Skyharbor

Skyharbor
Skyharbor at Graspop Metal Meeting 2014
Background information
Origin	New Delhi, India
Genres	Progressive metal, alternative metal, ambient
Years active	2010–present
Labels	Basick Records
Website	Skyharbor Music
Members	Keshav Dhar Eric Emery Devesh Dayal Krishna Jhaveri Aditya Ashok
Past members	Nikhil Rufus Raj Anup Sastry Daniel Tompkins

Skyharbor is an Indian/American progressive metal band with members from New Delhi and Mumbai, India; and Cleveland, Ohio, US.

The band was initially guitarist Keshav Dhar's studio project, before TesseracT vocalist Daniel Tompkins contacted Dhar with an interest in collaborating with him in October 2010. Around the same time, Dhar and Maryland-based drummer Anup Sastry (Jeff Loomis, Intervals), who had uploaded several videos of himself performing Skyharbor songs to his YouTube channel, discussed the possibility of taking the material to the live stage. Roping in bassist Nikhil Rufus Raj, the band performed for the first time as an instrumental three-piece at the 2011 Bacardi NH7 Weekender festival.

After signing with Basick Records, the band released its debut album Blinding White Noise: Illusion and Chaos on 23 April 2012 worldwide as a double-disc album (Illusion and Chaos), featuring vocalists Tompkins and Sunneith Revankar from Bhayanak Maut on each disc respectively. The album consisted almost entirely of refined versions of Dhar's early demos. In an interview, drummer Anup Sastry described the band as "all Keshav at first, he never actually planned to take the music live. The pieces just kind of fell into place one by one. I remember asking him if he would be ok with me making a couple of Youtube videos for a few of his tunes. It basically just went from there." The tracks "Catharsis" and "Celestial" also featured guest solos by Marty Friedman of Megadeth fame. Not long after the release of the album, Skyharbor announced Daniel Tompkins as their official lead singer.

In May 2012 they supported American groove metal band Lamb of God on the India date of their 2012 world tour, after being handpicked by drummer Chris Adler. This show saw the addition of Goddess Gagged guitarist Devesh Dayal to the line-up. Adler went on to praise Skyharbor in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine. Skyharbor made their debut European appearance with an exclusive show at Euroblast Festival in Cologne, Germany. The band capped off a successful year with two headline shows in India in December.