Jason Bieler And The Baron Von Bielski Orchestra

Jason Bieler first made his name as guitarist and later frontman of Saigon Kick, the Miami hard rock band whose 1992 ballad "Love Is on the Way" went platinum and became a genre staple of the era. After decades running Bieler Bros. Records and shepherding other acts to major-label deals, Bieler reinvented himself in the 2020s under the alter ego Baron Von Bielski, a self-described post-apocalyptic troubadour with a fondness for the sonically grotesque. The music that followed - Songs for the Apocalypse, Postcards from the Asylum, The Escapologist - trades hair-metal hooks for something stranger: genre-fluid prog that swings between orchestral bombast, waltz-time detours, and riffs, often with guest turns from the likes of Devin Townsend, Bumblefoot, and Butch Walker. Bieler writes, sings, and produces nearly everything himself, assembling a rotating cast of drummers and soloists around a songwriting voice unafraid of theatrical, even absurd juxtapositions. The result has earned him a half-joking coronation from the progressive rock press as a king of the genre, a second act few musicians from his generation manage to pull off.