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)
Pandemonium
The Flower Kings Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
The dark duke holds court downtown
Sad seasons - there's no solid ground
Shaping tyrants of a different kind
So you think you'll never see the sun
On the backstreets of Pandemonium
Where the sly little devils run
Days - getting bent into nights - In the blackness of eyes
You stumble and fall from grace
Oh - In the center of grief - It's the hour of need
The bell strikes for darker days
Ground zero calling for all scum
The "black gold" will obscure the sun
New kings fighting for the crown
Thrown over, just about to drown
Days of madness without an end
More disasters waiting 'round the bend
Dark ages seem to rise again
Dark times lie ahead my friend
Days - getting bent into nights - In the blackness of eyes
You stumble and fall from grace
Oh - In the center of grief - It's the hour of need
And the bell strikes for darker days
Juliette calling Romeo - True love has nowhere to go
Rainbows turning black & blue
The Flower Kings's song Pandemonium paints a picture of a grim world filled with corruption, darkness and chaos. The lyrics caution the listener to be alert as they move through the city at night, because the dark duke, a powerful and malevolent force holds court downtown. Pandemonium, a place where the sly little devils run, is a metaphor for the chaos and anarchy of modern life where one can easily forget their roots and where they come from. The world is changing at a dizzying pace, and it is getting harder and harder to find solid ground.
The chorus of the song highlights the bleakness of the world they exist in. Days are getting bent into nights in the blackness of eyes, and people are stumbling and falling from grace. The center of grief is where everyone seems to be, and it is the hour of need. The bell constantly strikes for darker days, reflecting the unending cycle of disaster and misery that surrounds them. The allusions to Romeo and Juliette in the final lines hint at the futility of love and beauty in a world dominated by darkness and decay.
Line by Line Meaning
Watch your back when the sun goes down
Be cautious during the night
The dark duke holds court downtown
The ruler of evil has influence in the city
Sad seasons - there's no solid ground
Difficult times when stability is lacking
Shaping tyrants of a different kind
Creating oppressors with unique characteristics
So you think you'll never see the sun
Hopelessness in Pandemonium
On the backstreets of Pandemonium
In the shadows of an evil city
Where the sly little devils run
Where the cunning evil abounds
You'll forget where you're coming from
You'll lose touch of goodness
Days - getting bent into nights - In the blackness of eyes
Time is twisted in darkness
You stumble and fall from grace
You lose favor and fall from righteousness
Oh - In the center of grief - It's the hour of need
The time of despair is when help is most necessary
The bell strikes for darker days
Dangerous times are approaching
Ground zero calling for all scum
Evil is at its epicenter
The "black gold" will obscure the sun
Oil and greed will conquer and blind
New kings fighting for the crown
Power struggles lead to new rulers
Thrown over, just about to drown
Close to destruction without hope
Days of madness without an end
A time of chaos with no resolution
More disasters waiting 'round the bend
More destruction on the horizon
Dark ages seem to rise again
A time of regression and darkness is approaching
Dark times lie ahead my friend
Difficult times are approaching
Juliette calling Romeo - True love has nowhere to go
Even love cannot flourish in Pandemonium
Rainbows turning black & blue
The colorful beauty of hope is fading
Contributed by Christopher E. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
@chameleonfire7328
You can hear strong elements of Foxtrot era Genesis on this album, arguably their masterpiece. A nice blend of tribute to the fathers of Prog Rock while still fusing their own original sound. Excellent.
@ghendar
I was thinking the same thing. Very Genesis
@odedfried-gaon2880
ridiculously good band!
@SIRHARRYTHECRAZY
Excelente !!!
@profe12345
Que temaso para ver en vivo no?
@emilianoortega-guerrero2925
the soundtrack our lives... rock n roll yeah
@emilianoortega-guerrero2925
Emiliano Ortega-Guerrero AWESOME
@diego08Mayo
Nice song
@dhanirivai
very genesis style since intro reminds me with watcher of the skies....but overall,this is a good piece
@BlarghenSnargle
Sort of sad, the album seems to get progressively worse as it goes on. Like this track though. The album is still a pretty good 2012 release.