Ravenstine was founded by Martin in times of the worldwide pandemic. Martin Sosna founded the band with his longtime friend John A.B.C. Smith of God´s Army. It was in times of the pandemic and they were hanging around at John’s flat. Martin took John’s guitar and played a simple riff. That was the birth of their title track “Ravenstine”. They both asked their friend Hanno Kerstan (Mystic Prophecy) if he was free for jamming with them. At their first rehearsal the trio finished the next track and recorded both new songs at Eric Harings Tonstudio in Düsseldorf. The CD single “Ravenstine” was pressed on 500 copies and it was an immediate sold out success! Ravenstine sent a few copies of that 2-track demo to different record companies and that gave them a record contract with ROAR! Rock Of Angels Records! Ravenstine cannot be called neither a full band nor a side project. They are a group of friends. Martin and John have been knowing each other for more than 30 years and Ian and Zak have been friends with them for more than 20 years. Also Hanno is a longtime friend of Martin and John. The challenge for Ravenstine is, that they are all living in different parts of Europe. That makes the difference but they are acting as band, no matter the distance! Their first ever show will be at Oberhausen Kulttempel and they are also booked for BALTIC OPEN AIR aud Busdorf in North of Germany. Continuously working on new songs and chasing down opportunities to play a few more shows are the band’s main goals for 2023! The band never got a masterplan. They just started working on songs. The first song they ever wrote was “Ravenstine” and the second was “Blue Light”. At the rehearsal room, Martin got a riff idea and the all-together finalized “Still Alive” pretty quickly and effortlessly. The band recorded “Blue Light” and “Ravenstine”. At first John was singing on the tracks because it wasn’t easy to find a good singer for a band. One day, Martin asked John what happened to Zak Tataji? Is he still alive and if yes, what is he doing during that time? Martin and John sent a mail to him while both a bit tipsy, with the files of “Ravenstine” song. After a week Martin got a call from John who pleased Martin to come by his flat. Zak has sent them the song “Ravenstine” and they were both absolute happy with the result! Ravenstine is a band with 4 singers (John, Ian, Zak and Martin) and they are all satisfied that Zak is in the leading vocal role. He has the perfect voice for the Ravenstine songs and ideas. The plan was to record an album that feels like a good compilation of songs and that never gets boring!
Source: Rock Of Angels Records