Departure Plan Biography 2006
In autumn 2003, student buddies, Steffen Stebbing, Ketil Ronold and Tony Kåreid joined for jamming, with musical ideas, with progressive and metal music styles as main inspiration. The concept was lead into a more fresh and up to date approach, of this musical style. After two days of jamming a song called Mystery was written, and will be included on the forthcoming debut album.
A period of intense songwriting followed, and in spring 2004 the decision was made to bring the project further and into a more serious level. Departure plan was formed and the first lineup was complete in July 2004, with Åge Trøite on vocals, Øystein Hansen on bass and Kristoffer Øyen on drums.
Departure plan started to rehearse for upcoming gigs and preparing studio recordings with the intension of recording an album.
In the end of 2004 the band entered the studio and started the recording of their debut album. Though the album was finished, it was for several reasons later decided to do the recordings again. One of the reasons was that Åge Trøite had to leave the band, and Jan Thore Grefstad joined as the bands’ new singer.
Øystein Hansen decided to leave the band, to focus on guitar playing in the death metal genre. So the band had an open position for a new bass player, which after a long time is taken over by our keyboard player Ketil Ronold. And the keyboards will for the time being be done by the great talented Espen Storø (formerly of Circus Maximus)
Musically Departure Plan expresses a form of progressive metal that challenges the listener without loosing the interest of the songs. The music includes main elements of metal, catchy choruses, outstanding musicianship and complex but groovy rhythms. All the members in the band have various musical backgrounds, and this reflects their sound by creating music with no boundaries whatsoever.