The history of the American progband Edensong goes back to the progressive metal band East Of Eden. When that band broke up, James Byron Schoen decided to form a new band in the autumn of 2002. Although the band has been around for 26 years now, you could expect a pretty large discography, but this is not the case. So far they only released three albums: The Fruit Fallen (2008), Years In The Garden Of Years (2016) and the brand-new album Our Road To Dust (2025). I wondered why it took so long to come up with a new album, so I asked founding member, guitarist and the bands spokesman James Byron Schoen. Of course, I wanted to know more of the band and the album and what the new album is all about! Most important is that the album was worth the wait since Our Road To Dust is excellent that will mainly appeal to fans of Dream Theater and Jethro Tull.

Would you please introduce the band members, and tell a bit about the history of the band?
"I play guitar and do a lot of the singing and writing in the band. Edensong has been my main creative project since 2002, and the band has roots in music that's even older than that. TD 'BenBen' Towers and I go way back to when we were both five years old, and we've been making music together almost the entire time.

L to R: Nick DiGregorio, James Byron Schoen, TD BenBen Towers, Barry Seroff. [Credit Kelly Robertson]

We started out our musical journey together as superfans of Michael Jackson and worked our way to Metallica and Dream Theater and classic progressive rock by middle school. We started a band together in high school called Echoes Of Eden along with former Edensong drummer Tony Waldman, that really set the groundwork for what would become Edensong. TD, or Ben as I've always known him, plays the bass guitar and he is the other main vocalist on Our Road To Dust. Nick DiGregorio is another guy with whom I go way back. He was a musical legend at our high school, and he has played the drums since the age of five, or something like that. We connected many years later when I was brought on to record a project of his. A couple of years after that, late 2017, Edensong needed a new drummer, and Nick was the first call we made. He's really breathed new life into the band and the music. It's been great to write, tour and record together. Barry Seroff is Edensong's resident flautist, and I've had the privilege of playing with him since 2008. He's a bit of a reluctant progger' and I don't think he had any idea that he was making a lifetime commitment to the genre, and to our band when he was drafted by our mutual dear friend and another former Edensong member keyboardist Stefan Paolini, who joined the band for our first festival performance. Nearly two decades later, he's still present. He has a truly unique musical sensibility and contributes heavily to the arrangements. He really is one of the Edensong X factors."

Why did you call the band Edensong? Does it have a special meaning?

James Byron Schoen

"Well, our high school band was named Echoes Of Eden, and since Edensong was formed as a musical successor to that, with perhaps a more orchestral and classical progressive rock focus, rather than the hard rock and metal of the original band, we wanted a name that alluded to it as well. Maybe we were also inspired by everyone's favourite soy milk, (Edensoy?). We sometimes get pegged as a Christian rock band, which we are not, so I'm a bit ambivalent about the name, but we honour our history and here we are still Edensong, for better or for worse."

Why are there so many years in between your album releases? There were eight years between the first and the second album and a gap of almost ten years between the second end the new one.
"With this latest gap between the second and the latest album, I can use the excuse that 'life got in the way'. We all started families: there are six Edensong children born since the last album was released, we weathered a global pandemic, and we went through personal struggles and career shifts. Beyond anything, I'm just thankful that we're still here at all making music. We love doing this, and I think the time away really reinforced this. I feel like we're really back though, so I'm hoping we can challenge ourselves by not taking another decade before the next record!"

What does the album title Our Road To Dust mean? Is it a concept album and if so what is it all about?
"I wouldn't say Our Road To Dust is a concept album, but I do think the songs are thematically tied together to some degree. It's an album that acknowledges mortality. When we started the process of making the album, I was personally and creatively drained. I thought at the time that this would quite likely be the last piece of music for Edensong. I had three song ideas, all quite different, but all thematically related that I thought would comprise a good portion of the project, but I didn't have the creative will to offer much more than that. I leaned heavily on my bandmates... we kept each other going, and we came out the other end with some great music and a real desire to continue. To me, Our Road To Dust is about that journey and that brotherhood."

Can you briefly explain what the individual songs are about?
"I'm not sure I fully can. My lyrics aren't generally literal, and they're often about many things at once. It also seems, from reading some reviews and critiques, that they are about different things to different people, which I think is great. I wrote the full lyrics to three of the songs: The Illusion Of Permanence, Hall Of Statues, and Our Road To Dust. Each deals in its own way with my feelings of disillusionment and creative exhaustion but set in a very different way. The title of The Illusion Of Permanence probably suggests the lyrical theme as well, the recognition that everything is ephemeral. The song Our Road To Dust is a journey, while Hall Of Statues is intended to represent an almost monastic devotion to the often-tedious process of creating art."

On a number of compositions I hear a kind of mix between Dream Theater and Jethro Tull. Are you influenced by both bands, and what is your opinion when people say that you are a heavier version of Jethro Tull?

L to R: TD BenBen Towers, Nick DiGregorio, Barry Seroff, James Byron Schoen. [Credit Kelly Robertson]

"Yes, I grew up as a huge fan of both Dream Theater and Jethro Tull, so these comparisons are no surprise to me. I think the fact that we're a rock band with a flute player means that we automatically get compared to Jethro Tull. The funny thing is that Barry's not even much of a Jethro Tull fan. A Change Of Seasons by Dream Theater, and A Passion Play by Jethro Tull are both desert island discs for me, so I'm not even slightly abashed by the comparison!"

I enjoyed the strong vocal performances a lot, especially the harmony vocals. Who was responsible for those vocal parts?
"Well, thanks so much! One of the primary goals for this record was to make it a bit more vocally focused than previous albums. We wanted Ben to have a larger role not only vocally, but also as a songwriter. He's used to vast multi-tracked, almost choral vocal arrangements, so I really wanted him to have that opportunity in Edensong as well. We've done some of that in the past, but it's always lived further in the background before. We wanted to lean heavily into the sound of our voices together, so even when I'm singing lead, his vocal support is almost always present, and vice versa."

Was it difficult to write or to record the songs? What could have been done better in retrospect?
"I don't tend to have regrets, ha,ha! This album is still brand new in Edensong terms, so it's a little early for me to comment on stuff like that. Those types of feelings generally arise when we start working on the next one, and we haven't quite gotten there yet."

What does the album cover represent? Is it a map?
"Yes, it's a map! And it's not an entirely fictional one. It's actually a visual composite of various locations that have featured heavily in the history of the band. The band's various homes over the years and other locations that have special significance to us, like Quebec City for example. Ben and artist Nate Dorr collaborated heavily on this concept, which signifies our journey over the years."

Several guest musicians play along on Our Road To Dust. How did violinist Chris Baum, keyboardist Shelby Logan Warne, pianist, and Stefan Paolini get involved in the recordings?
"Although he left Edensong in 2017, Stefan Paolini will always be a foundational member of this band and part of the brotherhood. It only felt natural that he contributed in some way to this record as well, so I asked him to add a piano part to Hall Of Statues. I met the others through the relatively small global progressive rock scene. We had played with Chris Baum's brilliant band Bent Knee years ago and we stayed connected a bit over the years. I even ran into them randomly at a border crossing while we were both on tour. He took on the role that was originally planned for Ian Anderson, whose schedule became too busy to participate. Chris rose to the occasion gloriously! As for Shelby Logan Warne, we first worked with her when we started working on Our Road To Dust, when we brought her on to direct the Hall Of Statues lyric video. Through that collaboration, I became more familiar with her amazing band Kyros and her other production work. She was originally brought on to mix the record, but it ended up not being quite the right sound for what we were going for with this album. However, we really wanted to preserve some of her contributions to the album, so you can hear some of her keyboard playing and arrangement work throughout."

Edensong live in Quebec

Are you going to perform the album in its entirety live on stage? Are you planning to give concerts in Europe?
"We've been playing most of the album live but haven't felt like it's the type of album that needs to be played together. Our Road To Dust is a collection of songs, and I like to think that they can function independently. We made a point of playing our previous album Years In The Garden Of Years straight through on several occasions, but that was more of a concept album. It's honestly been nice to keep some time in our set reserved for revisiting and reworking some older material this time around. We've always wanted to play in Europe. I'm fairly confident we'll make it there someday, but we don't have any concrete plans at the moment."

What plans do you have next for the band?
"We're due to pick back up any week now and start the writing process for a future project. I can't say much more at this point, but I hope it won't be nine years until you hear it!"

Thanks for answering my questions!
"I'm very happy to! Thanks for the interest in our strange band!"