Arjen Anthony Lucassen

Arjen Anthony Lucassen — born in the Netherlands on 3 April 1960 — is the creator, composer, producer and only permanent member of Ayreon, and one of the most singular cases of individual authorship in metal. Ayreon is not a band: it is a rock opera project in which each album tells a science fiction story with distinct characters, played by guest singers from different bands. Into the Electric Castle (1998), The Human Equation (2004) and 01011001 (2008) gather dozens of vocalists — from progressive metal to folk, from death metal to symphonic rock — each representing a role within the narrative. Lucassen writes everything, produces everything and records most of the instruments himself in his studio: guitars, bass, keyboards, mandolin, plus additional vocals. The guests come in to give voice to the characters; the work itself has a single author. The stories form a continuous universe, with a chronology running across several records and linking albums separated by decades — a narrative ambition unusual even among concept projects. He also maintains Star One, Guilt Machine and Ayreon Universe, besides records under his own name. Before all that he was in Vengeance, the Dutch hard rock band of the 1980s.