Arjen Anthony Lucassen

Arjen Anthony Lucassen (born 3 April 1960, Hilversum) is a progressive metal/rock songwriter, singer, multi-instrumentalist musician and record producer from the Netherlands, best known for his long-running progressive opera project titled 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 conducted to the creation of successful progressive rock/metal project Ayreon, which established Lucassen as a notable composer of rock operas. Following Ayreon's success, Lucassen as been involved in many other projects: He is the creator and current guitarist/keyboardist of Star One, Guilt Machine, the currently inactive band Ambeon, and the creator and former guitarist of Stream of Passion. He composes and writes most of his songs, but leaves the lyrics to his musical partners in some of his projects. Lucassen plays a wide variety of instruments: his main instruments are guitar and keyboards, however he also plays bass, banjo and many others. Overall, in his career and including all his bands and projects (as principal instrumentalist/creative force or as a member), Lucassen has released twenty-one studio albums, two live albums, four EPs and seventeen singles. He has also made many minor participations alongside various artists including Shadow Gallery, After Forever and Within Temptation, and the number of studio albums that includes Lucassen is more than 50. Since the creation of Ayreon, Lucassen progressively gained notoriety to rock and metal reviewers, with many critics calling him a "genius", and praised his composition abilities and originality. In his review of 01011001 Allmusic reviewer 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."