Birds Of Avalon

“Led by a pair of guitarists who seem, by sheer force, to be powering their amplifiers rather than the other way around, Birds of Avalon make thunderous, precise rock with enough proggy smarts to keep you on your toes.” Steve Haruch for the Nashville Scene

After a 7-year stint in a prison van with the double drum, frenetic rock n’ roll assault known as The Cherry Valence, guitarists Cheetie Kumar and Paul Siler, felt a growing desire to move on. In a final whirlwind year that saw The Cherry Valence touring Europe multiple times, the couple, Kumar and Siler, got married and made the difficult decision to divorce their band.

Returning home hitched and band-less, they began late night clandestine meetings with neighbor and local crooner Craig Tilley (The Weather), where they hatched a plan to form Birds of Avalon and laid the foundation for what was to become the first batch of Birds Of Avalon songs. Still needing to round out their line up they snared their favorite area drummer Scott Nurkin (Dynamite Brothers) and soon added multi-instrumentalist and fanatical 4 tracker, David Mueller on bass.

With the release of their debut full length, Bazaar, Bazaar, Birds Of Avalon have developed a unique psychedelic meets progressive sound that yields feelings that transcend the conventions of both, skillfully channeling elements of a time in Rock since past, while maintaining their current place in the lineage of North Carolinian independent rock heritage. Easily traversing an area between raw blues rock and atmospheric pysch-pop, Birds Of Avalon “can tear it up in a three-minute barn-burner or lure you into an extended psychedelic journey, wandering schizophrenically like a Brian May guitar solo,” so says Jens Lekman of Cincinnati City Beat.