Explaining his love of prog rock and how he came to be known as the Vampirate, Sylvan tells Progarchy: "Progressive rock is multi-dimensional in a way. It always leaves the listener free to interpret the songs the way they want, the lyrical content and everything.

"I have this stage persona called the Vampirate. Someone used to tell me, 'You look like a vampire. You look like a pirate....I know, a Vampirate.' I just laughed at it and thought, 'What a great gimmick.' So I developed that."

The character appears throughout Courting The Widow as well as Sylvan's stage show. He adds: "Of course, a pirate must have his own ship, which the Vampirate certainly has. In the first song you hear the moored boat, the people walk on board, and you hear the Vampirate's wings. He's sort of coming from nowhere before the synth kicks in, you hear him soaring through the sky and land on the yardarm and stuff like that."

Revealing that he plans to keep the Vampirate around for three albums, Sylvan adds: "The Vampirate was born in the late 16th century, but his active life was in the 17th century. If you look what I'm wearing on stage, you're probably thinking I'm from that era." Read more - here.

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