Hi, my name is Darren Greaves, and musically, I masquerade under the name Lucid Dream.

Born 16th May 1976, my early years were mostly spent playing toy plastic guitars and a knackered old spanish acoustic guitar that used to be my mum’s. I “customised” it by writing Darren ”Ace” Greaves on it in black permanent marker pen. Didn’t make me a better player. I was young, foolish, and liked KISS at the time…

As I grew older, tastes in music appreciably improved. (Although, sometimes late at night, if no-ones in. I break out the KISS Live DVD’s.) Mainly by being exposed to them so much by my parents, I got hugely into bands like Queen, Pink Floyd, Rush, Boston and Marillion. The first of those bands to really strike a ”chord” (haha, what a funny joke. CHORD you see? Cos I”m a guitarist?! Brillliant!) with me was Queen, and specifically, the playing of Brian May. While not your typical flashy ”500 notes a second” player, I loved his use of harmony and building multi layered arrangements. This is a style of music that was also taken to it’s max by Tom Scholz of Boston. (Hint: Go and buy Third Stage by Boston. If you don’t have goosebumps by the last track, check yourself for a pulse…) I later got into bands like Pink Floyd, and, more recently, Rush, who along with Marillion, are having a huge influence on the type of music I write now.

I played with various bands such as Last Exit, High and Wide, deMilo, Front Cover, The Vision, and now, Velouria. While I had, and have, a great time with these bands, I always had a desire to write my own music. Doing some studio work as a session player for various songwriters only served to fuel this.

I steadily got into home recording, and over time, built up a home recording setup. This allowed me to make my own music, whenever I wanted to, without having to pay for expensive studio time.

My favourite colour is red, I alternate between boxer shorts and regular pants. I love beer. I hate bananas. Don’t eat yellow snow.

I take my influences from a number of bands and artists, notably Queen, Marillion, Rush, Porcupine Tree, Muse, Pink Floyd and Boston.