|
The new KILLER album, IMMORTAL, the sixth in their career,
also marks the band’s 25th anniversary. When guitarist and
vocalist PAUL "SHORTY" VAN CAMP, and drummer FAT LEO, originally
formed KILLER from the ashes of a heavy-blues-rock outfit
called MOTHERS OF TRACK, they never anticipated that a quarter
of a century later the name of the band would still ring hells
bells in the minds of innumerable fans around the world.
The very heavy power trio was born when SHORTY and LEO enlisted
SPOOKY, bass player and second vocalist. Adored by a myriad
of loyal fans all over the world, and loathed by just as many
scathing critics, who more often than not compared them to
a continental poor man’s MOTORHEAD, KILLER became without
doubt one of Belgium’s all-time most successful rock music
export products. Although they liked and respected LEMMY’S
outfit, KILLER were actually more enthused by SAXON, IRON
MAIDEN and other pioneers of the NWOBHM, but being an extremely
loud trio, and with their trademark growling vocal delivery,
they never wholly escaped the comparison until latter days
when they reinvented themselves as a quartet. KILLER actually
always took it more as a compliment then an insult, MOTORHEAD
being another one of those rare surviving dinosaurs that still
excite fans galore, while lesser bands as well as large numbers
of so-called rock-music-journalists are long extinct.
The release of their first two albums: READY FOR HELL and
WALL OF SOUND – the second recorded with new drummer ROBERT
"DOUBLE BEAR" COGEN - literally turned KILLER into a heavy-metal-household-name.
Their MAUSOLEUM label mates OSTROGOTH and CROSSFIRE enjoyed
comparable success of a global magnitude, and for a while
fans in Japan even thought that NWOBHM stood for NEW WAVE
OF BELGIAN HEAVY METAL – we kid you not! In those days KILLER
were innovators, playing melodic speed-metal long before bands
like METALLICA rode it to the ultimate pinnacle of success.
The third album, SHOCK WAVES, proved immensely successful
as this time around both friend and foe unanimously lauded
the album as a very-heavy-metal-masterpiece. On the back of
it's release the band played prestigious festivals, toured
the whole of Europe, and sold albums from Tokyo to Rio De
Janeiro and from Moscow to New York, and just about everywhere
in between.
After that KILLER was ready, willing and able to have their
imposing live sound captured for release on a double live
album to be called STILL ALIVE IN EIGHTY-FIVE! A live performance
of audacious magnitude was recorded by the DIETER DIERKS mobile
recording unit at a one-night-only sold-out show at the HOF
TER LO hall in Antwerp. During the encore over a hundred elated
fans were on stage with the band, joining in on the rhythmic
refrains. Additional sessions were booked at ICP studios In
Brussels for JOS KLOEK to mix the recordings. By that time
though the parent company of the MAUSOLEUM RECORDS label had
encountered insurmountable financial difficulties. The label
couldn’t pay the studio in order to finish the mixes. So in
the end only four tracks were ever mixed, and over the years
the multi-tracks went missing. Fortunately SHORTY still possessed
a master-tape copy of those four completed tracks and these
exciting versions of SHOCK WAVES, SCARECROW, IN THE NAME OF
THE LAW and KLEPTOMANIA were finally made available to the
fans in April of 2002, as bonus tracks on the reissued version
of the SHOCKWAVES album, part of the re-issue series then
commemorating MAUSOLEUM’S 20th anniversary.
In spite of the failure of their record label KILLER soldiered
on and experienced one more climax before going into deliberate
if transitory retirement; the invasion of Poland in 1986,
where – every night - they played for captive audiences numbering
no less than 10.000 eager fans.
By 1990 the MAUSOLEUM label had made a comeback, and so had
KILLER. A year earlier SHORTY and SPOOKY had recruited new
drummer RUDY SIMMONS and added JAN VAN SPRINGEL as a second
guitar player to the line-up. KILLER’S fourth album, FATAL
ATTRACTION, was the first release on the second coming of
MAUSOLEUM, and sold well.
By 1991 though the MAUSOLEUM management team spent more time
battling each other than running the record company, and in
the meantime Grunge music ruled the airwaves. Disgusted -
though for different reasons - both KILLER and ALFIE FALCKENBACH,
the original founder of the label, once more packed it in,
more or less simultaneously.
Later that year SHORTY as VAN CAMP (well it is his real name
after all) released a solo album entitled TOO WILD TO TAME
on the CNR label. The album sounded as if it could have been
KILLER, volume IV, except that PAUL really got all those extra-long
"look how good I am" guitar-hero solos out of his system.
The album was never widely available outside the Benelux countries
so it was a treat for KILLER aficionados around the world
when no less than four selections from the VAN CAMP album
were also included as bonus tracks on the 2002 re-issue of
FATAL ATTRACTION.
Whenever ALFIE FALCKENBACH jumpstarts the MAUSOLEUM label
again, a new KILLER album can't be far behind. When the label
was revived in April 2002, on the occasion of it’s 20th anniversary,
FALCKENBACH first of all prepared the re-issue all the KILLER
albums on compact disc.
With the inclusion of bonus tracks and usage of the original
artwork for the booklet covers, all the re-releases also featured
elaborate full color 8-page booklets, crammed with rare photographs,
and detailed biographies and liner notes. The reformed KILLER,
joined on stage by 80s label mate DORO, then headlined the
sold-out MAUSOLEUM 20th ANNIVERSARY CONCERT at the BIEBOB
Club in Vosselaar, Belgium. The overwhelming success was a
shot in the arm and decisive and motivating factor for the
band to stick together, write new material, and ultimately
break a decade of silence with the recording of the brand-spanking-new
album: BROKEN SILENCE.
Released in May 2003, BROKEN SILENCE, the band's 5th album,
their first since 1991, though with a renewed line-up in attendance,
carried on in the classic tradition of WALL OF SOUND and SHOCK
WAVES, featuring anthem-like songs. Innovation was introduced
by the addition of keyboards – actually a lot of them! This
overdose of keyboards, together with a somewhat weak production,
was the reason that the album was good, but failed to achieve
the greatness it had aimed for. Some fans, especially in Germany
– who also came to see the band play live at the HEADBANGERS
OPEN AIR and KEEP IT TRUE festivals – were disappointed.
KILLER was determined not to make the same mistakes twice.
The new repertoire would still feature keyboards, but relegated
to the background, and with a sound fashioned after the great
bands of the 70s like DEEP PURPLE, RAINBOW, and URIAH HEAP.
It was decided to record the new album in Germany, and the
young KRISTIAN "KOHLE" KOHLMANNSLEHNER was recruited to produce
it at his KOHLEKELLER STUDIO in Seeheim. His only instructions
were to make sure that SHORTY'S un-matched trademark guitar
sound regained the prominence it deserved, and dominate the
album’s overall sound. And so, during those cold winter months
of January and February 2005, KILLER recorded a scorching
album, on which the blistering guitar work continuously decorates
the hymn-like songs. Both KIILLER and MAUSOLEUM believe we
got it right this time, and that IMMORTAL will become…huh,
well IMMORTAL!
|