ProgPower Europe interviews: Earthside

This is a series of short interviews ProgPower Europe did with some of the bands billed for the 2023 edition of the festival, to happen between 6 and 8 of October 2023, in Baarlo, The Netherlands.

Earthside from the USA is one of the highest regarded prog band of the latest years. Their debut album “A Dream In Static” (2015), full of ambition and majestic soundscapes brought them to the mainstream for prog audiences worldwide. 8 years and a lot of happenings later the quartet will release their long awaited sophomore album “Let The Truth Speak” on november 17th. The band were going to perform at ProgPower Europe 2016 edition but had to cancel. Now finally the americans will be on stage at ProgPower Europe 2023 presenting an unique show they won’t do anywhere else! Don’t miss this and get your tickets now!

This is your first performance at ProgPower, how did you get to know the festival?

With us being from the US, we were relatively oblivious to the European festival scene until the release of “A Dream In Static” back in 2015. For promoting that record overseas, we were working with our publicist at the time (now manager!!) Lulu Davis. And I believe that it was through her that the festival and Earthside struck up a relationship. As longtime festival goers know all too well, we were originally slated to perform at the 2016 edition of PPE and regrettably had to pull out of the festival when we weren’t able to secure a touring opportunity around the festival. We’re very appreciative of the festival and its loyal audience for welcoming us back, and giving us another opportunity to properly enjoy the PPE experience and the intimate artist-fan experience that comes with it.

What are your expectations of this year’s ProgPower?

For us specifically, our expectation is for it to be a very unique performance. This will be BY FAR the longest set we’ve ever performed, so while that’s intimidating in a way, it’s also very exciting—the opportunity it provides to do something totally unique that we won’t do at any other show. We’re playing around with what that is right now, but the opportunity to do something special just for ProgPower is an exciting prospect for us. I expect the audience to be as passionate (and direct!) as their reputation precedes them, and for the bands to represent the wide array of sounds within the progressive music spectrum that the lineup suggests. I’ve heard that the sound at the festival is very good as well, which is of course a plus!

Being able to meet the members of a band that is playing is one of the things people appreciate at ProgPower Europe. What would you say to visitors that would like to meet up after the show?

While we Americans have the reputation of being ignorant (fair!), we also have the reputation of being warm and fuzzy and approachable. So I believe at least the latter is true of us (and hopefully not the former). We’ve heard cool stories about the singalongs at night and people breaking out their instruments and such around a fire, so that sounds just my speed really! I know a great deal of late 90s and early 2000s pop/rock on guitar, if that is at all helpful to the guilty pleasure aspect of things. And I imagine my bandmates will have fun in their own ways hanging out with the festival-goers.

What other bands in the ProgPower Europe 2023 line-up are you looking forward to?

Oh man, putting us on the spot. Apart from giving the politik answer and saying ALL the bands, I’ll say An Abstract Illusion and Dordeduh BECAUSE they’re the two bands where I’ve heard cool things about them but have never heard their music and know essentially NOTHING about them (except that Dordeduh is associated with an older Romanian band that was very respected). Maybe that’ll change between now and the festival. There are certainly other great bands playing as well, but with the others I have a better idea of what to expect, and I don’t want to say who I love more or less than the others. Despite my last name being van Dyck, I’m not Dutch enough for that kind of blunt honesty. AND I also could see it being the case that my favorite band of the weekend is one I **totally** don’t see coming, so I want to come in completely agnostic and open-minded.

Anything you really would like to share with our audience?

I just want to reiterate how appreciative we are to Rene, the PPE audience, and the festival as a whole for this opportunity. We feel like we let some people down a bunch of years ago, and also were bummed ourselves that we missed out on a very cool experience. So between the chance to make it right, and to get to properly enjoy the experience that so many have raved to us about is something we’re very grateful for. And we also have a funny thing to share with the PPE audience from 2016 in the spirit of making fun of ourselves for what happened with us missing, should the opportunity present itself. By the time this interview is posted, it’s very possible I’ll have shared this self-deprecating thing in the Facebook group, and the people reading this interview will already be in on it by then.

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