Hardrock Haven - Interview with Lance King

Hardrock Haven Interview w/ Lance King

Hardrock Haven's Derric Miller interviews Lance King

Hardrock Haven had a chance to talk with singer extraordinaire Lance King. King was the voice of the critically acclaimed Balance of Power, and is creating the same type of buzz in the industry with his work in Pyramaze. His new project, called Avian, will meet the same fate of his aforementioned bands — critical acclaim across the board and unequivocal success.

Check out his 15-minute interview with Derric Miller, and also, refresh yourself by reading King’s biography and notes from his stellar career.

LANCE KING -CD DISCOGRAPHY

1990 GEMINI-S/t
- released on Nightmare Records USA
1992 GEMINI - Out for Blood
- released on Nightmare Records USA
1995 KINGS MACHINE -A State of Mind
- released on Nightmare Records North America
1998 BALANCE OF POWER-Book of secrets (2nd Album of BOP)
- Released to all three ***Major Music Markets on Nightmare
Records-
North America, Released on Point Music to Europe, Released on
Pony
Canyon records to Japan.
1999 BALANCE OF POWER-Ten More Tales.... (3rd album of BOP)
- Released to all three *Major Music Markets on Nightmare
Records-North
America,
Released on Massacre Records-Europe, Released on Pony
Canyon-Japan
1999 ROLF MUNKES - No More Obscurity
- Lance was a guest singer on one track of this album
and did a hard rock rendition of THE POLICE'S song "Message in
a Bottle"
2001 BALANCE OF POWER - Perfect Balance (4th album of BOP)
- Released to all three ***Major Music Markets on Nightmare North
America,
- Released on Massacre Records-Europe, Released on
Avalon/Marquee-Japan
Frontline records-Brazil.
2001 - WARMTH IN THE WILDERNESS - A TRIBUTE TO JASON BECKER
- Released in Europe and Japan, distributed throughout the world.
- Mega legendary musicians lined up in droves to be part of this
album
because Jason was a phenomenal talent before his body was
attacked
by M.S. Names like Jeff Pilson of Dokken, Marty Friedman of
Megadeth,
Paul Gilbert- Mr. Big.
- Lance was asked to redo a track that Jason had played with
David Lee Roth on originally called "DOGTOWN SHUFFLE".
it's track number 7 of 31 one songs on the double CD.
2002 EMPIRE - Hypnotica
- Featured members of Black Sabbath, Whitesnake, Rainbow,
Hammerfall
and Yngwie Malmsteen.
- Released on Lion Music to Europe, on King Records-Japan
- Distributed by Nightmare Records to North America
2002 DEFYANCE- TRANSITIONAL FORMS
- 4th release for this progressive metal band from Iowa
- Released on Nightmare Records worldwide.
2003 MATTSSON- POWER GAMES
- Legendary Finnish guitarist, Classic hard rock / Neoclassical
- Has played on over 20 albums, this will be his 5th solo release
- Released to Europe and Japan & Russia and distributed in
Brazil, & North America.
2003-BEYOND INSPIRATION - A TRIBUTE TO ULI JOHN ROTH
-Before ULI's solo career he was in the Scorpions (1973-1978).
He actually invented a lot of stuff that Yngwie Malmsteen stole.
-Features some of todays best guitarists!
-Lance was asked to sing 5 songs on this album!
2004 (MAY) PYRAMAZE - Melancholy Beast
- Danish / American melodic prog-Power Metal band
- Features Lance King on vocals, and Morten Drums-Wuthering Hights

Yet to be released

SHINING STAR - Nightmare
- Legendary Brazilian Guitarist FABIO ROCHA's 4th release.
- This title will be shopped for licensing world wide soon!
AVIAN - Guardians of Time
-Now being recorded
-Features Lance King on vocals & David Ellefson of MEGADETH fame on
bass, Roger Moore (shred guitar) of Lance's First band GEMINI, and Jonah
Weingarden (Keys of PYRAMAZE).

PYRAMAZE-LEGEND OF THE BONE CARVER

Lance King from the age of 6, was always a radio singer, you know the person that is always singing to the radio, frequently not knowing the correct words but singing constantly?

It all began for Lance when a high school friend named Eric Stump
asked him to sing for his metal band. The band was dubbed
AJA, pronounced like ASIA. This was truly a Garage band
and though it played one show for a High school dance, it never
saw any other live experience and broke up 6 months after its
inception.

Lance was again invited by his friend Eric to join a new band that he
was jamming with named THE NEWS, this band changed it's name after 2 shows
and became FREELANCE, doing a greuling schedule of over 175
shows each year all over America for 5 years, and though the band,
had wrote 10 songs before inner turmoil ripped the group apart,
they never professionally recorded any of their material.

Lance was immediately offered a gig with a Midwestern group that had
been buidling its name for 10 years, the group's name was GEMINI. A year
after Lance soon tired of the aimless direction of playing nothing but
cover material and longed for a direction and a goal. Lance gave the band an
ultimatum, ( either we crack down and focus on making our own music
and try to break new markets or he would bow out of the group and form
his own.) Gemini decided that they would forge forward and do their
best to do this even though the band was playing over150 shows a year in the
rural Midwest in Ballrooms and Bars and making quite a good living at it.
Gemini began by breaking into the Minneapolis, MN. Chicago, IL and
Milwaukee, WI writing songs during the days in the club's they were playing at night,
the bands agent increased their schedule to over 250 shows a year, the band
was able to create a huge fan base and garnered the attention of many
major labels that frequently would show up unannounced to their shows. GEMINI
was being courted by A&R from labels such as POLYGRAM, ATLANTIC
and GIANT records when they had just begun creating music, the band
just didn't have enough new material at the right time, and because of
their playing schedule and their need for the shows to pay for studio time,
it was a catch 22 situation for the group, the band was constantly
running into young signed bands on the road and hearing how much more money
GEMINI was making doing it independently than the signed artists, so they
chose to keep playing and doing shows, writing when they could.

In 1990 the band released their first album GEMINI - GEMINI
Produced by Lance and the group on Lance's own label Nightmare Records
in 1990 to a huge fanbase they had cultivated in the midwest.
They saw some member changes, quickly adjusted and made another album
GEMINI - OUT FOR BLOOD that was recorded in the new GEMINI STUDIO'S
Produced by Lance and guitarist Rob Kruger, then released in 1992 again
on Nightmare Records. The band selling a total of over 15,000 copies
of their 2 indepedependent albums the band began to see
inner termoil with clashing personalities, Lance decided to leave GEMINI in mid 1993.

Quickly forming a new group with Minneapolis / St. Paul musicians the
band was dubbed THE KINGS MACHINE, this band went into writing mode and had
completed 20 songs before their first show, opening for DAVID LEE ROTH
in fall of 1994, the band did several national opening slot's for the
likes of GREAT WHITE, SLAUGHTER, and FIREHOUSE among others. And released a
album produced by Lance, recorded on a mear Yamaha 8 track cassette
deck, (the trend in the US was not to be too polished remember?)
However even though the CD was recorded on this limiting format, the
end result came out sounding huge. This was released on Nightmare
records in 1995. THE KINGS MACHINE continued to play shows around the Midwest
and before the bands breakup in 1997 the group had recorded a 2 hour
live album and 2nd full album's worth of material that has to date
never been released.

In 1996 Lance began building Nightmare records into more than a label
for his own music, by helping other local hard rock/metal artists with
distribution and soon signing other groups to Nightmare.

1n late 1997 Lance was asked to Join British Melodic Prog-Metal
group BALANCE OF POWER, shortly after Lance was flown to London to
record the tracks for what would become BALANCE OF POWER's epic BOOK OF
SECRETS, the album gathered a mass of fantastic press, bringing
Lances voice to screaming Metal fans in Europe and Japan. Unfortunately
a tour was not in the cards for BOP on this album, so BOP, quickly found
themselves writing their next album TEN MORE TALES, seeing a few
changes in their lineup and with their European record company,
TEN MORE TALES was released to Europe on MASSACRE Records,
PONY CANYON RECORDS in Japan and later, in late 1999 and early 2000 on
NIGHTMARE RECORDS in North America Rave reviews came in selling
more than any album BALANCE OF POWER
had to date. The market crash in Japan in 1998 had hurt the bands changes of touring
but with the new release of T.M.T. BALANCE OF POWER was able to
get on to a month long European tour in the spring of 2000 with German
legends
AXXIS and PINK CREAM 69.
This tour saw the band playing 19 shows in 23 days in Germany.
This was to date BALANCE OF POWER's only tour.

King’s newest things since was the release of BALANCE OF POWER'S -
PERFECT BALANCE on Avalon/ Marquee, Massacre, and Nightmare
2001
Sang on EMPIRE-HYPNOTICA released on KING RECORDS & LION MUSIC
2001
Sang on DEFYANCE - Transitional forms
Released on Nightmare Records 2002

Sang on MATTSSON - POWER GAMES
Released on LION MUSIC and
Sang 5 songs on the BEYOND INSPIRATION - a tribute to ULI JOHN ROTH
that came out in 2003 on LION MUSIC.

PYRAMAZE - Melancholy Beast 2004 (released Worldwide )
on these fine record companies EMI-Japan / NTS-Replica -Europe/
Melodic Heaven-Korea / Nightmare Records-North America /
MegaHard-Brazil