wasn’t a noticeable increase in production I would never waste my time with this. For what it is, those albums came out good at the time. We used what we could and we made the best of what we had, and it worked. Now things are a little bit different. We’re not changing the performance – that’s going to be the same – but we might tweak a couple of thing effect-wise. The albums are going to be the same, but with a far stronger production.”

Still, weeding through the archives, the temptation to go back into the studio and tweak the recordings with up-to-date performances… Continue reading GLEN DROVER – Piece By Piece (One Fret At A Time)

BW&BK Exclusive: GLEN DROVER Issues Cover Of SAGA Classic Featuring Vocalist MICHAEL SADLER

By Carl Begai

Toronto-based guitarist Glen Drover (ex-Megadeth, ex-King Diamond) recently revealed that he and his band had recorded a cover a classic song from Canadian rock legends Saga. Following a short conversation – and because Drover is a smart guy with excellent taste – it was agreed that BW&BK would stream the track exclusively over the weekend (October 13th and 14th), where it’ll remain even as Drover launches the track via his YouTube channel.

Check out Drover’s update below:

“Well, here it is, the first song from the forth coming Glen Drover Band album. It is tentatively titled Between Sea And Sky, and what you are about to hear is a cover song from the legendary Canadian band Saga called ‘Careful Where You Step’ that we recorded. We are super happy with the outcome and have to thank all the people involved to make it happen.

Aside from the band, which consists of myself, Jim Gilmour (keys/Saga), Paul Yee (bass) and Nick Davey (drums), we had a little help from original Saga vocalist Mike Sadler doing all lead vocals, as well as some backup vocals by Pat Mulock from Eidolon, who also sang on the Eidolon albums Coma Nation and Apostles Of Defiance. Everyone did a great job. Thanks again guys!!!

We are approaching the halfway mark of completing the recording for the next CD. Same approach as the last album as far as taking our sweet time to make sure the songs grow on us to try and make the album as strong as we possibly can.

Hope you enjoy this first track from the album as much as we do.”

Go to this location to check it out.

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BW&BK Interview: GLEN DROVER – Shred Sells… But Who’s Buying? (Beyond The Realms Of ‘Deth – Part 2)

By Carl Begai

Back in January, former Megadeth guitarist Glen Drover offered a look inside his solo debut, Metalusion, which had just been completed. The record has since been released and received unexpectedly glowing reviews. Not that odds were in favour of Drover releasing something stale and sub- par, but smart money was on a large portion of his Megadeth-bred fans being disappointed that Metalusion isn’t the full-on rip-yer-face-off metal shred record they were expecting. All in spite of Drover’s warnings it wouldn’t be.

“A few people have made comments about that,” Drover agrees, “but it hasn’t been as common as you might expect. But, in my opinion… do we really, really need another album like that? There’s so much of that out there and it’s all great stuff, but for me to do a full blown instrumental metal record with solos every five seconds, it gets boring for me after five minutes, never mind 50 minutes of it. With all due respect to the guys that are doing that stuff, it’s cool, but it’s just too much for me. With that kind of thing I almost start asking where the vocals are.”

“I listen to instrumental stuff as much as I listen to music with vocals. Me and Shawn (Drover / Megadeth drummer) did the instrumental stuff way back in the early ‘90s when we were starting to get the Eidolon thing rolling. We just had a four track, a drum machine, some guitar gear, and we did the best we could, and it turned into a metal band with vocals. This time out, I just wanted to do an instrumental album properly.” Continue reading BW&BK Interview: GLEN DROVER – Shred Sells… But Who’s Buying? (Beyond The Realms Of ‘Deth – Part 2)