Christian Death
| Christian Death | |
|---|---|
 Wave-Gotik-Treffen 2014 |
|
| General information | |
| origin | los Angeles |
| Genre (s) |
Christian Death (under Rozz Williams)
Christian Death (under Valor)
Christian Death feat. Rozz Williams
|
| founding | 1979 |
| Website | www.christiandeath.com |
| Founding members | |
singing |
Rozz Williams † |
guitar |
Rikk Agnew |
guitar |
Jay |
bass |
James McGearty |
Drums |
George Belanger |
| Current occupation | |
Singing, various instruments |
Valor Kand |
Vocals, bass, keyboard |
Maitri |
Drums |
Mike 'Twenty Six' Monroe |
| former members | |
Drums |
David Glass |
Vocals, keyboard |
Gitane Demone |
singing |
Sevan Kand |
Background vocals, guitar |
Eva Ortiz |
guitar |
Charles Lannahan |
Drums |
Jason Frantz |
Christian Death is a death rock band from the western USA .
history
Christian Death was founded in Los Angeles in 1979 by Roger Allen Painter alias Rozz Williams († 1998). The band name was intended as an ironic reference to Christian Dior . The band broke up in 1981, but reformed in the same year with the new band members James McGearty, George Belanger and Rikk Agnew. In 1984 Valor Kand of Pompeii 99 became aware of Christian Death, which meant that he joined the band shortly afterwards together with David Glass and Gitane Demone (both also Pompeii 99).
Due to internal disputes and problems with Williams' drug addiction, the latter left the band, whose head is now Valor. Valor acquired the naming rights. The dark post-punk variant that was initially present in Christian Death and which was common in America, as well as some other styles under the name Death-Rock , was played by Christian Death under Rozz Williams up to and including around 1984. Christian Death played here in contrast to other bands , which were also attributed to death rock, such as B. 45 Grave , a style clearly influenced by Gothic Rock and Gothic Punk . Later Christian Death took back the parts of punk and played a variant of Gothic Rock from Ashes and partly already on Catastrophe Ballet, which was also called the archetype of American Gothic . With the release of Sex, Drugs and Jesus Christ under the direction of Valor Kand, the style of Christian Death changed. The band took up more elements of alternative metal and increasingly distanced themselves from death rock. In addition, the externally communicated meaning of the name Christian Death changed: “ For sin and sacrifice we must die a Christian death. From then on, a large part of the Christian Death fan community was divided into two camps: Rozz and Valor fans. After a certain period of time, Rozz Williams released numerous CDs under the name Christian Death on the Cleopatra label, but with the addition “feat. Rozz Williams ”. This includes reworking of old Christian Death songs like on The Iron Mask (1992). Invocations (1993) is a collection of live recordings with sometimes very bad sound from 1981 and 1982, a recording of David Bowie's Dodo from 1989, when Rozz Williams was no longer a member of Christian Death (it is So most likely the recording of one of his solo projects), as well as soundproof demo recordings from 1983 and 1985. The vast majority of these albums consist of older material or newly recorded versions of older songs. In spite of this, or perhaps precisely because of this, the album Invocations is quite popular among old Christian Death fans, as it revives the charm from the band's early days, in particular the extraordinary, exalted vocal style of Rozz Williams, who sometimes deliberately sings the lyrics less and more shouts out screaming. Completely new albums followed under the label "Christian Death feat. Rozz Williams", such as The Path of Sorrows (1993) or The Rage of Angels (1994). On the latter, Panic in Detroit was a cover version of an old David Bowie song, which was later remixed by various artists , which in turn was released as a compilation under the title Death in Detroit on the Cleopatra label.
The band attracted attention not only because of their music, but also because of the associated - provocative - political and anti-religious statements.
Follow-up and solo projects
Rozz Williams
- Shadow Project
- Premature ejaculation
- Daucus Karota
- Solo releases under Rozz Williams
Gitane Demone
- The Crystelles
- Demonix
- Solo releases under Gitane Demone
Rikk Agnew
- Adolescents
- Solo releases under Rikk Agnew
Discography
Christian Death with Rozz Williams
- Only Theater of Pain (1982)
- Deathwish (1983)
- The Iron Mask (1992, rerecorded 2001)
- Skeleton Kiss (1992, EP)
- The Path of Sorrows (1993)
- The Rage of Angels (1994)
- Iconologia (1994)
- Sleepless Nights (1994)
- Dolls Theater (1994)
- Death in Detroit (1995)
- Best of Christian Death (1999)
Christian Death with Rozz Williams and Valor Kand
- Catastrophe Ballet (1984)
- Ashes (1985)
Christian Death with Valor Kand
- Believers of the Unpure (1985, EP)
- The Wind Kissed Pictures (1985)
- The Decomposition of Violets (1985)
- Atrocities (1986)
- An Official Anthology of Live Bootlegs (1986)
- The Scriptures (1987)
- Jesus Christ Proudly Presents (1987)
- What's the Verdict? (1988, EP)
- Church of No Return (1988, EP)
- Sex & Drugs & Jesus Christ (1988)
- Zero Sex (1989, EP)
- The Heretics Alive (1989)
- All the Love, All the Hate - Part 1 + 2 (1989)
- Insanus, Ultio, Proditio, Misericordiaque (1990)
- Jesus Points the Bone at You? (1991)
- Sexy Death God (1994)
- Amen (1995)
- Prophecies (1996)
- Pornographic Messiah (1998)
- The Bible (2000)
- Born Again Anti Christian (2001)
- Lover of Sin (2003)
- American Inquisition (2007)
- The Root Of All Evilution (2015)
literature
- Nico B. (Ed.): The Art of Rozz Williams. Last Gasp, San Francisco 1999, ISBN 978-0-86719-493-7 .
Web links
- Official website
- Christian Death at laut.de
- Rozz Williams fansite
- Obituary for Rozz Williams in Rolling Stone
Footnotes
- ↑ a b c shufflemag.com ( Memento of the original from March 18, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b powermetal.de
- ↑ According to information on the website, over 30 members have contributed to record releases so far. Only names that appear over a longer period of at least three years and on at least three albums are mentioned here.
- ↑ Also called Gitane de Mone on earlier albums .
- ↑ The son of Valor Kand and Gitane Demone appears for the first time on Ashes , where his baby cries are mixed with a song, and he also appears again and again later.
- ↑ suicide. For the background (alcohol and heroin addiction as well as manic-depressive illness) see article in the New York Times of April 14, 1998.
- ↑ Undated interview with Hip Magazine ( Memento from July 25, 2001 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Dave Thompson, Kirsten Borchardt: Shadow World - Heroes and Legends of Gothic Rock. 2004, ISBN 3-85445-236-5 , p. 361.
- ↑ resurrection-dead.de ( Memento of the original from March 18, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ rockdetector.com ( Memento of the original from December 1, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ The album Sex & Drugs & Jesus Christ, for example, originally shows a Jesus injecting heroin, the cover has been replaced by an alternative version in Germany.
- ↑ Only EPs are listed that are not purely extracts from albums, i.e. mostly contain otherwise unreleased material.
