Solstice belonged to the pioneers of the neoprog scene in the 80s, but unlike their comrades-in-arms IQ, Marillion or Pendragon, they had the status of an insider tip for a long time, even though they released a new album every now and then during the last 40 years. Now they have landed on the IQ label GEP. Andy Glass, the only constant member, welcomes us for a chat in the virtual chatroom ..
eclipsed: Why don't you take us back to the time when it all started with Solstice. You belonged to the pioneers of the neo-prog scene ..
Andy Glass: Right, that was 1980 when we started. The scene was well connected. I was playing with Mick Pointer and Doug Irvine in Electric Gypsy, they formed Silmarillion, which became Marillion, and I decided to form a new band called Solstice. We opened for Marillion at Marquee, among others, because the contacts had always remained the same, and I also got along well with their manager Jonathan King. He had the idea to place us on a major label like Marillion, but I was against it ..
eclipsed: Why? You haven't even had a record out yet..
Glass: Oh you know, we were hippies and not interested in the commercial side of the music business. We just wanted to play our music, stage our shows as big parties among friends and not be put under unnecessary pressure from outside. But of course, we split up in the mid 80s, so it didnŽt take a major label to break us up (laughs). But there was one record we made, "Silent Dance" ..
eclipsed: A somewhat unknown classic of neoprog ...on which label did it come out again?
Glass: We quickly founded one ourselves to bring the record to the market. The recordings were also a lot of fun, finally we could put our songs on record, but somehow I wasn't so happy with the result
