River Knight

RIVER KNIGHT consists of MARK STONE RIVER on lead vocals and longtime friend DARREN KNIGHT on guitar and harmonies, playing their own brand of acoustic guitar based indie, folk, rock, pop songs. The guys have known each other a long time and have been in bands together over the years starting with Happy As Larry and concluding with This Black Static. They first got together as a duo around mid 2017 after the tragic and way too soon passing of Darren's wife. These get togethers started out as what can best be described as “therapy jams” which were part of Darren's grieving/healing process, and it was during these sessions that the first RIVER KNIGHT song was written. That first song was HEAVEN’S DOOR, and over the course of the remaining time in 2017 and early 2018 that song was added to by the likes of SENSE OUT OF CRISIS and SHE CAME ROUND. What’s more, the fellas had also been jamming though some cover songs by artists such as Craig David and Gloria Gaynor amongst others, and sometime around February 2018 they came to the conclusion that they were on to a good thing so decided to make the pairing an official thing and RIVER KNIGHT was born.

2018 saw them add to their growing set, adding new songs like STRENGTH IN NUMBERS, NOT HOW YOU MOTHER, MYSTIC MILES and ELOPE, while also resurrecting a couple of songs they had written together in the past, those being REGRET MY GOODBYES, SOMETHING GONE WRONG and SHADES THAT HIDE THE SUN. On top of this, new covers were being learnt and it was time to put to the test with a live audience. RIVER KNIGHT started playing gigs in and around the Southampton, Portsmouth and London areas on a regular basis and soon realised they needed something recorded. The guys started off recording at home using very basic software on Darren’s I-Pad, and while these recordings served their purpose for the pair, they soon came to the conclusion they were not what the fully realised versions of the songs should be.

So around September of that year they contacted another longtime friend in Greyum May (Keeper's Brew) and started recording at Mutant Labs Studio in Southampton. On 17th December 2018, the 2nd anniversary of Darren’s beloved’s passing, the fully recorded version of HEAVEN’S DOOR was released on Bandcamp, followed by a Spotify release in early 2019 that also included the I-Pad demo version.

RIVER KNIGHT continued gigging and during this time Darren had started lodging with another longtime friend Jez Ross-Clyne, who coincidentally had a custom studio in the house, so it only seemed fitting they would record their debut album there. Just as they were about to start, the Covid pandemic hit us and lockdown came into full effect; all live shows were cancelled and the pair couldn’t get together. Luckily Mark also had a makeshift studio at his house and coincidentally used the same equipment that Jez used, so not to be deterred RIVER KNIGHT started recording remotely while separated. Throughout this period they were able to record the majority of their debut album while remaining apart, getting together at the end of lockdown to put the finishing touches to the album, which also involved having a few guests play on a few of the songs. The final result was an album of 10 songs, with an 11th that was supposed to be a bonus track harking back to the early days of CD. On 25th June 2021 GROW, an album of songs that celebrate the power of positivity, full of character and meaning, was digitally released online to the world. The guys started gigging once more, again in and around the Southampton, Portsmouth and London areas for the remainder of 2021.

Throughout 2022 RIVER KNIGHT continued to tirelessly perform and had new material to be recorded, so they grabbed what time they could in between the live shows and were able to release UNSPRUNG through all the usual streaming platforms on 16th December 2022. A cross between a conventional guitar based folk pop song and a sweeping epic backed with a full orchestra, it has been compared to Richard Ashcroft and The Verve and received many favourable reviews. This song is the positive to the negative of Heaven’s Door. It’s a song about finding your way out of the darkness and discovering love once again.A few months later, in May 2023, they were able to re-release the album, but this time as something tangible by way of CD, and also fulfil a lifelong goal of having a very limited edition version of UNSPRUNG released on vinyl, backed with the 1st versions of HEAVEN’S DOOR, both of which can be found on sale in HMV Southampton.

Recorded, RIVER KNIGHT are more than just an acoustic duo, with many additions to the songs including orchestras, synths, keyboards, piano and guest appearances from various friends adding vocals, bass, beats, guitar and even harmonica. But live they like to keep it simple, preferring to play the songs in the way they were written. As their band slogan says - 2 blokes, 1 guitar. 2 voices, 6 strings.