Darxon

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Darxon
General information
origin Bochum , later Dortmund , Germany
Genre (s) Heavy metal
founding 1983, 1990, 2006 as Noxrad
resolution 1989, 1992
Website http://www.darxon.com/
Founding members
Markus Szart (1983–1985)
Peter Schmidt (1983–1985)
Massimo de Matteis (1983–1988, 1990–1992)
Dominik Hülshorst (1983–1985)
Current occupation
Electric guitar
 Jens Frank (1988–1989, since 2006)
Electric bass
 Jochen Fünders (1988–1989, since 2006)
singing
 Conny Beck (since 2006)
Drums
 Thilo Voiss (since 2006)
former members
Electric guitar
 Michael "Micky" Hebestadt (1985–1988)
Electric bass
 Thomas "Bodo" ​​Smuszynski (1985–1988)
Drums
 Ingo Plass (1985–1988)
Electric guitar
 Wolfgang "Wolla" Böhm (1986–1989)
singing
 Klaus Lemm (1988–1989)
Drums
 Herbert Dreger (1988–1989, † 2012)
Electric guitar
 Frank Dielewski (1990–1992)
Electric guitar
 Thomas Thanscheidt (1990–1992)
Electric bass
 Ingo "Pink" Geiger (1990–1992)
Drums
 Jan Yildiral (1990-1992)
Live and session members
Drums
 Patrick Fa (2006)

Darxon was a heavy metal band from Dortmund (originally Bochum ), which was founded in 1983 and reformed several times. Most recently, it was renamed Noxrad (Darxon backwards). Officially this band is currently on pause.

history

The guitarist Markus Szart and the bassist Peter Schmidt founded Darxon in Bochum in 1983 after they had won Massimo de Matteis, with both Italian and Dutch roots, as a singer and completed themselves with the 17-year-old drummer Dominik Hülshorst. The four musicians from the Ruhr area sent a demo tape to the Bochum label Wishbone Records . Since the heavy metal wave was just rolling in and the market was not yet flooded with bands, they immediately received a record deal and were sent to the studio in the spring of 1984. The only drawback was that very little money was invested in the LP production. The quick shot appeared shortly afterwards and was called Killed in Action . They completed their baptism of fire on stage at the “Heavy Metal Battle” in Hamburg's “Logo”, after which they played in their home region of North Rhine-Westphalia and the music strongholds of Hamburg and Berlin . The EP Tokyo followed in 1985 .

In the winter of 1985, Darxon was completely renovated by Massimo de Matteis. Next to him, who was now the only remaining band boss, Michael "Micky" Hebestadt (guitar), Thomas "Bodo" ​​Smuszynski (bass) and Ingo Plass (drums) formed the new formation. In the summer of 1986 Wolfgang “Wolla” Böhm, who was leaving Stormwind , was added as the second guitarist. This line-up took on the single Holding On . As a further step forward, Darxon opened for Vengeance in the Bochum mine in September 1986 .

The band then separated from the indie label Wishbone and signed a contract with the larger Offenbach label Rockport Records, which was threaded by the manager Willi Wrede . Here the band received a high level of support, which was expressed in a large-scale advertising campaign that consisted of a promotional tour with daily interviews in newspaper offices or radio studios, autograph sessions and a video shoot ( Heartbreaker ). 300 copies of the Single Holding On have now been used as promotional items. In fact, Darxon saw increased airplay as a result . Intensive preparations began for the follow-up album, which had the working title "Love Conquers Them All", but was ultimately titled No Thrills . The Accept guitarist Jörg Fischer was won over for the production .

On June 26, 1987, the band invited to a final party in the studio, at which the guests were animated to form a brilliant choir and to accompany the We Rock the Nation (Cat Bizz), known as the “Darxon anthem” . A European tour should follow the completion in March 1988. There was actually a tour (with Zed Yago ), but it only included twelve dates in Germany. The effort made had "in the meanwhile totally oversaturated market" resulted in no lasting success.

After this tour Ingo Plass made the decision to devote himself exclusively to his studies. He later joined the exiled Germans from the Sleaze band Crash n 'Burn in London . Michael Hebestadt switched to a band called Nero based in Essen . Thomas Smuszynski also jumped out, where he found UDO with the most prominent band. Massimo de Matteis did not leave Darxon, but was practically released because of his solo project . Later, he devoted himself to the composition of film and musical music. Wolfgang Böhm, who had taken on the leading role, intended to re-form Darxon with Stormwind musicians. The line-up for the second half of 1988 and first half of 1989 were: Klaus Lemm (ex-Stormwind; vocals), Böhm (guitar), Jens Frank (guitar), Jochen Fünders (ex- Holy-Moses ; bass) and Herbert Dreger (ex- Holy-Moses; drums). They didn't stay together any longer and the band Darxon didn't exist for a while. There is only one rough mix of a planned record.

Rockport Records saw the contract as not yet fulfilled and made old claims at Darxon's resurrection in 1990, because Mausoleum Records had been selected as the new label home . When the legal hurdles were overcome, singer de Matteis presented his new colleagues, namely Frank Dielewski (guitar), Thomas Thanscheidt (guitar), Ingo "Pink" Geiger (bass) and Jan Yildiral (ex- steeler ; drums). The musicians, who got to know through various activities, were also involved in other projects and consequently no longer embodied the image of a classic band unit. Shortly afterwards, the Gelsenkirchen Rash Studio was rented for an initial production period. Further studio stays were booked in the summer of 1991. This year the band also took part in the German Rock Project and its charity single Let Love Conquer the World . On the 1992 all-star album of the German metal scene, Darxon placed the song Waiting for Your Heart, written by Dielewski and de Matteis .

At the end of October 1991 the tedious work on their own album was completed and was presented to the leading metal press. In the spring of 1992 Shout came out! in the trade. Again the paths of the (already loose) members parted. Yildiral, for example, has a degree in business administration for tourism and started his own business with a travel agency in Herne , while de Matteis became an attorney for copyright and media law.

Under the direction of Jens Frank, a Darxon offshoot was created in early 2006, which was called Noxrad after some confusion of names and only performed live. In addition to Frank, he also includes the former member Jochen Fünders and the singer Conny Beck. Patrick Fa initially helped out on the pull before a permanent drummer was found in Thilo Voiss. The group is currently paused.

style

music

The Musikexpress described the music style of the debut as simple, strongly traditional hard rock with "small, original ideas" and boogie moments reminiscent of ZZ Top . In Metal Hammer it was described as "no frills, straightforward hard rock". In his book The Collector's Guide of Heavy Metal Volume 2: The Eighties , Popoff drew a comparison to Krokus on the album Killed in Action . The album was released at a time that was heavily influenced by Accept and you could like Darxon's music, but you don't have to. The band improved slightly on Tokyo . You can still hear parallels to Krokus, but new influences such as Axewitch , Highway Chile , Keen Hue and Gravestone have been added. Jens Schmiedeberg wrote about the EP in the Metal Hammer that it contained “power songs”, one “slow”, one “medium-heavy”, one “speedy”, one “melodic”.

The line- up, who made their debut with Holding On , was classified in the Metal Hammer under the Ratt / Dokken category. A little later Uwe Lerch described the new pieces performed live in the Crash as "posig-driving melodic songs". Metal Hammer said of the finished album that it was intelligently arranged and always catchy. In terms of guitar technology, the spectrum ranges from "simple" ( Heartbreaker ) to "complicated" ( Hungry for Love ), vocally it is ambivalent, whereby the ballad Don't Give Up is a positive counterpart to the messed up passages. In the Musikexpress it received the rating "liquid metal rock", which sounds like Los Angeles origins. With Götz Kühnemund it read more ambiguously in Metal Hammer / Crash : “Party Metal with simple arrangements and catchy refrains”. The "processing of all rock'n'roll clichés" is striking.

Regarding Shout! Burkhard Schröder said in the Metal Hammer that there was a “skilful mixture of pressure and melody”, the weaknesses of which are the chorus repetition and a riff resemblance. Jens Reimnitz ( Horror Infernal ) summed up that the album was "hard rock with catchy melodies, simple riffs, but occasionally impulsive heaviness", as it was modern in 1984. Ute Linhart posed in Heavy, or what !? found out that a block of “mid-tempo rocker” is followed by another with “fast-paced” songs, separated by Waiting for Your Heart , a “ Schnulze , how banal it never gets”. According to the Musikexpress , “[t] he spiritual kinship with bands like AC / DC , Mötley Crüe or Great White ” is expressed in the “ten compact songs” produced with “pure power”. In Metal Hammer of May 1992, an association from the 1988 Musikexpress was taken up by saying that Darxon was in "the tradition of LA-formatted Metals".

According to his own statement from 1984, Darxon is stylistically close to Judas Priest , AC / DC, Gary Moore and Van Halen . In 1987, Dokken, Queensrÿche , Judas Priest and Whitesnake were named as influences.

Texts

On No Thrills, the spectrum ranges from fun text in a comic cat milieu ( We Rock The Nation ) to consumer criticism ( No Thrills ). On shout! After the fall of the Wall, the predominant issue is disorientation and frustration within society for economic and political reasons . De Matteis declared in 1992 that he did not want to fake dream images of a carefree life as a musician, parties and drugs. “I'm [...] rather Eurocentric, I take up problems. For me that has more to do with heavy metal. "

Discography

  • 1984: Killed in Action (Album, Wishbone Records)
  • 1985: Tokyo (EP, Wishbone Records)
  • 1986: Holding On (Single, Wishbone Records / Project Records)
  • 1987: No Thrills (album, Rockport Records)
  • 1992: Shout! (Album, Mausoleum Records )

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ HERBERT DREGER RIP February 9, 2012. In: bourbon-street-online.de. Retrieved September 21, 2014 .
  2. ↑ a b c d Anonymous: Darxon . In: Metal Hammer . Hard Rock & Heavy Metal Poster Magazine! September 1984, p. 13 .
  3. ↑ Götz Kühnemund: Darxon. Killed in action. In: rockhard.de. Retrieved on September 27, 2015 (from issue No. 7).
  4. ↑ Jens Frank: Current. (No longer available online.) In: darxon.com. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016 ; accessed on September 21, 2014 . 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. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.darxon.com
  5. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Martin Groß: Shout! Darxon. In: Metal Hammer . May 1992, p. 154 .
  6. ↑ a b Anonymous: Darxon . In: Metal Hammer . September 1986, German Metal, p. 35 .
  7. ↑ Götz Kühnemund : Vengeance / Darxon . Colliery, Bochum, September 25, 1986. In: Metal Hammer . November 1986, Live on Stage, p. 31 (Special Service) .
  8. ↑ a b c d e Jens [Reimnitz]: Darxon . German band with international standards! In: Horror Infernal . [End of year], 1987, p. 43 .
  9. ↑ a b c d e Irene Vögeli: Darxon . In: Metal Hammer . November 1987, p. 38 .
  10. ↑ a b c Oliver Klemm: Darxon . On the way to the radio… In: Metal Hammer . January 1988, p. 33 .
  11. ↑ a b Anonymus: Kirmesmusikanten . In: Crash . March 1987, Metal Splitter, p. 4 .
  12. ↑ Anonymous: We Rock The Nation… Darxon. In: Metal Hammer . September 1987, German Metal, p. 43 .
  13. ↑ a b Götz Kühnemund: Darxon, Zed Yago . Bochum, colliery. March 21, 1988. In: Metal Hammer / Crash . May 1988, Live on Stage, p. 113 .
  14. ↑ Persian Gorgrinder: Darxon, Traditional Heavy Metal. In: metalarea.org. August 3, 2010, accessed September 21, 2014 .
  15. ^ A b c d Anonymus: News from the Darxon camp . In: Metal Hammer . July 1988, German Metal News, p. 38 .
  16. ↑ Biography. (No longer available online.) In: rockdetector.com. Archived from the original on November 10, 2014 ; accessed on September 22, 2014 . 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. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.rockdetector.com
  17. ↑ a b Jochen Fünders: Darxon. In: fuenders.net. Retrieved September 21, 2014 .
  18. ↑ a b Burkhard Schröder: Darxon . Shout! In: Metal Hammer . February 1992, p. 51 .
  19. ↑ a b Andreas Schöwe: Darxon . The Third Try. In: Metal Hammer . November 1991, p. 164 .
  20. ↑ Anonymous: The dead live longer! In: Rock Hard . No. 53 (August / September), 1991, News, pp. 10 .
  21. ^ JG: Steeler (D). History. (No longer available online.) In: hardharderheavy.de. March 2, 2012, archived from the original on April 28, 2015 ; accessed on September 21, 2014 . 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. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.hardharderheavy.de
  22. ↑ [Jan Yildiral]: Consultant profile 206629 - Jan Yildiral Wiese. (No longer available online.) In: reisonaut.de. November 4, 2013, archived from the original on January 22, 2014 ; accessed on September 21, 2014 . 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. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.reisonaut.de
  23. ↑ Jens Frank: Miscellaneous. Massimo de Matteis. (No longer available online.) In: darxon.com. Archived from the original on August 10, 2016 ; accessed on September 21, 2014 . 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. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.darxon.com
  24. ↑ News. Darxon → Darxxon → Noxrad. (No longer available online.) In: underground-empire.com. February 3, 2006, archived from the original on March 4, 2016 ; accessed on September 21, 2014 . 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. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.underground-empire.com
  25. ^ Andreas Kraatz: The Metallians take command . Darxon. In: Musikexpress . July 1984, Hard Rock / Heavy Metal, p. 84 .
  26. ↑ Andreas Weiß: Avenger, Stormwind, Darxon . Wishbone Festival, Bochum / Zeche - 13.1.85. In: Metal Hammer . February 1985, p. 61 .
  27. ^ Martin Popoff : The Collector's Guide of Heavy Metal . tape 2 : The Eighties . Collectors Guide Ltd, Burlington, Ontario, Canada 2005, ISBN 1-894959-31-0 , p. 86 .
  28. ^ Jens Schmiedeberg: Darxon . Tokyo. In: Metal Hammer . October 1985, Maxis, p. 91 .
  29. ↑ Uwe Lerch: Darxon . In: Crash . February 1987, On Stage, p. 78 .
  30. ↑ Winfried Kuhl: Darxon . No thrills. In: Metal Hammer . October 1987, p. 33 .
  31. ^ Andreas Kraatz: Darxon . No thrills. In: Musikexpress . January 1988, p. 93 .
  32. ↑ Jens Reimnitz: Darxon . Shout. In: Horror Infernal . No. 34 , February 1992, Sound Check, p. 30 .
  33. ↑ Ute Linhart: Darxon . Shout. In: Heavy, or what !? No. 2 (April / May / June), 1992, Tough Stuff, pp. 32 .
  34. ↑ H [enning] R [ichter]: Darxon . Shout. In: Musikexpress . May 1992, Metal, p. 120 .