Aonia was a district of ancient Boeotia, containing the mountains Helicon and Cithaeron, and thus sacred to the Muses, who are called by Alexander Pope the "Aonian maids."
Aonia became an official band on the 20th August 2006.
The band began as the brainchild of bassist Rob and rhythm guitarist Graham. They had been playing together for about a year when they decided to start a project. Rob was also, separately but simultaneously, rehearsing with Tom, who also wanted to set up a band. Graham and Tony had been in a previous band, Fate Untold, five years previously, and so Tony agreed to become the unnamed project's drummer. Rob's sister Vix would become the new band's vocalist. Finally, Craig, a sound engineer, expressed an interest via Rob and Graham in designing sound for the band. When all of these tangled social networks had been straightened out, the newly named Cathexis (the band changed the name to Aonia in March 2009) was ready to rehearse in August of 2006.
In January of 2007, Vix decided to leave in order to focus on photography and promotion and is now the band's official photographer. (The fantastic photos in our gallery are due to her skill with a camera!) Unfortunately, this left them as an instrumental-only band until March of 2007.
In February of 2007, Rob and Graham crashed a birthday party where they met operatically trained vocalist Melissa -- who was singing karaoke of all things.
In December 2008, Graham departed the band leaving them with the search for an awesome guitarist to fill his shoes. The search was completed in April 2009 when Nick was recruited to take up the mantle of playing bass, with Rob moving to guitar.
Aonia have a variety of tracks featuring energetic playing and complex, almost progressive, riffs. These include some covers you will never have heard covered before and also some original songs that will blow your mind.
Aonia is a live band you have to see!
Surface Unsigned Journalist Review April 2009
an... operatic quality thanks to Melissa’s powerful vocal...
... a grand and atmospheric metal base.
Standing out against a background of more traditional Metal bands they proved one of the highlights of the night delivering a great performance that really got the crowd going.