Areopagus

Influences - Dave Matthews Band, Limp Bizkit, Creed, Thousand Foot Krutch, Pearl Jam, Three Days Grace, Bob Dylan & Keith Green, and so many more, but what influences us the most as a band are lyrics that we can relate to and any band or artist that can put together lyrics that hold treasures untold, is a band that influences, shapes and molds the music of "Areopagus," the first melodic alternative rock band.

What sets us apart from other bands is - Our Music - Listen first to, "I might need some help," which, like a majority of our music, has a truly original and refreshing sound, bringing things both new and old to the table creating a genre we call, "Melodic Alternative Rock," Forging and paving the way for our music to lead us into new frontiers, creating music that grips the hearts and minds of the world around us and as such is very hard to classify it into a single genre, therefore we created our own genre, using descriptive words that can help to better define what the listener is about to hear, rather than just classifying it as just rock, which has such a wide spectrum of variations that the listener in some ways, really does not know what to expect, it could be something from way back in the day, written by the Beatles, to something current written by Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam, or the girl of "Fly Leaf," that if you listen to such songs, giving them a side by side comparison, you would be tempted to classify them as different genres – but instead such songs are thrown into the melting pot of American culture that we call "Rock," and because our music does tend to stand out as being different than wha,t’s normally expected when you associate your music with "Rock," we put together the term “Melodic Alternative Rock,” as a new genre of music so that when people hear the term, "melodic alternative rock," then their first incline, their first perception, their first thought will be the of the band Areopagus, our band, the first "melodic alternative rock" band.

Our story is unique - and how our music came to be is a tale told in the future Autobiography of "Mike Wanke," called "Behind the Mask." Mike Wanke has lead one of the most amazing yet tumultous lives of any other person alive today. Being born in Africa - immigrating to the USA when he was 5 - having his father die when he was nine and his mother abandoning him about a year later - forcing him to raise himself from the age of 10 on up - being involved with almost every type of criminal activity known to man, thus being subjected to torture, stabbings, being shot, left tied up in a burning building and so much more until the age of 16 when he turned his life to God and become one of the youngest board certified Orthopedic Physician Assistants in US history. He fought a 400pound black bear to the death, was attacked by a pack of wild coyotes, was a 1996 Olympic hopeful in Taekwondo, thats just skratching the surface. And since March 1, 2002 when he was 24 he has continually faced and fought off with limited successes life threating and terminal illnesses, which have devastated his life in so many ways, meaninwhile doing all he can to improve the lives of his fellow man - this is where his lyrics come from this is where the music begins - this is where you will find the band - aeropagus - named after an actually place in Greece, which is translated "mars hill," that during the heights of the Roman Empire, Areopagus, was the center of philosophical debate about the meaning of life where scholars and Philosophers from all over the known world would come to debate. The lessons and experiences that have shaped and molded the point of view that Mike Wanke now holds as to the meaning of life, is debated and talked about throughout his lyrics and songs and the music helps to build the bridge that bridges the gap between the emotional and physical feelings that only music can bring