Giant Electric Pea (GEP) formed in 1992 when prog rock mainstay IQ began preparing their first post-major album, Ever, and were looking for a sympathetic label to release it. It quickly became clear that all the major record labels had lost interest in the progressive rock genre, so in response a team of devoted musicians, businessmen and technicians took matters into their own hands and founded GEP, the first truly independent label for progressive rock.
With the success of Ever in 1993 the team thought, “If we can do it for IQ, maybe we can help other bands to reach a bigger audience?” Since then, GEP have worked with a succession of artists, from well-known names such as Spock’s Beard, Solstice and Big Big Train to classic performers John Wetton and Renaissance, newcomers Southern Empire, Synaesthesia and Returned To The Earth and, of course, different branches of the extended IQ family The Lens, Martin Orford and Niadem’s Ghost.