Tim Smolens

Tim Smolens

Estradasphere was an experimental band that originated in Santa Cruz, California during the late 1990s. The band, which in its last incarnation was based in Seattle, consisted of 6 multi-instrumentalists from a variety of musical backgrounds trained in disciplines ranging from classical music and jazz to heavy metal.

In November 2007, members of Estradasphere started touring with Amanda Palmer of The Dresden Dolls, as well as helping to produce her debut solo album Who Killed Amanda Palmer.

The band is on a "permanent hiatus" since 2010.

Estradasphere were influenced by many different artists from many different subgenres, such as jazz, funk, techno, classical music, pop, heavy metal, New Age, Latin, Balkan, Greek and gypsy. They were influenced by artists such as The Beach Boys and Secret Chiefs 3, and have been compared to Mr. Bungle, Frank Zappa and John Zorn. Similarly to Mr. Bungle and Secret Chiefs 3, the band mixes several genres in its songs. The band was a self-proclaimed inventor of bizarre genres such as "Bulgarian Surf", "Romanian Gypsy-Metal", and "Spaghetti Eastern" and sounded like "Psychedelic-Sci-fi", "Gypsy-Metal-Jazz" and "Epic-Cinema-Thon", according to its MySpace.