Derek Sherinian and Kevin Moore (both ex-Dream-Theater), Aquiles Priester (ex-Angra), Luis Conte (Phil Collins, among others) and Conner Green (Haken): Florian Zepf was able to win them all for his project The Progressive Souls Collective. He himself, on the other hand, is a blank sheet in the scene. "I've been listening to all kinds of progressive music since I was a teenager, but I've been on the road in other genres in the meantime," says the guitarist and composer. His best known station so far was the soul and funk band Candycream, which toured with Lionel Richie and was "quite successful" at the "German Rock & Pop Award" 2005. But there has always been the dream to create a progressive work
In mid-2017, the idea finally matured, and inspired by a friend to whom he had played the demos, Florian Zepf set out to find fellow musicians. Aquiles Priester proved to be the linchpin: "We watched the documentary about the drummer auditions of Dream Theater, and my wife said: 'The Aquiles plays great, wouldn't it be something? We hit it off right away and became good friends through the project." Priest then opened his address book, although of course that alone was not enough to convince prominent colleagues: "I was extremely lucky that they liked the songs and saw room to contribute themselves," said Zepf.
