HISTORY UPDATE!! LATEST NEWS:

History Lesson:

It's been a long time since John & (Third Temple Priest) formerly Hypermania have released any music since John's solo debutante album "Down To Birth" back in the year 1999/2000, and  " That's In the Last Century" lol: and even that's an eon of a lifetime by Biblical Progressive Rock standards!! One might have believed or thought that John had either retired, been abducted by Alien lifeform, died!! or even worse was making a "Completely Out of the Blue Comeback album!!" ha ha lol....

The story goes that John after the release of the first Hypermania album "Down To Birth", the album received a real pendulam of mixed reactions!! some were really uplifting, encouraging & excellent at one end of the scale: to the other end of the scale there were scathing, barbed, destructive & deflating reviews & opinions! but that is the nature of the music industry beast!! the journalists, critics, reviewers, media & the fans, but of course the fans enjoy the music much more readily than the media, critiques & jounalists as they listen & buy the music they love & they are intelligent, objective & loyal to the musical loves in their life, they are fairer in their views & experience of music listening without the hindrance of having  to break it down, dissect it, analyse it & scientifically probe it & prod it until it makes some sense to them? or no sense at all? Unfortunately Journalism is some what predisposed to a hotchpotch of unproven musical scientific aural experiments that can go horribly right or wrong depending on how the musical data is processed and this can adversely effect the musicians & the listening &music loving fan's initial perspective!!

 

A number of genuine factors remain clear as to the mixed reactions in terms of the Progressive Rock musical brother/sisterhoods of fans & critics alike; is that John being the former & first singer with Prog Stalwarts Arena on "Songs From the Lion's Cage" circa 1995 with (Mick Pointer ex Marillion, Clive Nolan Pendragon, Shadowland, Strangers on A Train, Keith More ex Asia, Michael Schencker, Fish ect, is that this left John with the a dilemma that may have led fans of John's voice whilst in Arena to expect a simple return to the progressive rock roots & elements of a Arena - Marillionesque solo music production from John, but his album was an eclectic mix of melodious Prog, Classic & Soft Rock with a couple of heart wrenching Prog Classic Pop anthemic ballads. So this departure from the traditional Neo prog roots of Arena et al meant the album had a wider mixture of tastes & this went down well with some of the faithful, but with some others including distributers & record labels it simply was not progressive enough and was not an out and out Progressive Rock creation, which in all fairness & truth it wasn't. Thrown into the mix also was that John was incorporating, expressing, writing & fusing his biblical Christian Faith into his lyrical contents & concepts; this did not sit or bode well with everyone, even people who may loved John's voice with Arena & maybe on his "Down To Birth" album?? they just didn't like the lyrical subject matterorigin!

 

Not long after the 1999/2000 release of  "Down to Birth" the band members of Hypermania began to quickly depart from the band & by year 2001 Lyndsay Davies on Bass guitar had left for genuine & serious family health reasons, followed very shortly by Keyboardsman Ian Schofield for very different difficult personal reasons & Ian then moved to Thailand by 2002/3, only Lead guitarist Neil Mellor the youngest member of the band at 21 years of age remained in Hypermania.

 

Between 2001 & 2004 John along with Neil Mellor had tried to regroup and recruit a new Drummer, Bassist & Keyboard members for Hypermania , during this time a number of musician's got on board and Live Rehearsal Room practice sessions ensued, but no permanent members materialised from this period. 

By the year 2004 with just John and Neil Mellor still holding the fort, Neil decided to leave to pursue a different short lived musical venture with the already soon departing to Thailand Ian Schofield to form the first incarnation of the Angels of Mons, also the fact that John was taking the Hypermania vehicle full throttle into his Christian Faith based musical concepts & lyrical contents!! Neil unfortunately was not comfortable with this full on Christian Bible themed band project & moved on! they still however remain in periodical contact & remain on good terms.

 

Evolution News:

Continuing from where Neil Mellor had departed (Hypermainia) now renamed Third Temple Priest,  in 2004, John still pressed forward trying to recruit a completely new line up & continued to write new material!! So In the interim while John was still fastidiously penning the musical & lyrical foundations for the forthcoming album project he was encountering a major dead end trying to recruit a Lead Guitarist for the new line up!! it literally is the area which has held the project back most!! Although it has been made clear that the music is Christian influenced Classic Melodic Progressive Rock/Metal & that lyrically & theme wise completely steeped in conceptualised Bible stories, this is a fundamental reason John has to look for a completely new & fresh face for the post of Lead Guitarist. It was soon overtly clear that John could not look to any of his former band member friends to play guitar even though there were many to call upon, the Christian themes just did not endear them!!

 

A list of superb & tremendous guitarist player friends were approached or considered after Neil Mellor went from 2004, first long time of friend of nearly 40 years Colin Guthrie who played in bands Nightrider (1979), Blackwood Heart (1980-81), IO (1981-82 & 2012 attempted IO re-union) came on borad, Colin recorded with John a number of unfinished & unreleased recording projects in (1990, 1992, 1997, 2004-05). In 2006 Colin did lay some superb & very impressive useable guitar parts down for the Third Temple Priest forthcoming project on two songs "Dissident Angel" & "In the Balance" that will be part of the next release, with Colin's express consent! 

Then another former twin Lead guitar player member with (IO 1980-82 & 2012 attempted IO re-union) Alex Hanley, musician - lifelong friend of John's for over 35 years was also being courted regarding the guitar post!! yet again the music & themes did not sway Alex to join. A final attempt at a known & reliable Lead Guitarist next was friend & supremely talented lad & all round nice guy, Mark Harley who was in Soft Melodic AOR/Pop Rock Proggers, Black Summer Rain back in (1990-92), and although Mark did manage to get to record a track for a future Third Temple Priest release!!! as he works as Managing Guitar Technician/Salesman setting up Seminars & Exhibition for Roland UK, his work schedule & having to work away from home for intermittent periods of time just meant it was impossible for him to commit on a regular & available basis.

 

Other outstanding Lead guitarist & close as brothers friend John Lee, who had a couple of recording projects going with John spanning 4 years down the years & the possibility of calling & asking John Lee to think about coming back in the fold had perused through John's thoughts at times as John was in the extremely potential, but short lived outfit Faith (1992-93) & Vision (1993-96).

Even more serious ponderous & more than fleeting thoughts & ideas wandered back & forth of whether the monumentally gifted Neil Mellor (Hypermania 1999-2004) would consider coming back on board??, but Neil was very busy teaching, recording his own solo album material & gigging & jamming with others musicians! throw in the fact that Third Temple Priest was now on full immersion into classic Biblical Christian Melodic Prog Rock/Metal direction & this was still a fundamental barrier for Neil becoming involved again!!

 

Closer To Home News Latest: 

John has a 19 year old son, Adam, born uncannily on the same day as a very well known master of Progressive musical ceremonies!! the sublimely talented maverick & entertainingly eccentric Mr Clive Nolan of Arena!! Adam started to have guitar lesson's from former Hypermania "Down To Birth" guitarist Neil Mellor around 2010, he quickly developed into a very impressive, expressive & quick silvered classy, cultured & cultivated Rock, Progressive, Metal all round guitar talent. Adam had been knocking on his Dad's studio door from a very early age from around the year 2012 & insisting that he felt he was good enough to be playing the guitars on the next Third Temple Priest album!! at around 14 too 15 years of age, but John said he thought he would need to

give him another year to developmentally improve & then by 2013 he might be ready to undertake the album project seriously & have the playing dexterity development & the musical panoramic maturity to play at a professional level despite his tender years 

& inexperience age wise!!

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As time has gone on Adam has matured & developed beyond all expectation in such a short space learning curve & he has learned to  navigate the demands of studio recording work, with it's  moments of inspiration, perspiration, free flowing creativity & experiencing frustrating & pressure sapping writer's block.

Also nurturing through trial & error to find his best & most recognised signature sound that represents his playing identity!!

Adam has done some amazing preliminary guitar work on this album over the past 2 years or slightly more & he has been looking to re-record a lot of parts again as he feels his sound, development & techniques have improved exponentially & Adam for the time being has come to the guitar rescue to help get Third Temple Priest next release up to completion & become a musical reality from a Studio (Bedroom) dream!!

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