Keyboard player Adam Holzman was a member of the Miles Davis Band from 1985 to 1989. He performed with the trumpet legend in more than 200 concerts worldwide. He can be heard on the albums “Tutu”, “Live Around the World”, “Rubber Band” and “The Complete Montreux” box set (all on Warner Bros.). In 1988 he became Miles’s musical director. For his session and live performances, Adam was praised by the New York Times for his “innovative keyboard work,” and by Keyboard magazine as “one of the most promising synth soloists.” Adam has also toured and recorded extensively with Grover Washington, Jr., Wayne Shorter, Chaka Khan, Steps Ahead, Wallace Roney, Michel Petrucciani, and many others. Adam currently tours and records with popular British rocker Steven Wilson. Adam is featured on Steven’s acclaimed albums “The Raven That Refused To Sing”, “Hand.Cannot.Erase”, “4 1/2”, “To The Bone”, and “The Future Bites”, as well as appearing in the full-length concert videos Get All You Deserve and Home Invasion: Live at Royal Albert Hall. Adam has released 11 albums as both a solo artist and with his band, Adam Holzman & Brave New World. His most recent studio album of hard-edged jazz-rock is titled Truth Decay. The album features many guest artists, including appearances by members of the Steven Wilson band and Adam’s longtime New York-based group, Brave New World. A follow-up live album, The Last Gig, was released in 2021. Adam has also begun a new project with Nick Beggs and Craig Blundell called ‘Trifecta’. Their album “Fragments” was recently released on Kscope to great acclaim. Adam has been nominated for ‘best electric jazz keyboard player’ several times by Keyboard Magazine. In 2007 he was awarded by the Jazz Journalists Association for his work co- producing (with Bob Belden) the Miles Davis box set “The Cellar Door Sessions” (Sony). Adam is now getting attention in the rock world, placing high in the ‘Best Keyboard Player’ category in Classic Rock/Prog Magazine polls for the past several years.

Picture by Angelika Sommer

John Mitchell is an English musician, songwriter and record producer. A multi-instrumentalist who predominantly sings and plays guitar, John is a member of several popular progressive rock bands, including Frost*, It Bites and Arena. He releases his solo music under the pseudonym Lonely Robot. John also masterminded the bands Kino and The Urbane and played bass for alternative rock band A. He has performed live with the likes of John Wetton (Asia) and Martin Barre (Jethro Tull) to name a few. John is also a record producer and sound engineer at Outhouse Studios, his own recording studio in Reading, UK, where he has recorded and produced music for a number of mainstream rock artists including Enter Shikari, You Me At Six, Steven Wilson, Don Broco, Lower Than Atlantis, Architects, The Blackout, Kids In Glass Houses, Funeral for a Friend, Deaf Havana and many more.

Backbone Recordings are bassist Kylan Amos and drummer Scott Higham. They aim to provide music artists everywhere and anywhere with professional quality bass and drum tracks for your songs and or albums. Both Kylan and Scott have many album credits to their names in Progressive rock, rock, metal, pop, easy listening, and more. Whether you need bass, drums, or both, they will work with you to get the parts the way you want and make sure you will come away with a great backbone to your music. Feel free to contact us, let’s work together and create epic music!

Kylan Amos is the bassist for the British prog rock band Arena, session musician, and one-half member of Backbone Recordings with Scott Higham. Kylan has recorded over a dozen albums, thousands of shows, and numerous tours to his credit. With some 30 years of experience working with and for the likes of Clive Nolan, Caamora, Sutej Singh, Karl Groom, David Horn (Infinitome), Fabien Bienvenu, End of the Century, TLK, stage shows, tribute acts, and theatre companies. Kylan, also a photographer and designer, has created and designed a number of album covers, artwork, and promotional photography for Arena, Nathalie Miranda, SLC, and other artists.

Best known for his flute work on albums by his brother Steve Hackett (Genesis), John Hackett is a flute player with both a classical and rock music background, recognisable as possessing a distinctive sound within the world of progressive rock. John studied music at Sheffield University during the 70’s and gained a diploma from the Guildhall in his 20’s. Alongside his academic career in music, John began his recording career by playing on Steve’s first solo album Voyage of the Acolyte. He went on to play on another of his brother’s albums Please Don’t Touch and also recorded sessions for the original Genesis guitarist, Anthony Phillips. After attaining his degree, John toured extensively with Steve including acoustic tours of guitar and flute. This led later to the formation of the Steve Hackett Acoustic Trio which toured Europe, Japan and the USA with John playing concert and alto flute. In between and post tours John continued to develop his classical technique. In London during the 80’s he played for countless shows, helped form an orchestra (The Westminster Camerata) performing solo works by Mozart and Bach, and played for the Crouch End Festival Chorus. He also joined the English Flute Quartet who played at the Purcell Room as well as various music festivals. At this time his compositions and playing were also used in several theme tunes for BBC Radio as a member of the group Symbiosis (which he is still a part of today). Sketches of Satie was an album made by John and his brother in which they performed the works of French composer, Erik Satie. It was released by Camino Records in 2000 and was featured on Classic FM, as well as recently the Netflix show Love. 2004 saw the release of an album of his own compositions titled Velvet Afternoon (as a nod to Satie and Debussy) which showcased John’s melodic playing, fine tone and ability to write in different styles, as well as the work of pianist Sally Goodworth. In the early 2010’s he began working with Italian organist Marco Lo Muscio and together they recorded On the Wings of the Wind an album on the Stradivarius label. The two were joined by David Jackson (Van der Graaf Generator) in the band Playing the History which took well known progressive rock tracks and transformed them into classical pieces. John still regularly performs with Marco Lo Muscio in both the UK and Italy when they join for flute and organ recitals. Around this time John also began working with guitar virtuoso Nick Fletcher. They initially started as a duo in concert performing flute and guitar recitals but have since gone on to record several albums together. John continues to gig with his own progressive rock band, the ingeniously named John Hackett Band, and in 2022 he joined the Beatrix Players, giving him scope to continue developing his interest in the use of classical instruments in the context of rock. As a session player, John has always been in demand for his versatility and his ability to work creatively whenever necessary. One such group to make use of his session work recently being Nine Skies for the song The Old Man in the Snow. “I love working in different styles of music. I’m just as at home playing a Bach sonata as I am on stage with my prog rock band… the advantage of modern technology is I can work in my home studio and take all the time I need to get to know the song and figure out how to make the flute blend with the rest of the track.”