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Kite Parade Kite Parade is the solo project of Andy Foster of Bridgwater, Somerset, UK, who has been a working musician ever since leaving school in 1981. His first instrument at school had been the violin but he subsequently switched over to clarinet, and after leaving school at 16 Andy joined H.M. Band of the Grenadier Guards - initially as a clarinet player - but he found the role of clarinet player in the band to be somewhat boring, and soon switched to playing alto saxophone instead.
After 8 years of playing ceremonial and private functions around the world he decided to leave the Army, and in 1988 began working for a couple of years in a music shop in London. In 1990 he was approached to play sax and guitar in the touring show 'Grease the Musical', and he played the theatres of the U.K. and Northern Ireland for the next two years. In 1992 he started working in the Middle East organizing contracts for various covers bands, and he continued to do this for the next 5 years, spending time in Dubai, Oman, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan and Israel. Since then Andy has performed solo around the world visiting many countries, including Austria, Spain, Scandinavia, France, Greece, Tanzania, Côte d'Ivoire, Cyprus, Faroe Islands. He has completed a tour of rock clubs in British Columbia, Canada and has recently also started to perform on cruise ships. While all this has been going on, Andy has also been writing his own songs for a good many years - his influences as a youngster being hard rock (UFO, Boston, Thin Lizzy, Def Leppard, Van Halen), prog (Genesis, Yes, Supertramp, It Bites), as well as bands playing a multitude of styles that featured on Top of The Pops in the '70s (particularly Tears For Fears), classical (Ravel, Stravinsky, etc.) and also jazz fusion while he was in the Army. Meer... |
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He previously lived in Brighton for 20 years, and made demos on a Roland XP50 and an 8-track recorder in between trips to the Middle East. Andy says: At the beginning they were more pop-rock type tunes, but they soon morphed into basically whatever came into my head! Maybe listening to such a wide palette of genres means that for me melody is king.
After finishing in the Middle East he was introduced by a mutual friend to renowned producer Rob Aubrey (Big Big Train, IQ), who listened to the instrumental demos and decided they were worth pursuing, so some vocals were added. Finally, around a couple of decades later, he decided the time was right to create an album (or albums) from these demos. Sufficient tracks for around three albums have been written musically over the years, but vocals still need to be added to some of them, and Andy is already working on material for a fourth album. Although essentially a solo project (with Andy handling vocals, guitars, bass, saxophone and keyboard programming), he has collaborated with a number of other musicians in the creation of the finished tracks. Nick D'Virgilio of Big Big Train played drums on five tracks of the debut album 'The Way Home', with ex-Pendragon drummer Joe Crabtree, now formally of Wishbone Ash, contributing on the other two. Elsewhere, friends have added bass, piano and extra guitar parts to give additional sparkle where necessary. Rob Aubrey handled the mixing and mastering of the album. 'The Way Home' was released on White Knight Records in March 2022, and the follow up album 'Retro' on the same label a year later in March 2023. Once again, guest drummers Nick D'Virgilio and Joe Crabtree have contributed to the 'Retro' album, and all the mastering and mixing duties were again carried out by Rob Aubrey. After starting out as a studio based project, Andy is happy to announce that he's now in the process of putting a band together to get Kite Parade playing live at festivals and in support slots. (biography provided by David/yam yam - Progarchives.com) |