In the modern world, so many things are happening around us that it’s hard to remember what was 2 or 3 years ago… At least for me. Days, weeks and then – months, are becoming years in the unending flow of work. But now, I would like to stop the Time and go backwards in Imperial Age’s history to the very beginning. You will see through my eyes how Imperial Age grew up and became a “grown-up” band …

Follow me!

Here I am - a more or less regular school girl, enjoying sports classes (because no one asks you any questions there), biology classes (because it is so damn fascinating to know how the world functions!), hating history and english classes (because it is impossible to learn all this), a bit self contained, with my favorite music always on in my headphones… And this music was… hip-hop.

At first, I was actually a huge fan of Eminem (funny thing - a few months ago, in October 2023, we listened to some of his songs on the tourbus, and I still believe that he is a genius!) until one day I saw HIM on MTV (does anyone remember MTV?))) It changed everything.

In the blink of an eye, I switched from Eminem’s swear-word-only “life stories” to HIM’s magic world of love, death, anguish and all this “hard to describe emotional experiences” kind of stuff. With time, the list of my favorite metal bands I was listening to grew longer and longer, including Cradle of Filth, The 69 Eyes, Lacrimosa, Dimmu Borgir, Nightwish, Graveworm, Within Temptation, Rhapsody, Therion, Avantasia, etc..

At this point I met Aor - he was in the same year as me, but in the humanities class (I was in the biology one). He was a completely crazy guy with long hair, who used to piss off half of our teachers every second day with different pranks and all sorts of wild behavior. This guy borrowed my CDs and soon after that dyed his hair black, turned into a metalhead - and of course created a band (Revelance).

While a medical college student, I was at the same time fully immersed into the gothic subculture, knowing nothing about the music business, having no idea what I wanted from my life (most people don’t know this all the way till their death), drinking and hanging out with Aor and a couple of our mutual friends (mostly musicians from Relevance). That was fun. But it never led anywhere since no one was doing anything (except consuming beverages of dubious content). Finally, Relevance was disbanded.

Meanwhile, I successfully graduated from medical university and went on to work as a gynecologist in a hospital as a part of the post graduate traineeship.

After disbanding Revelance, Aor started thinking about a new project, into which he invited me. I was both excited (apart from my childhood dream of becoming a firefighter, I also used to sing into my hairbrush when no one was looking) and frightened (I had never been on stage and had zero musical training) at the same time.

We took a huge timeout, almost 2 years, to create a new band, a new being, write new songs, think about all the conditions for our future musicians, of a name, and the visual part. We wanted to start a serious project.

Thinking upfront and having faith in what we were doing, I knew it would be impossible to combine my work at the hospital (Monday to Friday + 4 night shifts each month) with the band (rehearsals, recordings, tours, etc.), so I disappointed my parents and quit medicine for the sake of Music. To earn money, I worked as a biology tutor (which gave me flexible hours) and used the spare time to study vocals and piano.

Our first album “Turn The Sun Off!” was released in December 2012, and in April 2013 we played our first shows supporting this album. It was my first ever time on stage and I can assure you - that feeling of weakness in your knees is very hard to forget...

All of this happened more than 10 years ago, and since then it’s been a hurricane of crazy events, which eventually led to me writing all this from a different country...

But the most important part of all that has always been YOU guys!

You made us feel at home when we first went abroad

In the end of 2014, after the show with Therion in St. Petersburg, Christopher Johnsson, the founder of symphonic metal and our long-time idol, offered us to go on tour with him. Between 2016 and 2018 we played more than 100 concerts all over Europe as support for Therion and Orphaned Land, and this is where we got to meet YOU - the people who make all the difference in what we do (and who invested a lot into my English language by chatting with us after the shows).

You gave us something much better than a record deal: your direct support

When no record label wanted to sign us, you were always there for us! It was you, who in 2018 crowdfunded our second full-length album “The Legacy Of Atlantis” and the music video for the eponymous song, which went viral on YouTube and gained more than 5 millions views. I couldn’t think back then about such a great result when I was fighting screaming and crying Aor, trying to finally squeeze these blue contact lenses into his eyes!

Starting from mid 2020 both Aor and myself quit our jobs as private tutors because you, our fans, were buying CDs and merch in our webstore and the sales grew higher and higher - I ended up packing orders all day long, so we had to hire another person for the job.

In 2020, when Covid paralyzed the offline world (and even my biology lessons shifted to online), 21,000 of you guys watched our “Live On Earth” online show and donated more than $11,000! It was a very special experience for me - no audience in the hall, total lockdown outside and a small stadium behind the screen… Pure magic!

The next year you funded our third album “New World” and 5 music videos for it, and then 51,000 of metalheads watched the “Live New World” online concert donating $21,000! This show was so huge that I was afraid to get this anxiety weakness in my body (same as on the very first show in 2013), but after the first seconds of the show I realized that I felt unprecedentedly great!

You lifted us out of Russia and brought to a new home in the UK

Finally, in 2022, when Russia attacked Ukraine, only because of your constant support we were able to relocate and live one year in Turkey, continue releasing singles, music videos and the “New World” album - and only with your tremendous help (the relocation crowdfunding raised £25,000) were we able to finally find our home in the UK!

Where would we be without you?? Probably, in jail...

But thanks to you, we are here, able to continue doing our music in a free country and touring the world - more and better than ever before!

It is truly the New World...

As you see, our entire story is YOUR story - the story of our listeners and our fans.

We remember it every second and we’re endlessly grateful for your support and your belief in us!

Musicians have only one way to evaluate the impact of their musical activity on the world – it is our audience. YOU are the addressee of all our music messages, the reason, why we do not stop.

Thank you for making it matter, it means the world to us.

If you want to know, what resulted from all this activity, take a listen to our latest album, New World.

— Jane