Alias Eye biography

Alias Eye was founded in late 1998 when Philip Griffiths, Matthias Richter, Frank Fischer and Ludwig Benedek, who had been playing together for over four years, teamed up with keyboarder Vytas Lemke. After writing a repertoire of songs, the band recorded their first CD Beyond The Mirror in 1999, which was very well received by the international press.

In spring 2000, the band was brought into contact with the Dutch label DVS Records, which signed Alias Eye in November of that year. Work on Alias Eye's debut album Field of Names began immediately; an adept producer was found in Christian Schimanski, who had a grasp of the sound and feel the band was aiming for.

Two years after the release of Field of Names, the band returned with their second album A Different Point of You. Recorded, mixed and mastered at Christian Schimanski’s Blue Sky Studio, the band spent almost a year arranging and recording the album. A Different Point of You got rave reviews from the international press and paved the way for an extended tour with an old favourite: a year after the album’s release, Alias Eye supported the Canadian band Saga on the German leg of their European tour. Playing in front of over 17,000 people certainly got the adrenaline pumpin’!

In summer 2005, Matthias Richter (guitars) decided to leave the band. However, a more than adequate replacement was soon found: Matthias Wurm, an old friend of vocalist Philip Griffiths, joined the band 2 months later.

As work commenced on Alias Eye’s third studio effort In Focus, the band soon realised that the new material required a different, almost radical approach: get rid of all the baggage - pads, guitar overdubs, and choir arrangements - and focus on what’s really important: the song. Wurm’s motto “back to the basics – so basically make it rock!” became the band’s new mantra and influenced not only the song writing process but also the recording process itself. Thus, keyboards were restricted to piano, Rhodes, Wurlitzer and Hammond, and Wurm’s virtuoso style of playing gave the record a gritty edge, thus enhancing the rough character of the songs.

Mixed and mastered at the renowned, state of the art HOFA-Studios, In Focus combines Alias Eye’s typical feeling for catchy, yet complex melodies with a much straighter and heavier sound. The album will be released by Quixote Records on 15th January, 2007.