Formation
In early 1993, guitarist and singer Roine Stolt had written material for his third solo album The Flower King and sought for musicians to perform it. He had wanted to release a progressive rock-style album for a while and felt the time was right to pursue the project. The album features Stolt on vocals, guitar, bass and keyboards, Jaime Salazar on drums, and Hasse Fröberg on vocals, and was recorded in Sweden between May 1993 and January 1994.
In preparation for Stolt's concert tour to support the album's release, Stolt, Salazar, and Fröberg were joined by Stolt's brother Michael on bass and Tomas Bodin on keyboards. The five performed their first gig on 20 August 1994 at an outdoor festival in Uppsala, Stolt's hometown and the city where The Flower King was recorded. After they decided to become a full time band, they officially adopted the name The Flower Kings, named after Stolt's album. Stolt had produced a list of potential titles for the record, one of which was "The Flower King", and chose it because of its positive meaning and its reference to the hippie era of the 1960s.
Activity
After performing a series of concerts through 1994, the band entered the studio in December 1994 to record their debut album, Back in the World of Adventures. The recording process was gradual, finishing in September 1995.
In 2000, Michael Stolt was replaced by Jonas Reingold. Two years later, Salazar was replaced by Zoltan Csörsz. Daniel Gildenlöw of Pain of Salvation joined the band the same year as a multi-instrumentalist and vocalist.
Other contributors have included Hasse Bruniusson (percussion) and Ulf Wallander (saxophone).
Stolt has written the vast majority of the material the band has recorded, with Bodin contributing most of the rest. The music is best described as symphonic progressive rock, bearing a strong resemblance to the music of Yes, King Crimson, Gentle Giant, and early Genesis, with jazz fusion and blues influences. The band's lyrics are almost uniformly positive and uplifting, affirming such values as love, peace, and spirituality, and furthering their association with Yes.
Their 1999 album Flower Power contains the eighteen-section, almost 60-minute "Garden of Dreams".
In June 2007, they released The Road Back Home, a compilation of remixed songs from 1994 to 2006, plus "Little Deceiver" (a previously unreleased track) and the full version of their cover of "The Cinema Show" by Genesis.
Zoltan Csörsz was replaced by new drummer Marcus Liliequist for one album, but returned for the 2007 album, The Sum of No Evil. He was subsequently replaced by Erik Hammarström in 2008.
In 2008, Ola Heden, previously of Reingold's side project Karmakanic, joined on guitar, vocals and keyboards.
In November 2008, the band were the opening act of the Ecco Prog Fest in Moscow.
After touring in 2008, The Flower Kings were inactive for four years. Stolt felt the band had varied levels of focus in their direction and had started to feel lost. They reunited in 2011 to work on new material after Stolt felt it was the right time and sensed eagerness from the other members to work together. This marked the arrival of German drummer Felix Lehrmann. Banks of Eden, the group's eleventh album, was released in June 2012 and was recorded with analogue recording techniques and styles reminiscent of the height of vinyl records. This was followed by Desolation Rose in October 2013.
The line up of Stolt, Bodin, Reingold, Fröberg and Lehrmann played together for the last time in 2015. 2016 and 2017 saw the bandmembers busy with other engagements.
In December 2017, the first part of a career-spanning box set titled A Kingdom of Colours was released. This first box, with 10 discs, covers the period from 1995 to 2002 and includes the studio albums from Back in the World of Adventures to Unfold the Future. The second box set, titled A Kingdom of Colours 2 and covering the albums Adam & Eve through to Desolation Rose, was released in June 2018.
In September 2018, Stolt announced a new album named Manifesto of an Alchemist. The album did not feature long-time keyboardist Tomas Bodin, and as such it is credited to "Roine Stolt's The Flower King" rather than "The Flower Kings"
In August the same year Roine Stolt presented a new band called "Roine Stolt and friends play The Flower Kings". The band featured Stolt, Fröberg and Reingold with new keyboard player Zach Kamins and new drummer Mirko De Maio. Roine Stolt stated that he was done being in a group and wanted to tour as a solo artist like Roger Waters or Steven Wilson. Tomas Bodin was not a part of this group and made his displeasure quite public. The band toured with Spock’s Beard in November and December 2018 and continued to do shows in 2019, this time under the name "The Flower Kings Revisited".
In July 2019, "Revisited" was removed from the band name, making it clear that this line up was now "The Flower Kings". The band went on to release the double albums Waiting for Miracles in 2019 and Islands in 2020, the latter having been recorded entirely remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic.
On 24 March 2021, Roine Stolt announced two big projects. The Flower Kings are working on a brand new album "in the same innocence" of Stardust We Are. On 19 April 2021, Roine officially teases that Stardust We Are is getting a brand new vinyl remaster.
On April 8th 2022, InsideOut and Roine Stolt announced that Back in the World of Adventures and Retropolis were getting "remastered and partly remixed". The release date for both was placed on May 27th 2022. Also Stardust We Are and Flower Power are getting remixes and remastered in June.
Full Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flower_Kings
Studio albums
The Flower King (1994)
Back in the World of Adventures (1995)
Retropolis (1996)
Stardust We Are (1997)
Flower Power (1999)
Space Revolver (2000)
The Rainmaker (2001)
Unfold the Future (2002)
Adam & Eve (2004)
Paradox Hotel (2006)
The Sum of No Evil (2007)
Banks of Eden (2012)
Desolation Rose (2013)
Manifesto of an Alchemist (2018)
Waiting for Miracles (2019)
Islands (2020)
By Royal Decree (2022)
Cosmic Circus
The Flower Kings Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
To the cosmic bends
We have paved our way with eagerness
And forced the world to make some sense
In this endless space,
Looking for Gods given grace
Among countless scattered dying stars
Waiting all to serve a greater purpose
Or to join the cosmic circus now
From the garden greens
To the mountain streams
We all worked the land and payed in sweat
While sweet illusions were passing by
Like fading tribe
On the ocean wide
In a random flash we live and die
Searching all religions, reason why
Waiting all to serve a greater purpose
Or to join the cosmic circus now
From the hobbit hole, to the frozen poles
We have filled our hearts with poetry
While science was our leading star
On to million suns
Where our fading memories dance
While we try so hard to understand
The untold genesis of man
Waiting all to serve a greater purpose
Or to join the cosmic circus now
The Flower Kings's song Cosmic Circus is a reflection on the human journey through life, seeking to make meaning of our existence among the vast expanse of the universe. The first verse includes the lines "From the ragged fence to the cosmic bends / We have paved our way with eagerness / And forced the world to make some sense." These lyrics suggest that humanity has traversed both physical and metaphysical spaces while striving to understand the world around us, and that this search for understanding has been driven by a deep desire to make sense of the universe.
Later in the song, the chorus contains the lines "Waiting all to serve a greater purpose / Or to join the cosmic circus now." These lyrics suggest that humanity is simultaneously driven by a search for purpose and a sense of adventure, a desire to join in on the cosmic journey of life. The second verse suggests that we have experienced both joy and hardship along the way, as we have worked the land and sought to understand the mysteries of existence.
Overall, Cosmic Circus is a poetic and introspective song that invites listeners to contemplate life's journey and the mysteries of the universe.
Line by Line Meaning
From the ragged fence
Starting from humble beginnings
To the cosmic bends
We pushed beyond what was familiar
We have paved our way with eagerness
Our determination has made a path for us
And forced the world to make some sense
We seek answers and understanding
In this endless space,
We exist in a vast universe
Looking for Gods given grace
Seeking something greater than ourselves
Among countless scattered dying stars
In a universe full of death and decay
By the fireplaces we found some comfort
We cling to what little warmth and light we can find
Waiting all to serve a greater purpose
Hoping to find fulfillment in a higher calling
Or to join the cosmic circus now
Or accepting the absurdity of existence
From the garden greens
The simplicity and beauty of nature
To the mountain streams
The majesty and power of nature
We all worked the land and payed in sweat
The struggle and toil of life
While sweet illusions were passing by
All while being lost in false hope and fantasy
Like fading tribe
Like a tribe whose culture is disappearing
On the ocean wide
Lost in the vastness of the world
In a random flash we live and die
Our existence is nothing but chance and fleeting
Searching all religions, reason why
Seeking truth and purpose in all avenues
From the hobbit hole, to the frozen poles
From fantasy to the harsh reality of life
We have filled our hearts with poetry
We search for beauty and meaning in art
While science was our leading star
We also look towards science to understand our world
On to million suns
Even beyond our own sun, we continue to seek answers
Where our fading memories dance
Memories that are fleeting and ever-changing
While we try so hard to understand
Trying to make sense of a senseless world
The untold genesis of man
The mystery of human existence and origin
Waiting all to serve a greater purpose
Still searching for purpose and fulfillment
Or to join the cosmic circus now
Or accepting the absurdity of existence once more
Lyrics © O/B/O APRA AMCOS
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind