SCALE THE SUMMIT Parts Ways With Bassist, Announces Replacement

Houston, Texas-based progressive instrumental act SCALE THE SUMMIT has parted ways with bassist Jordan Eberhardt and has replaced him with Mark Michell (TETRAFUSION).

Commented SCALE THE SUMMIT guitarist Chris Letchford: "Jordan decided earlier in the year he no longer wanted to tour full-time, so
we have decided to part ways. We have had great luck having all original members for the past three full-lengths and over six years! We wish him the best!

"We are really excited to see what Mark brings to the band! So far our first rehearsal went great!"

Mark will make his live debut with SCALE THE SUMMIT on April 21 at the Fauxchella Fest in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

In other news, SCALE THE SUMMIT will embark on the "Adventure Metal Across America" tour in May. Support on the trek will come from TODAY I CAUGHT THE PLAGUE. This tour will be the second headlining tour for SCALE THE SUMMIT and will start on May 5 and run through June 6.

Stated Letchford: "There's been a lot going on in the SCALE THE SUMMIT camp since we got home from our first headlining tour! I'm very excited announce our new 'Adventure Metal Across America Tour'! It's our second headlining tour this year for 'The Collective', hitting a lot of the cities we missed on the first one. For those of
you who came out to the first one, we'll be mixing up our entire
80-minute set with different songs! We're really excited to be bringing
out TODAY I CAUGHT THE PLAGUE, great progressive band from Toronto, currently out on the road with our buddies in PROTEST THE HERO and PERIPHERY!"

SCALE THE SUMMIT's third album, "The Collective", sold around 1,000 copies in the United States in its first week of
release. The CD landed at position No. 39 on the Top New Artist Albums
(Heatseekers) chart, which lists the best-selling albums by new and
developing artists, defined as those who have never appeared in the Top
100 of The Billboard 200.

The follow-up to 2009's "Carving Desert Canyons", "The Collective" was recorded at Paint It Black Studios in Orlando, Florida with producer Mark Lewis (DEVILDRIVER, ALL THAT REMAINS, THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER).

SCALE THE SUMMIT formed in 2005 while attending the Musicians Institute in Los Angeles.
The band relocated to Texas in 2006, where they recorded their first,
self-released album. After signing with Prosthetic, they issued "Carving Desert Canyons", which Revolver called "a cinematic blast of intricately melodic fretwork and pummeling percussion," in 2009.

PAIN OF SALVATION, BEARDFISH Pull Out Of PROGRESSIVE NATION; BIGELF, SCALE THE SUMMIT Step In

DREAM THEATER drummer Mike Portnoy has released the following statement:
"It is with the utmost disappointment that I am forced to share the unfortunate news of both PAIN OF SALVATION and BEARDFISH having to pull out of this summer's [DREAM THEATER-headlined] Progressive Nation tour....Their label, Inside Out, just recently lost the financial funding for the tour as a result of their distributor SPV recently claiming bankruptcy...which effectively meant that both PAIN OF SALVATION and BEARDFISH lost the tour support that was essential to their ability to come to North America for Progressive Nation. All parties involved (myself, both bands, Inside Out, etc) are beyond devastated at this turn of events and are truly sorry to all of the fans that were looking forward to this lineup. We tried everything we could do to salvage the situation, but in the end it was not possible...Well, as the [new DREAM TEHATER] album title says, every black cloud does indeed have a silver lining....so with this unfortunate news, I bring to you the good news of two incredible bands that will jumping on board Progressive Nation to join DREAM THEATER and ZAPPA PLAYS ZAPPA this summer: BIGELF and SCALE THE SUMMIT. Los Angeles' BIGELF are my personal favorite new band to come along in many years...their latest CD, 'Cheat The Gallows', is my favorite album of the year and I already had positioned them onto the European run of Progressive Nation in the fall....with them now joining us on PN09 in North America as well, it looks like world domination is now not that far out of reach for them! Pretty soon, everyone will hopefully be falling for their retro, psychedelic, progressive, hard rock, doom metal as hard as I have! Houston instrumental band SCALE THE SUMMIT are a recent discovery for me and their top notch musicianship will be a perfect fit to this Progressive Nation lineup stylistically falling very nicely between the musicality of DREAM THEATER and ZAPPA PLAYS ZAPPA. They bring the instrumental elements of prog rock and fusion into today's contemporary hard rock/metal sounds and are one of the most talented group of young musicians I've seen assembled in many years. Once again, apologies to anybody disappointed in this unexpected and unavoidable lineup change...but the circumstances were beyond our control...In any event, PN09 will carry on and still deliver the most musical bang for its buck this summer throughout North America and we look forward to sharing the evening with you!"