The Beginning
Formed in 2011 Any Road are a 3 piece hard rock/alternative band based on the isle of wight, consisting of members Jon Weldon (vocals and Guitar), Tom Legg (Bass) and Dan Foyle (Drums). Their main inspirations are Mastodon, System of a Down, ACDC and the Foo Fighters. They currently have two albums out The Highwayman (2015) and their new album Megalith (2021).
Any Road stated when Jon was at a music university and had to wright three songs for an assessment, out of which he formed Any Road. In 2013 after a few years of lineup changes Tom Legg, formerly from the band Landscapes to City Lights (who studied at the same music university) joined the band on bass, and two years later Any Road entered Bad Cow studios (Isle of Wight) to record their first album The Highwayman.
In 2019 the band was once again going through a lineup change, the bands second guitarist and second longest member had left which then began a rotating door of guitarist and the band was without a permanent drummer, until the 26th of July of the same year when Dan Foyle became the newest member to join.
Since then the band have remained a three piece at its core.
THE HIGHWAYMAN
In 2015 Any Road entered Bad Cow studios to record an album comprising of songs they had written up to that time, The Highwayman could be considered ether a first album or an informal best of comprising all the best and unreleased material they had written throughout many lineup changes.
The album draws much of its influences from such bands as Black Stone Cherry, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Led Zeppelin ACDC and The Foo Fighters, which all can be heard throughout the album.
The artwork for the album was designed by a friend of the band Adam Cooper, who at the time had studied graphic design, and the engineer and producer on the album was Carl Perkins.
MEGALITH
In 2020 the world was plunged into various lockdowns as the Covid-19 pandemic spread. During the first lockdown Jon had begun relearning how to use recording software, and during this time he wrote a few songs that he felt had to be completed with a full lineup, he then sent over the songs over to Tom and Dan with the idea that these new songs could become new Any Road ideas, and thus Megalith was born.
The album was heavily inspired by such bands as mastodon and Devin Townsend, and the writing style was something very different from what the band had done in the past as it took on a more modern sound.
"This album was a completely different experience for me, and Ive tried to be very honest in what I wanted to say with it, and addressing some things that perhaps I felt I needed to address/get off my chest, which is not really the sort of writing I do typically (but I think lockdown has had that effect on us all in some way in what ever we do). I have also tried to push my boundaries in my playing and vocals, and tried my hand at production to get a more layered sounding album then the last." -Jon Weldon (22nd May 2021)
After a year of writing the band entered The Old Black Smiths Studios (Portsmouth) to begin recording with Neil Elliot who engineered and co-produced the album.
The artwork was designed by Kelvin Doran at Serpent Tusk Studio, who has perviously worked with such bands as Mastodon, As I Lay Dying, Trivium, and Parkway Drive.