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Plays: 1167
Views: 2257 |
Members:
Formed: 1987
Official Site: www.lennywolf.com
iSound Site: www.isound.com/kingdom_come
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| In 1988, after having been signed to Polygram Records, by Derek Shulman, Lenny Wolf and his manager Marty Wolff (no relation), were asked to put a new band together. The players he chose for his new band were: James Kottak on drums, Danny Stag on lead guitar, Rick Steier on |
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In 1988, after having been signed to Polygram Records, by Derek Shulman, Lenny Wolf and his manager Marty Wolff (no relation), were asked to put a new band together. The players he chose for his new band were: James Kottak on drums, Danny Stag on lead guitar, Rick Steier on rhythm guitar and Johnny B. Frank on the bass guitar. For more background see “Lenny Wolf Biography”
A very lucky event happened when Lenny was introduced to Bob Rock, who is best known for his work with Bon Jovi, Aerosmith, Loverboy and Metallica. Bob Rock "Working with Bob was one of the best times I've had during my career. Being a musician himself, knowing how to get the best out of a band, a similar outlook on how the sound should be and working in a great studio (Little Mountain in Vancouver, Canada) were major reasons for the first record's success", - says Lenny. Having finished the record Bob and Lenny flew to New York to mix it at the Electric Lady Studio, formerly owned by Jimmy Hendrix.
During the mixing session of "Get It On", John Kalodner, a John Lennon look-alike and one of America's most listened to men during that time, stopped by to say "hi". He liked the song and asked if he could take a cassette with him. As far as known, the tape ended up at a radio station in Detroit, which played the song without anyone in the band or Polygram Records knowing about it. Hard as it is to believe, other stations actually recorded the song off the air John Kalodner since the record had not even been released yet. The American music industry magazine "Album Network" reported about a mysterious band, which kept the telephone lines of Detroit's rock stations busy for days. Suddenly, a few weeks later, all of America's rock stations were playing "Get It On". Kingdom Come shipped gold, before the label or the band itself was able to discuss the first single.
Kingdom Come toured throughout Europe opening for an English band called "Magnum", while the news from the states kept on getting more and more exciting by the minute. Timing could not have been better and Kingdom Come ended up on the first American stadium tour named "Monsters of Rock", playing with Van Halen, Scorpions, Metallica and Dokken. "Besides having to sing at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, it was the greatest time of my life. Strange enough, playing in front of 200 people makes me sweat a lot more than facing 80,000 rock heads in New Jersey's Meadowlands Stadium" - says Lenny. After the Monsters of Rock tour Kingdom Come continued touring America with the Scorpions for another two months.
Caused by the sudden success, a lot of pressure started to build up. The band enjoyed the attention of the press, was seen on several covers of music magazines and didn't care much about the comparisons with Led Zeppelin. Unfortunately a comment by Danny Stag made things change to the opposite effect. After months and months of being compared to the almighty Zeppelin, the band started to hate talking about it or justifying themselves. During a coffee shop visit, Danny, in his usual humor, joked around by saying: "who is Jimmy Page". Some "creative writer", looking for any kind of stuff (or fairy tails) to sell, overheard his comment, and started a very negative story regarding Kingdom Come saying they never heard of Led Zeppelin.
To proof that KC isn’t a one-time wonder, the band Keith Olsen was rushing into the studio and started working with Keith Olsen (known from his work with Whitesnake, Fleetwood Mac, and Cheap Trick) on their new record. 1989 the second album is called "In your Face". KC started touring with Bon Jovi in Japan, Black Sabbath, and Warrant in America. But success has its price.
The pressure kept getting bigger, and until today, unclarified problems led to the break of Kingdom Comes first lineup including the management.
A new chapter in Lenny Wolf's Kingdom Come was just beginning. The split meant taking everything into his own hands - and he took it on with his usual enthusiasm. After a short period of guidance and help from Stephan Galfas, Lenny was introduced to Nigel Thomas, who then took over the band's management. Lenny began writing all of the material for what was to become Kingdom Come's third album "Hands of Time", and took over full production responsibilities for the first time.
Following the release of "Hands of Time" in 1991, Lenny continued to commute between Los Angeles and Hamburg and came into contact with WEA Germany, through a friend of his named Gerd Krombholz. The relationship culminated in a WEA worldwide signing and in 1993 the album "Bad Image" was recorded in LA and Hamburg, with Lenny once again taking on the lion's share of responsibilities.
After a long and frustrating period of business hassles, culminating in the tragic death of Nigel Thomas, their manager, Kingdom Come changed labels in 1994 from WEA to Viceroy, a small but very motivated label located near Nuremberg - Germany. The band, now with a complete German line-up, began to work on their next album "Twilight Cruiser" which was released in 1996.
Right before finishing the "Twilight Cruiser" tour in 1996, Lenny and his label Viceroy decided at the last minute to record the show in Basle, Switzerland. The outcome was the "Live and unplugged" double CD. Jim Lewis, a former A&R man for Polygram Records during the album “Hands of Time”, was now managing Kingdom Come. At this time, due to the fast lane changes in the music industry and, especially, the high peak of the Seattle grunge sound, bands like Kingdom Come were facing a much harder time. Lenny started writing again and, not willing to sell out by jumping on any trend, he kept the musical red thread, for which Kingdom Come is known throughout the years.
Looking for a drummer, Lenny remembered a fantastic band, called "Mother's Finest", whose drummer was Dion Murdock. Dion Murdock Lenny called and Dion checked in at the "Reeperbahn", Hamburg's red-light touristy district. Lenny recalls: "I hadn't heard him play for about seven years, not knowing whether he was all drugged out or had lost his ability to play, but my instinct had proved me right". Dion's first sentence after arrival was: "Hey man, let's go to work". Magic words for a man on a mission!! "Master Seven" became reality and was released in 1997.
A passion for Corvette automobiles gave birth to a friendship between Lenny Wolf and Luca Maric, his partner in crime for years to come. At the request of many friends, the urge for a very personal statement in Lenny's home language started to grow in him. Not wanting to change the world, rather recording a very straight-ahead, guitar oriented CD, with a bit of Lenny's old AC/DC school, in a raw production with German words.
It surely was exciting to hear Lenny sing in English and German in Kingdom Come's opening slot for Deep Purple throughout their German tour in the summer of 1999. It couldn't have been all that bad, since a well-known manager, by the name of David Krebs, who managed bands like Aerosmith, Scorpions, Ted Nugent and Lenny's preacher Bon Scott, is now taking care of Lenny, after having watched the band performing live in Berlin.
Having survived the hometown experience, Lenny was now concentrating on the next record, which was released in Oct. 2000 through Eagle Rock Records in England. Besides a whole bunch of new songs, the record also includes 2 re-recorded tracks from the "Stone Fury" album (early eighties) and 4 songs of Lenny's German language album (1999), which have been translated into English. It's a powerful and passionate musical statement of intensely personal yet universal emotions. This is music you cannot read about - you have to listen to it, best at 2 am on the highway with the volume-switch turned up to 11!
Lenny Bob Rock kept in touch with his buddy Ulf Zick, who promoted the 1996 record " Twilight Cruiser ", and joined several tours on the base of "let’s have a good time". Ulf having set up a well spread distribution and being a fan of KC's sound, gave birth to a partnership in 2001 between Ulftone music and Lenny's Kingdom Come.
The year 2002 brought a noticeable change in the approach of Lenny’s writing. Despite the fact that KC isn’t old enough to rely on a 25 years or older fan base, and on the other side not being young enough to fulfill some of the very strange business aspects nowadays, he kept on writing with no particular plan in mind. Always have and will love bands like AC/DC, Beatles, U2 and many others, now there are also new sounds and styles Lenny was pulled to. The atmospheric approach of Massive Attack, the beautiful melancholic melodies bedded in a charmingly clumsy production like Radio Head, Guitar walls a la Filter, industrial sounds and loops known from Depeche Mode, and open drums a la Soundgarden, all these elements subconsciously grinding in Lenny’s head, filtered through his heart and then being put into a KC birth-machine, is what gave "Independent" a new foundation, which hopefully has not pissed off to many of the old KC soldiers, who are used to the earlier sound. Lenny is once again responsible for the production, while he mixed it with Jan-Peter Genkel, who also engineered the album.
Quote Lenny: "I've got to please myself first, despite the risk of less success. It's like telling the Beatles to keep on writing " love me do " for the next 20 years. I like taking people to different places. Hope you enjoy the ride!
Continuing this method in 2003/04 Lenny was hiding in his cosmic bubble wrote and performed everything himself. A creative outburst without losing touch with the KC base.
Quote Lenny: "Yeah, yeah, yeah, someday I will play 'Do you like it' again... but check out the riff of 'Gotta Move Now’. We're talking major highway stuff. Drown yourself in atmo - sounds like ' Silhouette Paintings' or 'Watch the Dragonfly' with the sudden change from hot to cold, pink to black, peace and war or whatever you feel".
This is a very personal achievement Lenny seems pretty happy about. Thanks to Denise Townsend, Marko's sweetheart from Seattle, Lenny was able to bounce forth and back his lyrics. Thinking in German and writing in English can be a very "interesting" concept. He can't wait to deliver the goods in concert!!!!!! For fans, friends and confused irritators, if Lenny would ever join a different band or would sing a different style, his voice is, Kingdom Come
Let it be done!
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