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The members of Horizon came together when we all began at Long Road Sixth
Form College, Cambridge in late 1979. Various groups of musicians would congregate in the music room or rehearsal areas at breaks or lunch
time to play together or just show off their latest riff. It soon became obvious that Martin was an extremely talented piano player and
we soon decided to get something together with a friend of his, Angus, on guitar. I started off playing my 12 string at rehearsals with
Angus on his electric and Martin at any piano we could find. Later, we persuaded Martin to get a keyboard and he got a Korg MS10 synth.
This was great for lead lines but no good as a main instrument, so he then proceeded to build one! A string synth, it even worked!! We then
started looking for a drummer. It was a toss-up between an Irish guy imaginatively called "Paddy" Morrison and Pete. We thought
that Paddy would be good because he was a bit more Rock 'n' Roll, but he proved to be unreliable so we went with Pete.
We then proceeded to get together a bizarre set of material which included several Angus Graham jazz styled instrumentals, Albatross and
for some reason only known to ourselves, a song from Jesus Christ Superstar!!! After months of rehearsal and lots of buying of new gear we
ended up only playing one gig with this line up in the main hall at Long Road Sixth Form College.
Unfortunately, limitations in Pete's technique soon appeared while trying to play a song with
a 7/8 segment, which we had to re-write it to 4/4 because he couldn't drum to it! We knew that things would have to change and while Angus
was fine at the mellow Jazz side of things, he couldn't really rock out. Martin, Borneo and myself had been to see Rush in early 1980 and it
became clear we wanted to move into a more exciting form of Progressive type Rock music. Therefore, we began jamming without Angus and
with various other drummers with me taking over guitar duties. The band split came quietly when we started rehearsing in secret with
myself now playing Angus's guitar, Borneo on vocals, Martin on keys and various other drummers. This was the start of a band that would
turn into "Orcrist".
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| Stuart Pledger - Fretless Bass Guitar |
| Pete Heslam - Drums |
| Angus Graham - Guitar |
| Andrew "Borneo" Gerrard - Vocals |
| Martin Freeman - Keyboards |
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