Arjen Anthony Lucassen

Who is Arjen Anthony Lucassen?

Arjen Anthony Lucassen is a Dutch progressive metal/rock songwriter, singer, multi-instrumentalist musician and record producer, best known for his long-running progressive opera project titled Ayreon.

Lucassen started his career in 1980 as the guitarist and backing vocalist of Dutch band Bodine as Iron Anthony, before joining Vengeance in 1984. After eight years he left the band, wanting to go into a more progressive direction, and released two years later an unsuccessful solo album entitled Pools of Sorrow, Waves of Joy under the nickname Anthony.

In 1995, Lucassen released an album uncredited to any artist called Ayreon: The Final Experiment, in which he sang, wrote every song and played most of the instruments. The album conducted to the creation of successful progressive rock/metal project Ayreon, which established Lucassen as a notable composer of rock operas. Following Ayreon's success, Lucassen has been involved in many other projects: he is the creator and current guitarist/keyboardist of Star One, Guilt Machine, the currently inactive band Ambeon, and the creator and former guitarist of Stream of Passion. He composes and writes most of his songs, but leaves the lyrics to his musical partners in some of his projects.