Prydein
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Prydein

Band Rock Celtic

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This band has not uploaded any videos

Music

The best kept secret in music

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Discography

Loud Pipes (save lives)

Track Listing

1. Loud Pipes (save lives)
2. Minstrel Boy
3. Run Runaway
4. Backdraft
5. Nancy Whisky
6. Emi's Jig
7. Johnny Jump Up
8. Aria's Waltz
9. the Wild Rover
10. the $17 Red Head
11. Stairway to Scotland
(Amazing Grace / Scotland the Brave)

Unfinished Business

Track Listing:
1. Farewell to Eirann
2. Minor Adjustments
3. Star of the County Down
4. Something Skattish
5. Baertohn Concerto
6. Wild Mountain Thyme
7. Paddy's Leather Britches
8. Paddy's Green Shamrock Shore
9. Hector the Hero
10. Scotsman's Blues
11. the Gaelic Conspiracy

Photos

Feeling a bit camera shy

Bio

In 1994 a group of college friends at the University of Vermont found themselves at a musical dead end. Everywhere they went, everything they played had been done before them and it was driving them crazy. Hoping to fend off the Vermont trend of becoming another Jam Band they started a program at the University for like-minded folks called "the Experimental Music Program" yet even this provided lack-luster results and strange arrangements of Dueling Banjos played on marimbas by guys in overalls.

Then one day, a bagpiper came into their midst. What strange, beastly creation was this? There was no place to plug in an amp... the piper tuned it with... electrical tape? Could this have been what they had been searching for all these years?

It was.

Aron Garceau grew up listening to the music of Stevie Ray Vaughan and Led Zeppelin. Often experiencing delusions of grandeur, he actually thought that maybe, just maybe, Led Zeppelin would re-unite and he would get to see them live. He imagined that halfway through the show, some freak accident would claim the left hand of Jimmy Page, forcing Robert Plant to turn to the audience holding up Jimmy's impotent guitar and plead "please, is there anybody out there who knows how to play 'Stairway to Heaven'?" Obviously, this scenario never happened.

Bring in Iain Mac Harg. The son of a world-renowned Bagpipe builder, Iain grew up listening to the music of the Battlefield Band and the Tannahill Weavers. Often experiencing delusions of grandeur, Iain actually thought that maybe, just maybe, the Tannies would play a show in his hometown and half-way through the show, some freak accident would claim the left hand of Gordon Duncan, forcing Roy Gullane to turn to the audience holding up Gordon's flaccid bagpipe and plead "please, is there anybody out there who knows how to play 'Maggies Pancakes' and 'Dancing Feet'?"

It was like Chocolate and Peanut Butter, although neither one of them has figured out who is which. From this unlikely pairing came a band unlike any other with Aron's hard rocking edge and Iain's mastery of an instrument, which is a proven, guaranteed DJ repellent. The only thing they had to do was come up with a name. Led Zeppelin was already taken, as was the Tanahill Weavers. The Led Weavers sounded pretty lame, as did the Tanahill Zeppelins so one mid afternoon, while playing hooky from work the boys found their name in a book somewhere. It was actually pretty uneventful. That name was Prydein (don't worry, they didn't know what it meant or how to pronounce it either).

After they agreed upon a pronunciation (pry' den) and tried to figure out the whole "I" before "E" thing, they decided that the Welsh language was pretty strange. But after the release of their first album in 1999 "Unfinished Business", they realized that they couldn't change their name now that it was in print. They also didn't much care, "Unfinished Business" was the coolest album they had yet recorded (with 3 or 4 albums to their names with other groups) with the opening track "Farewell to Eirann" being featured (despite having bagpipes on it) on numerous radio stations and podcasts even being hailed "Most Original Track" on Garageband.com

Shortly after the release of "Unfinished Business", Aron and Iain had a soul searching and decided to disband the group. They both wanted to start families and were basically getting sick of each other. The friendship that they had developed was more important to them than the music, which they had been performing for the last 6 years, so they called the whole thing off early in 2001.

In that time they each had children, they stayed in touch, and once a year they would get together a band and perform for the New World Festival in Randolph, Vermont. Soon things started to turn around, performing together became fun again and in 2005, Aron and Iain brought in new blood.

Andy Smith, a public school music teacher and bass player for the Mighty Sam McLain Band and the jazz sextet Jazzmosis (a band in which Aron plays guitar) heard all of the tall tales that Aron used to tell about his days playing in a celtic-rock band and was intrigued. Andy expressed interest in playing with the group and in 2004 he joined the group for the worst gig they ever played. They didn't even get paid. Despite this fact (and maybe due to the fact that he got to hang out with Natalie MacMaster all weekend... okay, maybe it wasn't the worst gig ever) he decided that the music was more important than the money so he would stick around.

It was at this festival that a young student of Andy's came to see the band play, curious to see the group that his music teacher had told him so much about. This young trombone student was fascinated by the bagpipes and quickly decided that trombone wasn't for him. He quickly became one of Iain's best students and Prydein became a two-bagpiper band with Hazen Metro at the ripe old age of 17 taking the 2nd piper's chair ne