All about: The Flower Kings

The Flower Kings is a Swedish progressive rock band, whose music is heavily influenced by the 'classic' prog rock bands, such as Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Yes, Genesis and Pink Floyd. Like those bands, The Flower Kings' lyrics are often abstract, their songs are long and their music is marked by complex arrangements. An overview of their career follows.

Foundation and conception

Foundation The Flower Kings began life as essentially a solo project for Swedish guitarist Roine Stolt, who formed the band as backing for a tour undertaken to promote his solo album 'The Flower King'. The band went on to record a proper band album in 1995, after receiving a good reaction on tour. Album This album was called 'Back In the World of Adventures' and came out on Foxtrot Records, and since then, they have released another nine official studio albums, plus side projects, live albums and official bootlegs. Their most recent album was 2007's 'The Sum of No Evil'. Most of the band's music has been written by Stolt, who also sings and plays guitar, as well as featuring on bass and keyboards.

Personnel

Line-up
As well as Reine Stoilt, some of the band's music has been written by keyboardist Tomas Bodin.
The original touring line-up fwatured Jaime Salazar on drums, and Hasse Fröberg vocals. Michael Stolt on bass and Bodin, on keyboards, later joined. The line-up has mutated several times since those early days however. The current line-up is Roine Stolt (guitar, vocals, keyboards, bass guitar), Tomas Bodin (keyboards) , who has been in the band from 1995 to the present, like Hasse Fröberg (vocals, guitar). Hasse Bruniusson (percussion) has also been in the group since 1995.
Current members Current members who joined the band later are Jonas Reingold (bass guitar), who has been in the line-up from 1999, drummer Erik Hammarström, who joined in 2008, and Ola Heden (vocals, keyboards, guitar).

Current activity

Live DVD
The band recently released a live DVD, billed as an 'official bootleg', featuring footage of some of their live work in 2007, which the band advertises as being previously lost. They also hail the release, with something of a wry sense of humour, as 'The Flower Kings in Full Technicolor!!'.
Flowerkings.se Since that tour, things seem to have been quiet, though the band's official website, Flowerkings.se, is the best place to check to see if the band is ready to dust down their VW touring van once again and spread the Progressive Rock word around northern Europe once again.