Cydonia came into being around mid 1998, when Steven Horan suggested teaming up with me (Martin Harley) to form a band.
At that time there was not much we could do - there was only the two of us - we couldn't play any songs without them sounding crap. So all we did was write a few songs.
Nothing of any note happened until the end of 1998/ beginning of 1999 when I bought a computer and various studio equipment. This meant that we could now record our songs
I could now lay down two or more guitar tracks and use music software to play the drums.
The name Cydonia, came about after I read "The Mars Mystery", a book by Graham Hancock, Robert Bauval and John Grigsby. This book really got my interest going about Mars and the Cydonian anomilies.
Cydonia had only two members - Martin Harley - on guitar and Steven Horan - on vocals. A third member - Tim Denny - another guitarist was set to join but lived in Wales. We waited for him to move to Norwich as he promesed to do, but after waiting a long time, we could wait no more and so started to look for another guitarist.
Jaymz Bateman joined on 38th November 1999. Before this he had been in a band called 'Red Skeleton'. This was a three peice with a drummer and bassist/vocalist, with Jaymz sharing the vocal duties. Jaymz left because he wanted to take things more seriously and the other two members saw the band as a hobby and not a great deal more. But Jaymz wanted to get to the top - just the same attitude as Steve and me.
We had already seen Jaymz perform with 'Red Skeleton' and we were impressed with his ability. We knew he was good enough to join Cydonia and so when we heard he was leaving his band we offered him an audition. This took place on 28th November 1999. Jaymz was a member of Cydonia by the end of the day.
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