Gaia Mesiah

This three-part female, one-part male rock band from Prague, Czech Republic, strives to share the same vision of heavy music as a playground for all sorts of musical, stylistic and spiritual experimentation that unify many great rock bands such as Faith No More, Jane's Addiction, Deftones and Tool. The harsh, juicy riff-driven rock of Gaia Mesiah is always seasoned with unexpected stylistic twists and turns into funk, Latino music or jazz, and even at its most straightforward Gaia Mesiah usually sounds inspired and energized. The band's genesis traces back to a childhood friendship between guitarist Santa Morella and drummer Misha Cortez. Both girls grew in the not so well-to-do outskirts of Prague and sought refuge in their music. These two formed the core of Gaia Mesiah back in 1998. In 2001 they were joined by singer Marka Rybin who possessed a strong vocal talent and a number of years in athletic training, ability rather useful for a rock band vocalist. Their live debut took place in December of 2001, in a Prague club called Futurum. By that time Gaia Mesiah was still without a permanent bassist; during their debut performance that position was filled in by Josh Stewart, an Australian-born traveler and musician who left his native land a few years prior in search of "music and soul" and ended up in Prague sharing rehearsal space with Gaia Mesiah. After some deliberation (and a fruitless search for bassist) Stewart was offered to become a permanent member of the band, an offer he gladly accepted. The band self-released their debut record Gaia Mesiah in 2003 — although in actuality it was not really a full-fledged record but rather the very first demo the band recorded together. Due to their fiery, explosive performances around the Czech Republic Gaia Mesiah were offered a contract with Universal Music. The second full-length, Ocean, recorded with producer George Erice, was released in 2005. By 2007 the band managed to attract attention of another frequent Prague resident, Jaz Coleman, the frontman of legendary Killing Joke. Coleman was so impressed with Gaia Mesiah that he handled the production duties for their third record, Alpha Female, even going as far as stating in an interview that he had rejected a number of interesting propositions only to have the pleasure to work with Gaia Mesiah. Alpha Female proved the strongest record in Gaia Mesiah's catalogue. Yet in March 2008 it was announced that singer Marka Rybin chose to exit Gaia Mesiah, partly to pursue other projects and partly due to family matters. Gaia Mesiah opted to go on and started searching for a new singer.