Star Wars meets heavy metal... in Brighton

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, a new heavy metal band was formed by some of the most infamous and feared villains in the galaxy '“ Galactic Empire.
Galactic EmpireGalactic Empire
Galactic Empire

Dark Vader (lead guitar), Boba Sett (drums), Bass Commander (bass), Shadow Ranger (guitar) and Red Guard (guitar) play Patterns, Brighton on Saturday, February 4.

Dark Vader said: “These instruments are crude but should be adequate to shred some faces as we journey across the galaxy. We have been doubling our efforts to complete our debut full-length album in time for The Emperor’s arrival. Citizens of the United Kingdom: If you are not part of the Rebel Alliance or a traitor, prepare to be shown the true power of the dark side.

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“Star Wars is just something that we all grew up loving, so when the idea was presented to arrange these iconic scores for a rock/metal band, it just made sense to include the equally-iconic imagery. Without the added theatrics, we’d probably just be another group of dudes doing covers on YouTube. Honestly there’s not much of a filter at all. The songs we play are just recreations of the original scores from the films. Every piece of the orchestra is represented in our arrangements. So our love for Star Wars is not so much an influence for us as much as it is the basis of everything we do.

“Adding the characters was a no brainer. It’s much more exciting to see them as the band than it would be to just see five random guys. Our current look, however consists of our own renditions of these characters for legal purposes. Darth Walt Disnius and his team of Sith Lawyers are pretty protective of their IP. Most of our music, as well as the inspiration for our characters, comes from the original trilogy. Those are what got us hooked in the first place. We do, however, have a few musical pieces from the prequels. Nothing from the newer instalments yet, but we certainly hope to bring those compositions into our repertoire one day.

“To us, the music from Star Wars is far more recognisable than most others. Plus, I don’t know about everyone else but my knowledge of Star Trek goes as far as ‘I think one dude’s name is Spock and one of them fires the phasers.’

“The project, in its current form, has been underway for the better part of a year now. Our drummer Grant made a drum video a few years back of him playing along with the London Symphony Orchestra to the Imperial March. That video inspired him, and eventually us to take that idea to the next level. One song led to two songs, then before we knew it we had 11 songs ready to go. There was never any question as to what the theme of this project would be.

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“The band has developed far more than we’d ever expected. There was a time where we couldn’t even believe we were about to shoot a music video. Now we’re two videos, a third single, one TV appearance, and a successful Kickstarter campaign later and we’re getting ready to do an international headliner. It’s pretty crazy to think about everything that’s happened in such a short period of time.”

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