Frontiers Music Srl has announced the signing of legendary English rock supergroup ASIA for an exciting new chapter in the band’s celebrated history.
2024 was the Year Of The Dragon — and with it came a powerful rebirth: a new ASIA lineup featuring founding member, songwriter, producer, and keyboardist Geoff Downes, acclaimed drummer Virgil Donati, virtuoso guitarist John Mitchell, and stunning vocal newcomer and bassist Harry Whitley. This new chapter promises to reignite the band’s iconic spirit, stepping into a promising new creative era.
Downes commented: “ASIA is thrilled to have recently signed a new deal with Frontiers Music Srl. Having been loyally supported by the label throughout the ASIA reunion period from 2005-2015, we are now entering an exciting new chapter in the band’s 45-year history with a sequence of live albums, DVDs and a brand new studio album scheduled for a 2026 release. It’s very much a homecoming for the band, and so we are greatly looking forward to a long and fruitful partnership with them in the future. Watch this space!”
In the summer of 2023, Downes spearheaded a memorial concert to remember and celebrate the life of his late, much-loved friend and ASIA co-founder member, the great John Wetton. At the concert, he invited rock and roll veteran John Mitchell, who had played with both Wetton and Downes in ICON and in Wetton‘s own band, to join him on stage, taking on lead guitar duties. The duo was joined by newcomer Harry Whitley, whom Downes had discovered and whose vocal talents so closely resembled those of Wetton‘s, it was nothing short of spine-tingling.
In 1982, Wetton, Downes, Carl Palmer and Steve Howe became the founding fathers of supergroup ASIA, responsible for a string of multi-million-selling albums and chart-topping hits across the globe before Wetton‘s untimely passing in 2017. Since John‘s death, Geoff and Carl have toured with Sam Coulson, Billy Sherwood, Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal and Steve Howe guesting.
Busy touring the globe, Palmer is now immersed in a project very dear to his heart, the RETURN OF EMERSON LAKE & PALMER, while the legendary Howe remains at the helm of progressive rock legends YES.
So, Geoff made the decision to take a fresh, new-looking ASIA back out on the road, recruiting Mitchell and Whitley as new members and bringing in the drumming excellence of the incomparable Virgil Donati, who had played with Wetton in UK.
Photo credit: Scruffy Bear Media