// BIOGRAPHY

Reagan Jones - Vocals, songwriting
Andrew Sega - Programming, orchestration, guitars

Taking elements of rock, glitch, retro-flavored-synth music, and coloring it with a decidedly melodic worldview, Iris is a band that's hard to classify. The new album, "Wrath", is the latest signpost in the Iris story - a record which is energetic, complex, and emotional.

The original incarnation of Iris, called "Forgiving Iris", was started by Reagan and college friend Matt Morris. Realizing they had similar tastes in music, the duo started producing keyboard-heavy pop tracks, and started to realize that they were creating something special. After a few years of playing covers at local bars, and getting spots on the occasional festival, they dropped the "Forgiving", and signed to A Different Drum in 1999. The first record "Disconnect", spawned the club hit "Annie, Would I Lie To You?", which made it one of the best-selling records in the label's history. Three more singles followed, but tensions between Reagan and Matt were coming to a head, and the band began to break apart.

Fast forward to 2001. Reagan had been working with various producers in the Dallas area, but with no luck. The band still went forward and played a show at the ill-fated Transcommunion Festival in Houston, where Matt met Joel Willard from CTRL, and mentioned to him that Reagan needed someone to help produce new tracks. At that time, Joel and Andrew both worked at Digital Anvil studios in Austin, and so he invited Andrew to come to lunch one day and meet Matt. After hearing some of Andrew's solo work (The Alpha Conspiracy), Matt introduced him to Reagan. Everything went well, and Reagan arrived one day with some demos in hand. The first song he played was called "Unknown", and though they didn't know it at the time, this would be the song to usher in the next phase of Iris.

Forward again to the end of 2002. After two years of work, Reagan and Andrew release "Unknown", the first single from the new record that they're working on, to rave reviews. People immediately noticed the change in the Iris sound -- a bit more organic, a bit less "retro", and there's even some guitars! They also decide to amicably leave A Different Drum for Andrew's own US label, Diffusion Records. Spring 2003 sees the release of the full length album "Awakening". The first thousand limited edition copies sell out in under 3 weeks, indicating things are off to a good start.. A chance emailing with Henrik Iversen (NamNamBulu) leads to the one thing the band's been looking for -- a European deal. Signed with Infacted Recordings, a special version of "Awakening" is finally released, which gets a lot of attention in the European press. Topping it off is the offer to open for De/Vision on their January 2004 "Devolution" tour of Germany and Switzerland. After a surprisingly good tour experience, the band is offered European booking representation by Pluswelt Promotions (Apoptygma Berzerk, Mesh, Beborn Beton, De/Vision, etc). This leads to the band's first big festival appearance at Arvika 2004, with bands like Kraftwerk, Keane, and Wolfsheim.

During this time, the third record was taking shape. For this record, the band wanted to take a more aggressive approach, and add a few shadows here and there. It was also decided that a number of songs were to be worked on simultaneously, to allow them to mature together, and see if they form a coherent whole. At some point names were bounced around, and "Wrath" was the one that kept sticking in their minds. They continued work on the record, interrupting it briefly to go on their first headlining tour in Germany, including a stop at the heralded Wave-Gotik-Treffen festival. This would also be their first trip with a guitarist, as they recruited the talented Brian Pearson (Low Technicians) to provide some live guitar. Arriving back home, it became clear that the record was almost finished, and the band worked hard to add the final touches and complete it. An agreement between Diffusion and Infacted cleared the way for a first for the band -- a worldwide simultaneous release. August 2005 proves to be an exciting time, as we prepare for the launch of the third full-length album from Iris -- "Wrath".