RavenEye

Hailing from the town of Milton Keynes, U.K., RavenEye were an English rock band known for combining elements of garage rock, blues, and blues-rock. The group was formed by esteemed blues musician Oli Brown, who wanted to forgo his solo blues career for a fully fledged band that adhered to the harder sound of rock & roll and garage rock with familiar overtones of blues. Inspired by the sounds of bands such as early Black Sabbath and Queens of the Stone Age, Brown got to work in early 2014, sketching out and recording ideas with guitar, bass guitar, and drums before recording the first versions of RavenEye’s songs himself. Initially apprehensive that he was going “too dark and heavy,” the young guitarist pushed on and eventually found some potential in one of his ideas, which eventually became the song “Breakin’ Out.” He joined up with bass guitarist Aaron Spiers and drummer Kev Hickman, who provided the additional live elements that Brown needed, thus completing the hard rock trio that RavenEye would become. Shortly after forming, the band got to work taking their material live and went on tour in support of Joe Satriani before venturing out on a co-headlining tour with Swedish rock band Blue Pills in the U.K. By this time, “Breakin’ Out” had racked up over 100,000 plays on SoundCloud in just under a month, inspiring the band to get back into the studio. Brown chose to enlist the talents of guitarist and singer/songwriter Anders Osborne to produce their first official release; it was Osborne who encouraged Brown to let his less blues-affiliated ideas burgeon and flourish. After steady progress, the band independently put out their first official release, the Breakin’ Out EP, in late 2015. The release was a success, receiving warm praise and widespread acclaim. RavenEye followed this up with more live performances, touring in support of legendary acts such as Deep Purple and Slash in late 2015, and going out on their own nationwide tour in early 2016. RavenEye then spent the rest of the year writing and recording their first full-length effort. Hickman left the band later that year, and the band announced Adam Breeze as their new drummer in August 2016. The boys released their first album, Nova, through Frontiers Records in September of that year to further glowing reviews. ~ Rob Wacey