When Ralph Shuckett, the keys man for Utopia – the '70s and '80s progressive rock outfit led by American music great Todd Rundgren – bowed out of the band's Utopia reunion tour, one of Rundgren's sons suggested Assayas, who has been dazzling music fans as Glasys in his adopted home of Portland, Oregon. "We looked at his stuff on the Internet and were all blown away by how talented he was and how confident he seemed," Rundgren told Billboard magazine.