Brought to you by "In Metal We Trust"
Formed in South Florida in 1988 by Greg Brown and Jeff Osias, together they quickly set out to create their own form own thrash metal paying homage to their influences. In the following year they were joined by Clint Jacoby on bass. Having played clubs in New York, New Jersey and across Florida, with airplay on WSHE, WSOU, WKPX and many other radio stations, they proved to be a force to be reckoned with. Mention was also been given to the band in Jam Magazine, Tonight Today, Groove Magazine, XS, East Coast Rocker, Wasteland and the Showtime section of the Fort Lauderdale’s Sun Sentinel. Over the years they morphed into The Village Idiots and played more alternative rock until they disbanded in 1993.
But in 2008, Greg Brown took up the torch again and mastered all of the original tracks from reel to reel from sessions recorded in New Jersey and Florida and transferred to digital format. This self-titled 20th anniversary CD, Age of Fire, was released on iTunes and many other digital outlets.
Turn the clock to 2018 and Greg released the 30th anniversary disc of Age of Fire that hit digital outlets on Halloween. On Christmas, the all new full length CD entitled Obsidian Dreams came out and the response has been very positive. For this release, Greg has tagged in other musicians such as Steve Sanderson and Arnaud Krakowka on drums while he takes on duties of vocals, bass and keyboards for himself. This CD starts a new chapter for the band.
2019 was a busy and productive year for Age of Fire with more and more streaming outlets, magazine features, podcasts, blogs, online interviews and radio stations picking up their music around the globe. A few new singles have been released for the upcoming CD called Shades of Shadow such as Time is Running Out, Fairystones and the lyric video King of Aquilonia. This new full-length CD came in in February 2020 and was the largest release to date and released on Sliptrick Records. Adding their talents to this new release is Laura Viglione on vocals and Michael Heck doing bass and drums as well as recording, mixing and mastering with a few guest musicians as well. It has been great to have more people involved for Greg to achieve his vision of Age of Fire. Laura’s voice expands the vocal possibilities of the band and having Michael behind the sound board has brought the band to new heights sonically yet to be head by the band before. This disc expands and broadens the band’s musical palette with some crushing vocal tracks and harmonies, classical influences and more unique instrumentals that have become a new trademark for the band. Steve Sanderson and Arnaud Krakowka also make guest appearances on this CD on drums as well.
Greg started playing guitar at 12, inspired by AC/DC and then moved quickly into Metallica, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Dio and Van Halen. He started performing metal at age 14 in a variety of venues around South Florida with his middle and high school band Assault. In 1988, he started Age of Fire which performed in South Florida but also New York and New Jersey for 6 months. Eventually their writing style of collaboration morphed into the Village Idiots which finally disbanded in 1993. During the 80s, Greg was a fan of the mix of metal and classical music, artists like Randy Rhoads, Van Halen, Savatage and Yngwie J. Malmsteen to just name a few. After the Village Idiots disbanded, Greg moved to Virginia in 1993. At that time Greg pursued classical guitar and to date has written over 20 books of sheet music (see Les Productions D’Oz) including orchestral works (see J. W. Pepper), over 20 CDs, wrote music for TV, Film and Video games (pickup music for the Zojoi series Sherlock Holmes: The Consulting Detective ) but has found his home again playing his style of heavy metal but adding musical elements he has picked up along the way. Greg also sits in with jazz and blues musicians locally and spends time on stage with the contemporary band Vibe Riot, whose palette is reggae, funk, blues, and rap.
Michael Heck is a multi-instrumentalist and producer from Charlottesville, Virginia. Mike first met Greg Brown when they worked together at a local music store in the late 90’s. Though Mike enjoyed the music of a number of metal bands prior to that time (Metallica, Pantera), it was Greg who was largely responsible for exposing him to a broader palate of metal: Nevermore, Iron Maiden, Bruce Dickenson, Queensryche, Helloween, King Diamond, and countless others. Greg’s relentless desire to ensure that Mike was exposed to as much awesome metal as possible shaped his musical tastes for decades to come. Mike began on drums in his high school drumline, learning guitar and bass guitar from friends during high school. He began recording and producing music on his cassette 4-track in high school and has been honing his instrumental and recording skills in the 25 years since. Years later, when he offered to work with Greg on some Age of Fire material, a great collaboration was born, and Mike happily took over bass duties in the group.
Laura Viglione is a vocalist from Charlottesville. She began her singing career in high school choir, later joining the Richmond rock band Laden Angel in the mid 2000’s as a keyboardist and backing vocalist, then forming her own group, Supervixen in 2015. Greg has long admired her voice and knew she’d be a great fit for metal and when working on the new Age of Fire album realized he had some songs that were perfect for her to sing and expand on the ground work that has been laid out before.
Together they form Age of Fire. Look for them where ever music is streamed and downloaded as well as retail stores and on the stage in support of their latest CD, Shades of Shadow!