The Lords of the New Church

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The Lords of the New Church
General information
Genre (s) Post-punk , Gothic rock
founding 1981
resolution 1989
Website Lords of the New Church ( January 25, 2008 memento in the Internet Archive )
Last occupation
Stiv Bators
Brian James
Dave Tregunna
Drums
 Danny Fury
former members
Drums
 Nick Turner
Electric bass
 Grant Flemming
Electric guitar
 Alistair Simmons

The Lords of the New Church (English "the gentlemen of the New Church" ) was a band that was founded in 1981 and whose members came from the US and the British punk scene.

Singer Stiv Bators was a founding member of the Dead Boys , guitarist Brian James came from The Damned , bassist Dave Tregunna previously played with Sham 69 , and Nick Turner had drummed with The Baracudas . The music style of the Lords of the New Church contained elements from punk rock and is attributed to gothic rock or post-punk .

history

Stiv Bators and Brian James met in April 1977 at The Damned concert at the CBGB . The contact was intensified during a joint tour of England by the bands Dead Boys and The Damned. In 1980 they formed a band called Dead Damned Sham Band together with Dave Tregunna, formerly with Sham 69 and ex-The Damned drummer Rat Scabies. The group only gave one concert, however, when Scabies was replaced by Nick Turner.

In this line-up, the band called themselves The Lords of the New Church, based on the song New Church from the album Crossing the Red Sea with The Adverts by The Adverts . The Lords of the New Church recorded a first album in 1982, which was also called The Lords of the New Church . Although the studio album was well received, the single Open Your Eyes reached number 27 on the Billboard charts , the live concerts received more attention, especially due to the spectacular performance of Bators, who often risked his life for the stage show and himself there suffered numerous injuries. At one point, he almost strangled himself from the habit of swinging the microphone cable around his neck several times during the performance.

The band released their second album, Is Nothing Sacred? . With the single Dance with Me , the band also reached a younger audience, as the title was played on MTV. The third studio album, The Method to Our Madness , was recorded by heavy metal producer Chris Tsangarides in a historic palace near Nice and released in 1984. The album debuted at number 158 on the Billboard 200 . A corruption of Madonna's song Like a Virgin was also released as a single in 1985.

In May 1985 the record contract with IRS Records was dissolved. In addition, there were always changes in the line-up of musicians, mainly due to financial problems. Tregunna was temporarily replaced by Grant Flemming, but then came back. The guitarist Alistair Simmons was accepted for a short time, but then released. Turner left the band and was replaced by Danny Fury.

In 1985 the Lords of the New Church, entitled Method to my Madness, played in the background of the American comedy film LISA , and in 1986 the song Good to be Bad was part of the soundtrack for the horror film Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 .

In 1988 the live double album Scene of the Crime , which had been recorded on January 19, 1985 in the Volkshaus in Zurich , and the concert album Live at the Spit with recordings from the USA tour in 1984, were released. The album Second Coming , which was released in 1989 as a split LP together with the band The Evil Boys, a brief reunion of the Dead Boys , was created during the tour in 1988 in Germany .

After Bators was injured again and James was looking for a temporary replacement for the singer via a complaint, the disagreements reached their climax and the band broke up. At the last concert in 1989, Bators ostentatiously wore a T-shirt with the newspaper advertisement for James' search ad printed on it.

Perception in the press

Bernd Matheja from Musikexpress confirms the authors Bators and James in his review of the debut album entitled The Lords of the New Church from 1982 that they delivered “splendid refrains with a high recognition value”, around which “pleasantly simple verses” are created. In the musical style he hears remnants of punk and garage rock . As a conclusion, he describes the album as "the most wonderful trash of this year so far - powerful and amusing".

In his review of the album on Allmusic, Bill Casse also recognizes the band's roots in punk rock, but does not consider The Lords of the New Church to be an average punk band. In Bators he sees “the face, mouth and heart of the group”. Bators throw himself into the "role of rock 'n' roll poet, priest and prophet" and show "lyrical maturity". The Lords of the New Church is an artifact of the Ronald Reagan era, and Bators' core message of personal freedom is conveyed with zeal and sincerity.

In her review for the Musikexpress about a concert by the Lords of the New Church in Los Angeles at Whiskey a Go Go in the fall of 1982, Silvie Simmons writes of "well-cooked musicians, vital songs" and "excellent melodies". In part, the band sounds “massive, psycho- delic” [sic!] And “lets themselves be carried away with their background vocals to a mixture of punk and Gregorian choirs ”.

Bill Casse sees Is Nothing Sacred? the strong influence of the Rolling Stones , as such he thinks it is "very good, well played and entertaining". In his review from 1984, which he wrote for the Musikexpress , Harald Inhülsen describes the second studio album Is Nothing Sacred? as a "piano-pregnant pop album". He considers the third album, The Method to Our Madness , to be “a true heavy metal album with hard rock 'n' roll guitars”; he sees the influence of the Ramones and writes that Stiv Bators still spread the "rude charm of an Alice Cooper with his frenetic singing", while Brian James planted his "heavy guitar escapades".

Discography (selection)

Singles

  • 1982 New Church
  • 1982 Open Your Eyes / A Question of Temperature
  • 1982 Russian Roulette
  • 1983 Dance With Me
  • 1984 M-Style
  • 1985 Like a Virgin (cover of Madonna )
  • 1985 When the Blood Runs Cold / Gun Called Justice
  • 1987 Making Time
  • 1987 A Question of Temperature / Fortune Teller
  • 1987 Dance with Me (1987 Version) / Walking the Dog

Studio albums

  • 1982 The Lords of the New Church
  • 1983 Is Nothing Sacred?
  • 1984 The Method to Our Madness

compilation

  • 1985 Killer Lords

Live albums

  • 1988 Scene of the Crime (double album) mainly recorded in the Volkshaus Zurich on January 19, 1985.
  • 1988 Live at the Spit USA tour 1984
  • 1989 Second Coming Split-LP with The Evil-Boys / The Lords of The New Church, recorded during the BRD tour, 1988

Later publications

  • 2000 Anthology
  • 2002 The Lords Prayers (double album with live recordings from 1985 and 1988)
  • 2003 Farewell Tour 1988 (Live Album)
  • 2003 Stories at Dusk (compilation)
  • 2006 Lords of the New Church - Live from London recorded at the Marquee Club , 1984
  • 2007 Rockers (compilation)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Bill Casse: The Lords of the New Church - Artist Biography. Allmusic , accessed November 9, 2014 .
  2. ↑ Dave Thompson : Alternative Rock . 1st edition. Miller Freemann Inc., Berkley 2000, ISBN 0-87930-607-6 , pp. 466 f .
  3. ^ A b Bill Casse: The Lords of the New Church - Review. Allmusic, accessed November 9, 2014 .
  4. ↑ a b Awards. Allmusic, accessed November 9, 2014 .
  5. ↑ a b Bill Casse: Is Nothing Sacred? Allmusic, accessed on November 16, 2014 .
  6. ^ Devorah Ostrov: The Lords of the New Church . Interview # 1 . In: Rave-Up Fanzine (USA) . No. 9 , 1984 ( online at angelsinexile.com [accessed May 1, 2015]).
  7. ↑ a b Harald Inhülsen : The Lords Of The New Church - The method to our madness . In: Musikexpress . No. 11 , 1984, pp. 72 .
  8. ^ Devorah Ostrov: The Lords of the New Church . Interview # 2 . In: Rave-Up Fanzine (USA) . No. 12 , 1986 ( online at angelsinexile.com [accessed May 1, 2015]).
  9. ^ The Lords of the New Church. IMDb , accessed November 16, 2014 .
  10. ↑ The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986) - Soundtracks. IMDb, accessed November 16, 2014 .
  11. ^ Dave Thompson: The Lords of the New Church - Live at the Spit. Allmusic, accessed on November 16, 2014 .
  12. ↑ mr: Lords Of The New Church - Second Coming . In: Musikexpress . No. 8 , 1989, pp. 78 .
  13. ↑ Bernd Matheja: The Lords Of The New Church . In: Musikexpress . No. 10 , 1982, pp. 67 .
  14. ^ Sylvie Simmons: Lords Of The New Church - Los Angeles, whiskey . In: Musikexpress . No. 12 , 1982, pp. 43 .

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