Utopia (American band)

Utopia
Utopia, 1977. L-R: Roger Powell, Willie Wilcox, Todd Rundgren and Kasim Sulton.
Background information
Also known as	Todd Rundgren's Utopia (1973-1976)
Origin	New York, New York, United States
Genres	Rock, progressive rock, hard rock, soft rock, art rock, New wave, pop rock
Years active	1973-1986, 1992, 2011-present
Labels	Bearsville, Network, Passport, Epic, Rhino
Website	Allmusic link
Members	Todd Rundgren John Siegler Ralph Schuckett Kevin Ellman Kasim Sulton Jesse Gress
Past members	Jean Yves "M. Frog" Labat David Mason Hunt Sales Tony Sales Mark "Moogy" Klingman Roger Powell John "Willie" Wilcox Doug Howard

Utopia is an American rock band. In its initial incarnation, in 1973-75, the group was a progressive rock band with a somewhat fluid membership known as "Todd Rundgren's Utopia". Most of the members of this early incarnation of Utopia also played on Rundgren's solo albums of the period up to 1975.

By 1976, the group was known simply as Utopia and was a stable quartet of Todd Rundgren, Kasim Sulton, Roger Powell and John "Willie" Wilcox. This incarnation of the group gradually abandoned prog-rock for straight rock, new wave and power pop, and scored the top 40 hit "Set Me Free" in 1980. Though often thought of as a Rundgren-oriented project, all four members of Utopia wrote, sang, produced and performed on their albums; "Set Me Free", for example, was sung by Sulton.

Utopia broke up in 1986, but reunited briefly in 1992. More recently, beginning in 2011 the earlier prog-rock incarnation known as Todd Rundgren's Utopia was revived for a series of live shows.

For a short period of time (1973–74) Todd Rundgren's Utopia consisted of Rundgren plus Hunt and Tony Sales together with David Mason and Jean-Yves Labat (who at first played rhythm guitars). (The late Mason, a musician from Gainesville, Florida, was not to be confused with the former member of Traffic of the same name.) However, the lineup had changed by the time the band recorded its first release.

The first two albums — Todd Rundgren's Utopia (1974) and Another Live (1975) — featured lengthy, complex and highly arranged progressive rock pieces, performed by a six-piece multi-instrumentalist ensemble. It was originally composed of Rundgren (guitar and vocals), Kevin Ellman (drums and percussion), Mark "Moogy" Klingman (keyboards), Jean-Yves "M. Frog" Labat (now on synthesizers), Ralph Schuckett (keyboards), and John Siegler (bass and cello). Klingman had played with Rundgren as early as his first album Runt; both Klingman and Siegler had played on tracks on Side 4 of Rundgren's third album Something/Anything, and together with Schuckett they had also played on Rundgren's fourth album A Wizard, A True Star. Meanwhile, Rundgren had played on Labat's solo album M. Frog. Ellman debuted with Rundgren on the album Todd.