Phoenix Rising

Phoenix Rising
Background information
Origin	United States
Genres	Electronic Rock
Years active	2008-Present
Labels	Ensemble (Oct 2008-Jan 2009) Saturdays (Jan 2009-Jun 2011) Blacklight (Jun 2011-Present)
Associated acts	Schizophonic Violetta DiNozzo Raphael
Members	Benjamin McAllister Alexei Monaghan James Moss Tobias Strait Victor Strong
Past members	Spike Williams

Phoenix Rising is a five-piece American electro-rock band. The group hit the URAPS scene in October 2008 with their top-10 debut single "Rewritten", the first of six top 10 hit singles from the band's debut studio album "Eye Of The Beholder", released on January 12th, 2009 and debuting at #4. From this first era also spawned a successful remix album which was certified gold. The band made a successful return in March 2010 when comeback single "Never Gonna Come Back Down" and sophomore album "Vermillion & Ash" both entered the charts at #1, and again in February 2013 with the #1 third album "Brittlestar Requiem", led by "Space Cowboy".

Band Members

Current Line-Up

Victor Strong - 27 years old, born December 11th, 1986. From San Francisco. Victor is classically trained in piano, which he has been playing since he was 14. Originally, Victor was the lead singer for the band, but it was decided that all five members of the band should split lead vocal duties, as Victor was not the only talented singer of the group. Victor is the father to two boys, both adopted; he adopted elder son Evane in January 2009, and younger son Maverick in February 2012. Victor has had several health issues regarding cancer, from his own battle with Hodgkin's lymphoma to his own father's death from brain tumours. In 2012, Victor released his debut solo album "Great Expectations" which eventually reached #1.

Alexei Monaghan - 28 years old, born October 31st, 1985. Italian-American, having been born in Venice, Italy to an Italian mother and American father, before moving to Texas, USA when he was a baby. Alexei plays guitar for the band, and is one of the main songwriters for the band, next to Victor and James. Alexei was a one-hit-wonder in the US when he was a teenager, but his success was incredibly short-lived and he disappeared from the spotlight just as quickly as he'd found it. After a time of drugs and partying, Alexei was forced into rehab at 18, and once he recovered, he went off to college where he met bandmates Victor and Tobias. In February 2009, Alexei took time off from the band during their short hiatus to concentrate on side project Schizophonic, a dance music project involving his brothers, Sylar and Raphael. The project spawned two singles and an album. Alexei is in a long-term relationship with superstar China, and the two have been long-since engaged, although the couple are as yet still unmarried. They are raising two children; Alexei's daughter Alice Craven (from a previous relationship) and a second daughter Juliana, born to the couple in 2012.

James Moss - 29 years old, born January 7th, 1984. A New Yorker, James is street-smart and sensible. He plays bass for the band, having replaced original bassist Spike Williams, who was controversially fired from the band prior to the release of the band's debut single. James is the band's producer as well as a talented remix artist; originally he used the moniker 'Mossman' for his mixes but later switched to the band's name. Most recently, James' remixes productions use 'The Mossman Prophecies' moniker. As an openly-gay man, James had a brief and highly-public relationship with Ryan Dawson, which ended nastily when Ryan cheated on James with Jack Stevens. James is now in a relationship with James Frost. James' career as a songwriter and producer has taken off in recent times, with him being the executive producer on the unreleased Jessica Snow album, as well as executive producer on Danelle Becker's solo debut album. In 2012, James released his debut solo album "Jameson Dominic".

Tobias Strait - 24 years old, born May 2nd, 1989. The youngest of the group, Tobias comes from Nevada. He has been branded an 'emo' by bandmate Alexei, but Tobias denies this insistently, despite having an intense interest in darker types of music, such as that of Sandi Cohen. Tobias is the quiet member of the group, whose social network is very limited. Tobias has a very dark past, with a serial killer for a father who murdered Tobias' family when he was a boy, and attempted to kill Tobias as well. On Tuesday, May 4th 2010, Tobias was hospitalised following a suicide attempt, and is in a long process of recovery from his ordeal. Tobias was recently linked to Sandi Cohen romantically, and is assumed to still be together with her.

Benjamin McAllister - 30 years old, born August 16th, 1983. A Texas native. Ben is the drummer for the band. He has a reputation among his band members for being a sleaze and a womanizer, with a healthy dose of vanity over his sculpted muscular body. He was in a relationship with Dalisay and was briefly rumoured to be seeing Syd Wolfe for a time during the shooting of the band's "Eyes On The Prize" music video, which Syd guest-starred in. These rumours proved to be untrue as it was already circulating in the media that Syd was romantically linked with Luke Ramada. Ben is also a TV actor, starring as Caleb Forrester in his own US TV show, 'Wanted', which has had a majorly successful run including six seasons and a forthcoming movie. Ben is attempting to break into Hollywood as an actor, after having starred in a lead role in "The Hunger" opposite Paulo Araujo. He has a supporting role in upcoming film "Identity" starring L.E.X.

Former Band Members

Spike Williams - The only English member of the band. Spike had a rude and abrasive personality which saw him at odds with the rest of the band, and with the general public. The decision was made right before the release of "Rewritten" that Spike would be sacked from the band. He was replaced with current bassist James Moss. Spike would later appear on the failed reality show "The G Factor", where he failed to make the cut.

Formation

Phoenix Rising was started by Victor in the beginning of 2008, when he teamed up with college mates Alexei and Tobias to form an acoustic trio, where Victor played piano while Alexei and Tobias played acoustic guitars. Known as "Troika", the band failed to garner much interest until a record executive heard the band at a gig, where the trio performed an early version of what would eventually become "Rewritten". The band was not offered a deal, but the attention inspired them to expand the trio into a complete group. The band met Benjamin McAllister through a mutual friend of Tobias, and when they learned he was a drummer, they approached him about joining the band. Benjamin was interested, and joined the group quickly.

Finding a bass player was a little more difficult; none of the four current members knew any bass players that weren't already playing in groups, so they put an ad out in some local papers. Not many bassists they auditioned meshed with the group until they met Spike Williams. He was older than they were looking for, but he was the best one that offered, so they accepted him into the band. He didn't get on well with the rest of the band, and was dropped from their line-up right before their debut single "Rewritten" was released. During this time they met James Moss, who also played bass, after their received a copy of his demo. James auditioned for them, and they accepted him in Spike's place when they learned that his musical tastes were similar to their own, and that he fit in much better in the group dynamic so James was accepted into the band.

Music

Phoenix Rising's debut album "Eye Of The Beholder" featured a predominantly pop-rock style, with elements of trip-hop, funk and soul scattered throughout. The band worked with a number of mainstream producers on the album which helped shape its slick, produced commercial sound. "Eye Of The Beholder" hit the top 5 and was eventually certified diamond in the UK with over a million copies in sales. The album spawned six consecutive top 10 singles in the UK, and also earned the band some major hits in their home country. The success of the album led to an expanded re-release and a remix album, both of which were successes for the band. The remix album was a UK-exclusive release, which achieved gold certification. Phoenix Rising began working on a concept album as their follow-up, but after its direction turned too dark and monotonous, the album was scrapped. Some of the material from the scrapped album was included on the "Eye Of The Beholder" re-release instead.

In late 2009, the band started over on their sophomore album, which branched off into a more electronic style. With James taking over the majority of production duties, and the Monaghan home studio being used to record the album, the band had far greater control over the direction of their sound. With the new electronic direction in mind, Phoenix Rising worked with Andre Cassenove of Indigo Peak, and Brian Transeau as outside producers on the album. "Vermillion & Ash" became the band's first #1 album, with eight top 5 hits over two years and a content-laden re-release. The album reached double-diamond certification in the UK after all of its singles and its re-release, making "Vermillion & Ash" the first album by a band to hit that level of sales.

Following the conclusion of the "Vermillion & Ash" era, the band took a long hiatus to focus on other ventures. While Tobias and Ben pursued career opportunities outside the band, Alexei instead chose to focus on his family. After dealing with health issues, Victor released his debut solo album "Great Expectations". Victor was the second band member to go solo, with James releasing his own album "Jameson Dominic" earlier the same year. James has become a solo superstar in his own right, with a level of success greatly exceeding that which he experienced with the band. Victor has had his own share of solo success, setting a record for simultaneous major chart hits.

In 2012, Phoenix Rising began work on their third studio album. It is said to be an evolution on their electro-rock style. The album was intended to be released in December 2012, but after the band developed their concept for the album it was pushed back. The band announced "Brittlestar Requiem" in December and its lead single "Space Cowboy". The album had a loosely-applied concept of interstellar travel and 'exploring the universe' as a metaphor for life. The era has presented Phoenix Rising with their greatest success so far; the album hit #1 and is their fastest-selling album to date. It has also spawned the biggest singles of their career as a band so far, with "Space Cowboy" selling nearly 350k off a #2 peak. It was followed up by the band's greatest hit "Sanguine", penned by Aurora Reed and the fastest-selling single of 2013 to-date, with an opening week of 155k.

Controversy

Schizophonic

In early January 2009, guitarist Alexei Monaghan announced that he would temporarily be leaving the band in order to focus on a side project - news that he would be collaborating with his brothers Sylar and Raphael to form electronic outfit Schizophonic was met with scrutiny from artists such as Indigo Peak and Aftershock. Alexei did not formally respond initially to the criticism, believing that it should be nobody's business; stating that this sort of thing happens all the time in the music industry, citing such cases as the Bedingfield siblings Daniel and Natasha, and the Jackson family, of which Michael and Janet have reached a considerable level of fame. The project was not entirely successful, and was short-lived, with the group disbanding after only three months together.

Tobias Strait's suicide attempt

Phoenix Rising had planned to spend 48 hours under controlled conditions in a US city prison, each in a separate room where the five band members would be placed in solitary confinement. In a highly unethical and legally dubious plot, the director hired for the video secretly hid speakers in each of the five rooms, playing back looped recordings telling lies about each other to the band, pretending the band mates often talked negatively about them behind each others' backs. Tobias, who has suffered from depression, had an extremely adverse reaction to this, and attempted suicide on May 4th, 2010, by hanging himself with his bedsheets tied to a pipe running horizontally along the ceiling of his room. The event caused the band's lockdown to be prematurely terminated as Tobias was hospitalised in order to recuperate. Recovery has been a slow process and Tobias has been in therapy ever since.

Victor's breakdown

In 2010, while Victor was promoting his duet single with Ben Johnston, his life was thrown into turmoil when his birth father returned to his life. At first Victor thought he was there to cause trouble but it quickly became apparent that Wilfred Strong was dying of brain tumours. News of his imminent death put Victor into a downward spiral of drinking, partying and neglect of his son, which cast him in a negative light with the press. The death of his father hit Victor hard, and was what led Victor to discover his own cancer issues. This dark patch in Victor's life was the inspiration for his song "Mask".

Discography

Albums

Album	Album details	Peak	Certification	Sales
Eye Of The Beholder	First studio album Released: January 2009 Label: Ensemble Entertainment Saturdays Records (Double Vision Edition)	#4	Diamond	1,086,643
Eye Drops: The Beholder Remixes	Remix album Released: October 2009 Label: Saturdays Records	#6	Gold	207,976
Vermillion & Ash	Sophomore studio album Released: March 2010 Label: Saturdays Records Blacklight Records (Ultimate Edition)	#1	Double Diamond	2,071,402
Brittlestar Requiem	Third studio album Released: February 2013 Label: Blacklight Records	#1	Platinum	695,439+

Singles

Year	Single	Peak	Album	Certification	Sales	Digital
2008	"Rewritten"	#8	Eye Of The Beholder	Silver	190,645	N/A
	"Stupid"	#9		Silver	133,367	N/A
2009	"She / Never You"	#9		None	71,142	N/A
	"Eyes On The Prize"	#9		Silver	141,103	N/A
	"Fallen / Home"	#7		None	118,393	N/A
	"Until I Find Myself"	#6		None	124,198	N/A
2010	"Never Gonna Come Back Down"	#1	Vermillion & Ash	Platinum	255,004	96,000
	"Dementia"	#3		Gold	201,272	99,230
	"Sins Of The Fathers" (with Emily Henning)	#2		Gold	227,957	125,113
	"Objective"	#5		Silver	154,703	47,327
	"Another Year Goes By / The Catch" (Victor Strong & Ben Johnston)	#1		Platinum	367,829	63,755 (AYGB) 39,385 (TC)
2011	"What Have You Done?"	#3		Silver	138,710	65,726
	"Ambrosia"	#2		Silver	188,759	84,515
	"Vermillion & Ash"	#2		Platinum	268,773	113,290
2013	"Space Cowboy"	#2	Brittlestar Requiem	Platinum	344,494	121,021
	"Sanguine"	#1		Platinum	380,867+	148,431+