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.
After a visit
to the Wacken Open Air festival in 2009
Allan was motivated to reforming the band
and as a 6 piece highlander recorded the
album "inneal
siubhal tìme" in 2010.
The album was
recorded in 2010 and released in May 2011.
An interview with Allan explaining the
concept behind the album can be found here
Unfortunately the logistical problems of getting 6
people together to rehearse and difficulties getting
big venue bookings led to the distintgration of the
band at the end of 2011. Just for fun Allan joined
up with ex-Highlander Peter Campbell and started
playing old Highlander songs as an acoustic duo.
After a few months of playing every weekend both
Allan and Peter were having so much fun together
that they started toying with the idea of reforming
Highlander as a power trio. Peter suggested they try
out the drummer J.P. Thunder from "Third Teeth" and
rehearsals started in February. They played their
first gig in March at the "Pub 'n' Roll" in
Rendsburg.
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