Glass Hammer

Biography

Glass Hammer is an American progressive rock band from Chattanooga, Tennessee, led by Steve Babb and Fred Schendel.
Babb and Schendel, who founded the band in 1992, are the only constant members in the lineup, having surrounded themselves by various guest performers. The different lineups included several lead vocalists, including Michelle Young and Jon Davison. Originally a studio project only, the band occasionally performs live, especially since the early 2010s, but never does large-scale tours.

Origins and early years (1992–1997)

Schendel and Babb (then credited as "Stephen DeArqe") first met in 1986, and formed Glass Hammer in 1992 when they began to write and record Journey of the Dunadan, a concept album based on the story of Aragorn from J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings on which they performed most vocals and instruments. To their surprise, the album, released the following year, sold several thousand units via the Internet, TV home shopping, and phone orders, convincing them that Glass Hammer was a project worth continuing.
Embarking on a small tour in the south-east of the US, the band was joined by singer Michelle Young (who had been featured as a guest on a single track of Journey of the Dunadan), and drummer Walter Moore. With this line-up, they released their second album Perelandra×Perelandra1 November 1995 · Studio albumSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 12 tracks1Now Arriving2:032Time Marches On10:373Illusion9:054The Way to Her Heart4:485Felix the Cat2:316Now Departing1:057Perelandra8:088Le danse final5:199That Hideous Strength3:5710Enda the Lion1:0311Into the Night4:4012Heaven8:37 in 1995, with Moore performing guitars instead of drums (which were handled by Schendel), and all four members performing lead vocals. It is another concept album, this time inspired by C. S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia and Space Trilogy book series.
After a small tour to support the album, Young left the band in 1997 to pursue a solo career. The same year, the band released Live and Revived, a live/compilation album consisting of recorded live rehearsals from the previous tour and unreleased material written shortly after the release of Journey of the Dunadan. The album was originally limited to 1000 copies, but was later re-released. In parallel to Glass Hammer, Babb and Schendel created a techno/dance project, titled TMA-2, releasing two unsuccessful albums, Artifact One (1996) and Tick Tock Lilies (1998), before dropping the project.

Moore / Bogdanowicz years (1998–2009)

In 1998, Glass Hammer released their third studio album, On to Evermore×On to Evermore18 February 1998 · Studio albumSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 10 tracks1On to Evermore7:012The Mayor of Longview5:273The Conflict5:464Muse1:065Arianna16:466Only Red5:197This Fading Age5:158Junkyard Angel9:099Twilight on Longview5:4210Wind1:22, which saw Moore acting as main lead vocalist. It was followed two years later by Chronometree, another concept album following a young man who becomes convinced that aliens are trying to communicate with him through his albums. Guest Brad Marler provided lead vocals for the album.
Susie Bogdanowicz, who had provided backing vocals on Chronometree, joined the band as a full-time member, while Moore stopped acting as drummer, acting solely as singer on studio works, and also as guitarist in concerts; this would go on to become Glass Hammer's longest and steadiest line-up, which would be featured on the next four albums, the first being The Middle-Earth Album in 2001, their second album based on Lord of the Rings after Journey of the Dunadan×Journey of the Dunadan3 August 1993 · Studio albumSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 17 tracks1Shadows of the Past3:192Something’s Coming3:183Song of the Dunadan9:144Fog on the Barrow-Downs2:345The Prancing Pony1:136The Way to Her Heart3:317The Ballad of Balin Longbeard3:398Rivendell3:309Khazad-Dum1:2410Nimrodel4:5811The Palantir6:3912Pelennor Fields4:2513Why I Cry (Arwen’s Song)5:2014Anduril2:0315Morannon Gate5:4116The Return of the King7:5517Why I Cry (single edit)3:58. Jokingly marketed as a live album recorded during a performance at The Prancing Pony, an inn in Lord of the Rings, the album's first half emulated the sound of a band actually performing at the inn, while the second half was recorded like a traditional studio album. The Middle-Earth Album was followed by Lex Rex×Lex Rex1 September 2002 · Studio albumSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 11 tracks1Good Evening0:522Tales of the Great Wars10:433One King6:084Further Up and Further In15:155Intermission1:096Music for Four Hands (And Temporal Anomaly)2:207A Cup of Trembling7:508Centurion7:489When We Were Young9:5310Goodnight1:1111Heroes and Dragons3:46 the following year.
The band's seventh studio album Shadowlands×Shadowlands14 January 2004 · Studio albumSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 5 tracks1So Close, So Far9:502Run Lisette10:293Farewell to Shadowlands7:304Longer9:525Behind the Great Beyond20:27 was released in 2004. The following year, The Inconsolable Secret would mark the last album with the line-up effective since The Middle-Earth Album, as Moore would leave his role as full-time member following the release of the album. In parallel to these studio albums, this line-up had also recorded and released the live album Live at Nearfest×Live at NEARfest13 July 2004 · Album · LiveSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 11 tracks1Greetings Ladies and Gentlemen1:342Chronotheme5:093Tales of the Great Wars10:274One King6:125Further Up, Further In14:296Cowboys and Mendians2:437A Cup of Trembling8:038Portrait (He Knew)6:289Chronos Deliverer5:1610When We Were Young8:1411Heaven4:09 and the live DVD Lex Live, both recorded in 2003 and released in 2004.
After the departure of Moore, Glass Hammer recruited Carl Groves as their new male lead vocalists, recording and releasing the live DVD Live at Belmont in 2006. After a compilation album of rare/previously unreleased tracks titled The Compilations, the band released their first studio album with Groves, Culture of Ascent×Culture of Ascent2007 · Studio albumSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 6 tracks1South Side of the Sky9:252Sun Song9:373Life by Light7:354Ember Without Name16:385Into Thin Air19:206Rest6:36, in 2007. In 2009, the band took a completely different musical direction for their tenth studio album, Three Cheers for the Broken-Hearted×Three Cheers for the Broken-Hearted3 November 2009 · Studio albumSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 11 tracks1Come On, Come On3:372The Lure of Dreams5:523A Rose for Emily3:104Sleep On4:065The Mid-Life Weird3:556A Bitter Wind4:357The Curse They Weave4:308Sun Down Shores4:369Schrodinger’s Lament5:1210Hyperbole7:3911Falling4:37, a pop rock album without Groves with focus on Bogdanowicz's vocals. The album was received negatively by fans due to departing from the band's usual progressive sound; although Schendel and Babb defended the quality of the album, they later admitted that they should not have released it under the Glass Hammer name.

Davison years (2009–2014)

Later in 2009, both Bogdanowicz and Groves left Glass Hammer, and Schendel and Babb recruited new singer Jon Davison and new guitarist Kamran Alan Shikoh. Together, this new line-up released three studio albums: If in 2010, Cor Cordium×Cor Cordium25 October 2011 · Studio albumSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 6 tracks1Nothing Box10:532One Heart6:203Salvation Station5:084Dear Daddy10:305To Someone18:156She, a Lonely Tower10:57 in 2011, and Perilous×Perilous23 October 2012 · Studio albumSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 13 tracks1The Sunset Gate7:372Beyond They Dwell4:003The Restless Ones3:364They Cast Their Spell3:215We Slept, We Dreamed7:416The Years Were Sped2:577Our Foe Revealed6:278Toward Home We Fled6:479As the Sun Dipped Low1:3210The Wolf Gave Chase1:5911We Fell at Last1:5512In That Lonely Place3:1013Where Sorrows Died and Came No More6:34 in 2012. The albums saw a return to progressive rock, with a shift towards a symphonic rock-oriented sound compared to previous albums. All three albums were very positively received, and resulted in a notable gain in popularity for the band.
In 2013, the band re-releasedThe Inconsolable Secret, with several tracks re-recorded with Davison and Shikoh and included in a third disc.
Meanwhile, Davison was selected by Yes as their new lead singer, which resulted in him having a reduced role in Glass Hammer.
In 2013, Bogdanowicz and Groves re-joined Glass Hammer, while Aaron Raulston joined as full-time drummer on January 17. With this seven-members line-up, the band released Ode to Echo in 2014, featuring all current and former full-time lead vocalists in the band's history, with current members Babb, Schendel, Bogdanowicz, Groves and Davison, and contributions by former vocalists Walter Moore and Michelle Young. After the release, Davison would quit working with the band due to his work with Yes, although he would only be officially removed from the line-up years later.

Recent years and live performances (2015–present)

With the line-up now consisting of Schendel, Babb, Bogdanowicz, Groves, Shikoh, and Raulston, the band released their fifteenth studio album The Breaking of the World×The Breaking of the World31 March 2015 · Studio albumSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 9 tracks1Mythopoeia8:342Third Floor11:043Babylon7:564A Bird When It Sneezes0:345Sand5:466Bandwagon6:207Haunted5:558North Wind9:269Nothing Everything8:50 in 2015.
In 2016, Carl Groves left the band once again, with the band choosing to focus on Bogdanowicz as vocalist. With this line-up, they released Valkyrie, a concept album following "a soldier’s struggle to return home from the horrors of war, to the girl who loves him and must ultimately find her way to him"; the album's vocals were focused on Bogdanowicz, although Schendel and Babb also performed secondary lead vocals for the first time in years. In a shift from their usual recording methods, the band rehearsed the album for several weeks, in order to record the album as if it were an actual live performance.
In 2017, the band released Untold Tales, a compilation album of unreleased or hard to find Glass Hammer recordings originating from the early 90s to 2017, and as such featured both current and former members of Glass Hammer. On the 2018 Cruise to the Edge festival, on which he was also performing with Yes, Davison performed with Glass Hammer as a guest, marking the first time he performed live with the band. On April 18, 2018, Glass Hammer announced their upcoming live album Mostly Live, which does not feature Kamran Alan Shikoh; they also removed Shikoh from the band's lineup on their official Facebook, stating in a post "And then there were four."
On August 13, 2018, after several weeks of teasing via videos featuring the character of Tom from their fourth album Chronometree×Chronometree1 May 2000 · Studio albumSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 10 tracks1All in Good Time, Part One: a) Empty Space - b) Revealer6:452All in Good Time, Part One: c) An Eldritch Wind3:273All in Good Time, Part One: d) Revelation - e) Chronometry8:074All in Good Time, Part One: f) Chronotheme4:425A Perfect Carousel5:176Chronos Deliverer5:507All in Good Time, Part Two: g) Shapes of the Morning1:558All in Good Time, Part Two: h) Chronoverture6:009All in Good Time, Part Two: i) The Waiting5:4410All in Good Time, Part Two: j) Watching the Sky1:00 released in 2000, the band announced their seventeenth studio album, Chronomonaut×Chronomonaut12 October 2018 · Studio albumSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 12 tracks1The Land of Lost Content1:552Roll for Initiative7:443Twilight of the Godz8:134The Past Is Past9:5751980 Something5:526A Hole in the Sky4:497Clockwork2:178Melancholy Holiday4:279It Always Burns Sideways5:4910Blinding Light6:0211Tangerine Meme3:0612Fade Away10:27 for an October 12, 2018 release. A a sequel to Chronometree, the album follows Tom "in the modern day though his mid-life crisis", as "the voices have returned and have been urging Tom to time-travel back to the glory days of the early prog scene." The release coincided with a remastered re-release of Chronometree with a bonus track.
On December 8, 2019, the band published two videos about their next album, Dreaming City×Dreaming City17 April 2020 · Studio albumSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 12 tracks1The Dreaming City7:152Cold Star7:303Terminus4:204The Lurker Beneath1:425Pagarna3:346At the Threshold of Dreams4:117This Lonely World4:538October Ballad4:119The Tower2:4410A Desperate Man4:1211The Key6:1412The Watchman on the Walls11:35, stating that "all the basic tracks are down. All the songs have their shapes and their arrangements." They stated that their inspirations included 1970s' Rush, Hawkwind, and Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melniboné novels (the first novel in the series being 1961's The Dreaming City); it would be a concept album themed around sword and sorcery, but in a "more Tongue-in-cheek [way than] people manage to understand sometimes." The album would be set in the same universe as The Inconsolable Secret×The Inconsolable Secret12 July 2005 · Studio albumSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 13 tracks · 2 discsDisc 11A Maker of Crowns15:222The Knight of the North24:39Disc 21Long and Long Ago10:192The Morning She Woke5:393Lirazel4:334The High Place3:345Morrigan's Song2:126Walking Toward Doom2:017Mog Ruith2:048Through a Glass Darkly6:509The Lady Waits5:4610The Mirror Cracks2:1111Having Caught a Glimpse13:23.

Music

While many musicians have appeared on Glass Hammer albums over the years, Babb and Schendel have remained the core of the band. Both men play a variety of instruments, but Babb mainly concentrates on bass guitar and keyboards while Schendel also plays keyboards as well as various guitars and drums (until the addition of live drummer Matt Mendians to the studio recording band in 2004). They also sing, although a number of other vocalists (most notably Michelle Young, Walter Moore, Susie Bogdanowicz, Carl Groves, and Jon Davison) have also handled lead vocal duties.
Lyrically, Glass Hammer is inspired mostly by their love of fantasy literature (most notably Tolkien and C. S. Lewis) and by their Christian faith. Although by their own admission they have tried to avoid becoming an overtly Christian band, their 2002 release Lex Rex was a concept album based on a Roman soldier's encounter with Jesus.
Musically, their most apparent influences are Yes, Kansas, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, and to a less noticeable extent, Genesis. While Glass Hammer has, for the most part, combined those influences into a characteristic style of their own, they made much more direct references to the aforementioned bands on their 2000 album Chronometree×Chronometree1 May 2000 · Studio albumSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 10 tracks1All in Good Time, Part One: a) Empty Space - b) Revealer6:452All in Good Time, Part One: c) An Eldritch Wind3:273All in Good Time, Part One: d) Revelation - e) Chronometry8:074All in Good Time, Part One: f) Chronotheme4:425A Perfect Carousel5:176Chronos Deliverer5:507All in Good Time, Part Two: g) Shapes of the Morning1:558All in Good Time, Part Two: h) Chronoverture6:009All in Good Time, Part Two: i) The Waiting5:4410All in Good Time, Part Two: j) Watching the Sky1:00, which told the story of a drug-addled progressive rock fan who becomes convinced aliens are speaking to him through the music he listens to.

Interviews

Feature article and interview in Pathways to Excellence's Winter 2005 and Spring 2006 issues