Арьен Энтони Люкассен: Путь прогрессивного музыканта

Dutch musician

Arjen Anthony Lucassen (born 3 April 1960) is a Dutch singer, songwriter, multi instrumentalist musician and record producer best known for his long running progressive metal/rock opera project Ayreon. Lucassen started his career in 1980 as the guitarist and backing vocalist of Dutch band Bodine as Iron Anthony, before joining Vengeance in 1984. After eight years he left the band, wanting to go into a more progressive direction, and released two years later an unsuccessful solo album entitled Pools of Sorrow, Waves of Joy under the nickname Anthony. In 1995, Lucassen released an album uncredited to any artist called Ayreon: The Final Experiment, in which he sang, wrote every song and played most of the instruments. The album led to the creation of Ayreon; despite being relatively unknown at first, the project gained notable attention and praise with the release of its third album Into the Electric Castle, establishing Lucassen as a notable composer of rock operas. and praising his composition abilities and originality. In his review of 01011001, AllMusic reviewer Cosmo Lee stated "Music this over the top almost defies criticism. Reviewing it is like reviewing the world's tallest building. It doesn't care; it just goes on and on."

Lucassen's love of music was sparked in the 60s, when he became a big fan of The Beatles. He decided to learn guitar when he heard Ritchie Blackmore playing in Made in Japan. One of his first bands was called Mover, which he joined around the age of 18.

In 1980, Lucassen joined Bodine via their drummer Gerrard Haitsma, who was also the drum teacher of Mover's drummer. It was a commercial flop; according to Lucassen, "people didn't understand it. It wasn't hard rock, it wasn't prog or something. People thought, 'What's that he is doing now? He must be crazy!'" Lucassen was not satisfied with the final result, stating "it's a bit cold for me. It's too electronic, a bit too much computers And I didn't know how well Astrid could sing for I didn't know her and she didn't know me". Van der Veen eventually released a new record for herself in 2012 after a long battle with depression and addiction, but does not seem to intend on performing actively anymore. In 2002, Lucassen created another side project, entitled Star One; the only side project to date he made more than one studio album with. Star One focused on four singers: Dan Swanö, Russell Allen, Floor Jansen and Damian Wilson; Lucassen played guitar, keyboards and hammond organ. Their first album Space Metal was released in 2002. The album also had limited success, although it was more successful than Ambeon. Live on Earth, the first live album in Lucassen's career which also included Ayreon songs, was released one year later.

Four years after Universal Migrator, Lucassen released Ayreon's sixth album, The Human Equation. It was a commercial success, going No. 7 in the Dutch album charts, and some critics considered the album as Lucassen's best since Into the Electric Castle. The album was meant to be the conclusion of the Ayreon storyline, and after its release Lucassen decided to temporarily stop Ayreon, because he was not inspired to continue and also because many critics (despite the album being well reviewed) noted that there was nothing new being offered on 01011001; he believed that he might make more Ayreon albums in the future, but that they would not follow the same storyline.

In February 2009 Lucassen announced on his website his new side project: Guilt Machine. The project features a very limited line up compared to other Lucassen side projects: himself on many instruments and backing vocals, Jasper Steverlinck (Arid) on lead vocals, Chris Maitland (ex Porcupine Tree) on drums and Lori Linstruth (ex Stream of Passion) on lead guitar. On this album Lucassen sang all leading vocals, wrote all lyrics and played almost all instruments. Also, he asked the Dutch actor Rutger Hauer to provide narration between the tracks, similar to as he had done on Into The Electric Castle. Artwork for this album was done by Claudio Bergamin.

On 23 August 2012, Lucassen published on his YouTube channel that he started composing "a new project". On 9 October 2012, he revealed it via YouTube again to be a new Ayreon album, planned for 2013. Responding to fan comments on his website, Lucassen stated on 12 October that it would probably take a year before the album was completed. He also stated that the album would be the start of a new story apart from the previous Ayreon albums, and confirmed the presence of Ed Warby as usual. On late 2012, Tobias Sammet announced that Arjen would make some guest lead guitar works in his new Avantasia album, The Mystery of Time. This marked the second time both musicians have worked together, the first having been the Ayreon EP Elected, on the title song, in which Tobias sang guest vocals. This album was released on 25 October and received positive reviews. On 22 April 2014, Lucassen revealed that his new project would be a collaboration with Dutch singer Anneke van Giersbergen, who previously collaborated with him in Ayreon albums Into the Electric Castle and 01011001. He described it as "an epic double concept album, a combination of 'classical meets metal' and 'acoustic folk'." Lucassen's most recurrent collaborator Ed Warby was featured once again on drums, and it was his very first album featuring double bass among the instruments. He confirmed that Johan van Stratum from his former band Stream of Passion would play bass on the album. Also, due to "unforeseen problems", Warby had to re record all his drums part in one day only. On 2 September 2014, Lucassen revealed that his collaboration with van Giersbergen was actually a new band, called The Gentle Storm. A cover EP entitled The Gentle Storm Exclusive Tour CD, and their first album, The Diary, were both released in 2015, with van Giersbergen writing all the lyrics and him composing the music. The band toured in 2015, without him; however he was featured on a few acoustic shows by the band in the Netherlands. Between 18 and 20 September 2015, a live version of The Human Equation, directed by Lucassen's former manager Yvette Boertje and featuring most of the original album's singers and musicians, took place for four shows. Although he was not involved in the creative process, Lucassen appeared at the end of each show, and acted as producer and mixer for the DVD/live album, entitled The Theater Equation and released on 17 June 2016. On 6 October 2016, Lucassen's next project was announced to be a new Ayreon studio album. After revealing the cast one by one during the following months, he revealed its cover art and title, The Source, on 19 January 2017. The album was released on 28 April 2017 and was a commercial success, topping the albums charts in the Netherlands at its release.

In November 2016, Lucassen announced the first ever official Ayreon concerts for September 2017, entitled Ayreon Universe. The show featured 16 singers and 11 instrumentalists, all of which had previously worked together with Lucassen on his studio albums. Unlike The Theater Equation, it consisted of unrelated songs from Ayreon performed after each other as in a traditional concert, with a few songs from Star One featured as well. One of the performances was released as a live album/DVD on 30 March 2018, titled Ayreon Universe – The Best of Ayreon Live. On 7 December 2017, Lucassen stated that a new Ayreon concert would take place on 22 June 2018 at Graspop Metal Meeting, where they would headline the Marquee stage. It featured the same instrumentalists as the Ayreon Universe shows and most of its vocalists, along with Simone Simons, Barry Hay and Tom S. Englund, who had never performed live with Ayreon before, and Mark Jansen, who had never collaborated with Lucassen before; Lucassen himself also performed a few songs. Between 13 and 15 September 2019, the album Into the Electric Castle was performed in Tilburg in its entirety similarly to The Theater Equation in 2015, this time as official Ayreon performances. Fish, Anneke van Giersbergen, Damian Wilson, Edward Reekers, Edwin Balogh, and George Oosthoek returned from the original cast, alongside Ed Warby and flutist Thijs van Leer, who also performed on the original album. Simone Simons and Mark Jansen of Epica, Praying Mantis singer John Jaycee Cuijpers, Marcela Bovio, Bovio's husband and VUUR bassist Johan van Stratum, and Ex Libris members Dianne van Giersbergen and Bob Wijtsma were also featured, with actor John de Lancie acting as narrator. It was released as the live album Electric Castle Live and Other Tales on 27 March 2020. Ayreon was supposed to headline the Night of the Prog Festival in Germany on 18 July 2020 to perform Into the Electric Castle once again, however the event was cancelled due to the COVID 19 pandemic. On 8 May 2020, Lucassen revealed on his YouTube channel that his next album would be an Ayreon album, titled Transitus and to be released the same year; the album has been released alongside a tie in comic book on 25 September 2020. Beginning 9 February 2021 on his Facebook page, Lucassen began teasing a new Star One album, On 6 October 2021 he revealed that it would be titled Revel in Time. The album was released on 18 February 2022 on different formats, followed by re releases of Star One (11 March 2022) and Victims of the Modern Age (1 April 2022). On 19 January 2023, it was announced that Lucassen had formed a new band called Arjen Lucassen's Supersonic Revolution. On 19 May 2023, they released the 1970s influenced album Golden Age of Music.

Lucassen stated that to him, "Music is everything. Both listening and creating. Even if I wouldn't be successful I would be creating music. Music chose me, I didn't choose music. I have no choice in the matter whatsoever!" According to Lucassen, his self made motto is "the meaning of life is to give life meaning", a sentence which he included in the Ayreon song "The Sixth Extinction" from 01011001, and considers himself "a very rational man. I believe in science". Lucassen is currently in a relationship with American guitarist and lyricist Lori Linstruth, who left Sweden to move in with him. She is his former bandmate from both Stream of Passion and Guilt Machine, and was featured in several Ayreon albums. Despite retiring as an active performer in 2010, she still acts as his manager, a role she has held since 2007, and is responsible for various other tasks on his albums; she notably co wrote the story and lyrics of the Ayreon album The Theory of Everything. According to Lucassen, Linstruth supervises the making of all his works, notably his lyrics as English is her native language, and she is also an English teacher.

During the recordings of The Human Equation from 2003 to 2004, Lucassen suffered from "increasing lower back problems". The Doctors gave him an MRI examination revealing he was suffering from a hernia; he had his examination filmed in order to use it for a video shoot, "as the 'Me' character [from The Human Equation] would also have needed a scan after his car accident". Lucassen has suffered from permanent anosmia since 2007. The same year, he sank into a depression which required medical help, due to the disease, his constant work over the last years, and his recent divorce with Verduijn resulting in him living on his own.