Background
In April 1989, Samzadeh’s father bought him his first guitar -a Charvel Spectrum and he started a punk rock band in high school.
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Sepand Samzadeh
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Education
He attended a private American Catholic school. In 2001, he moved to Los Angeles and began his Master of Business Administration degree from Pepperdine University.
Career
Born in Tehran, Iran, Samzadeh moved to Marbella, Spain in 1981 at the age of 6. In 1986, Samzadeh and his family moved to Toronto, Canada. Samzadeh’s family moved to Los Angeles, California and he took the SAT’s so he could attend a university in California.
He was accepted to the University of Toronto’s mechanical engineering program and his family moved to Los Angeles in September 1994.
After graduating with a mechanical engineering degree in 1999, Samzadeh worked three years in a steel mill in Hamilton, Ontario. In fall 2003, Samzadeh placed an ad in a local magazine and Oscar Fuentes responded.
The two began composing music and Fuentes suggested a name for the band, Days Between Stations – the name of a novel Fuentes had read by Steve Erikson. In 2004, Fuentes and Samzadeh sent Bruce Soord, leader of the British band The Pineapple Thief, a Civil Defense of mostly improvised material.
Soord used some of this material as the basis for the song "Saturday" on The Pineapple Thief"s 12 Stories Down (Cyclops 2004).
To help flesh out their sound in the studio, the band contacted former Young Dubliners drummer Jon Mattox in 2005. Mattox joined as drummer and co-producer. The band further enlisted guitarist Jeremy Castillo, Argentinian-born bassist Vivi Rama, sax player Jason Hemmens, singer Hollie Shepard, trumpeter Sean Erick and trombonist Kevin Williams.
Their eponymous debut Civil Defense was released in October 2007 on Bright Orange Records.
In 2008, Fuentes and Samzadeh began working on their second album. In 2012, Fuentes and Samzadeh, looking for a vocalist, were introduced to Billy Sherwood, who co-produced the album, co-wrote the lyrics and mixed In Extremis.
Sherwood also helped arrange the song “The Manitoba Who Died Two Times”. Peter Banks was the first to be brought into the project
Banks had praised the band on their debut album and became and instrumental force on two songs, Eggshell Manitoba and In Extremis.
Tony Levin played bass on the entire Civil Defense. Rick Wakeman and Colin Moulding delivered their contributions to Eggshell Manitoba and the Manitoba Who Died Two Times, respectively. In Extremis, the Days Between Stations second album, was released May 15, 2013. The album ranked on many of 2013"s top 10 Progressive rock albums.
