In
1985 scottish guitarist Allan Murdoch (founding member of MESSAGE)
visited friends in the USA (ex
NEKTAR musicians Alan "Taff" Freeman and Ron Howden). Along with
singer/bassist Drew Ross they had a band called OVERSEAS. They asked
Allan
to join which resulted in a short club tour in New Jersey
and neighbouring states in the autumn of the same year. Allan
returned home and planned a longer tour in Europe. Meanwhile Taff and
Ron had to leave the band, but Allan and Drew decided to carry on as
a trio with a drummer who, like themselves, just happened to be
Scottish. It was Colin Jamieson. The name of the band was changed to
THE OVERSEAS PROJECT, expressing the fact that the three band members
were living in different parts of the world; the US, Scotland and
Germany.
1986
saw the first European club tour which gained them their first
recognition. On the road, the band recorded a few of their songs in
different studios on the Continent which were used for their first
record released in 1987. Parallel to the release
of a Maxi-Single was a short German/Swiss
tour, which was so successful, that the band played another tour in
1988 covering Germany, Belgum, Austria and Switzerland and released
the
LP "HIGHLANDER" later that year. Martin
Griffiths (founder member of Beggars Opera and an old friend of
Allan's)
joined the band on vocals after Drew Ross left and Peter Campbell
took over on bass. However Martin had to leave the band suddenly
shortly before a tour and as there
was no time to work in a new vocalist Peter
took over as lead singer.
In
this formation the band released 9 albums between 1991 and 2000
(including a reworking of the first Overseas Project album and a
"best of" album).
After
Allan moved his recording studio to the north of Germany he was
followed by Peter but unfortunately Colin could not make the move.
Highlander continued performing live with various line-ups and
re-released their album Scotia in 2005. In 2007 they made their last
live appearance in a formation that included 3 members of the current
line-up (Allan, John Hart and Johnny Reed).
After
a visit to the Wacken Open Air festival in 2009 Allan was motivated
to reforming the band as a 5 piece (including keyboards and using
musicians from the region
to facilitate rehearsing and performing) and when Johnny Reed decided
to join up again in 2010 the band in its current line-up was complete.
The new album "inneal siubhal
tìme" was recorded in 2010 and released in May 2011. An
interview with Allan explaining the concept behind the album can be
found here
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