Ricky van Helden

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Ricky van Helden

Ricky van Helden (born June 18, 1959 in Nienburg / Weser ) is a German rock musician, producer, composer and lyricist; he founded u. a. in 1984 the group ATTACK .

Musical career

At the age of twelve Ricky van Helden was a fan of the British glam rock group T. Rex , which soon made him interested in congas and to learn them too. At the age of 14 he started playing the drums and at the same time self-taught on different instruments. Inspired by bands like Jethro Tull , Led Zeppelin and Rush , his desire for an independent path in the music industry solidified early on. Today he is referred to as a multi-instrumentalist because, in addition to bass and Drums, also keyboards , electric / acoustic guitar, cello and flute plays. He is also a singer.

Ricky van Helden (1980)

In the early 1980s he worked as a studio musician in Hanover and played drums with the progressive rock group LYRA , with whom he performed at various open-air festivals and played drums in clubs in northern Germany. After LYRA disbanded in 1983, he founded the rock band ATTACK a short time later, where he composed and arranged almost all of the group's songs as bassist and singer. With ATTACK , Ricky van Helden has recorded a total of nine studio albums to date; including works such as Destinies of War (1989), Seven Years in the Past (1992) and The Secret Place (1995), which finally helped him to gain further international fame. In addition, he took over not only the musical, but also the technical management of some productions and worked as a producer and sound engineer .

Ricky van Helden (1985)

In 1992 he founded the Iceland-Records label , after opening his own recording studio a year earlier, and from then on he produced, in addition to ATTACK , a number of other bands and performers from the most varied of musical styles.

Ricky van Helden's musical spectrum ranges from symphonic sounds to melodic Power Metal , with occasional classical elements such as Edvard Grieg ; Modest Mussorgsky and Johann Sebastian Bach flow in, while the text is mainly devoted to medieval and mystical themes. Occasionally, however, socially critical statements can also be found in his texts. His better-known pieces include the epic Death Rider , the ballad Walk Alone , and On the run , which, in addition to songs by bands such as Angra , Running Wild and Stratovarius, was featured on the Pure Metal Sampler Vol. 2 was released.

Ricky van Helden in the Jovel Music Hall

After the recordings of the ATTACK album Deadlocked , Ricky van Helden withdrew from the music scene in 1998, completely unexpectedly and for reasons not yet known, and has since worked alone in his studio on various new projects.

In 2011 he took over the pre- mastering and editing for a re-release of the 1995 ATTACK album The Secret Place , which was released in Greece as a limited vinyl and CD version in the same year, as well as the production of the 80-minute album ATTACK compilation Warriors of Time , which was released in Europe and South America.

Discography

Compositions (selection)

  • Mouse In A Maze 1984, single ATTACK, 2 tracks
  • Danger In The Air 1984, LP ATTACK, 8 tracks
  • Return Of The Evil 1985, LP ATTACK, 9 tracks
  • Beastkiller , 1996, CD ATTACK, 10 tracks
  • Destinies Of War , 1989, CD ATTACK, 10 tracks
  • Seven Years In The Past , 1993, CD ATTACK, 10 tracks
  • Revitalize , 1994, CD ATTACK, 15 tracks
  • The Secret Place , 1995, CD ATTACK, 9 tracks
  • Deadlocked , 1996, CD ATTACK, 7 tracks

Sampler contributions

  • On the run , 1994, CD Pure Metal Vol. 2

Producer activities (selection)

  • Destinies Of War ATTACK 1989
  • End Of Society’s ENTOPHYTE 1992
  • Dig It Man! WHITE MAN BURNT 1993
  • The Secret Place ATTACK 1995
  • Another One Sucks The Dust DUSTSUCKER 1996
  • Fear Of Silence HORUS 1996
  • Warriors of Time ATTACK 2011

Iceland-Records (selection)

  • Seven Years In The Past ATTACK 1992
  • California SONACAY 1992
  • Return Of The Evil ATTACK 1993
  • Gonna Get Ya HEXASS 1994
  • In Memory Of Bon Scott BIG BALLS 1997
  • Fortune Memories SPECIAL EXPERIMENT 1998

literature

  • Matthias Mader, Otger Jeske, Arno Hofmann: Heavy Metal made in Germany . IP Verlag, 1998, ISBN 3-931624-08-0 .
  • Martin Popoff : The Collecor's Guide to Heavy Metal . Collectors Guide Pub., 2003, ISBN 1-896522-32-7 .
  • Matthias Herr: Matthias Herr's Heavy Metal Lexicon Vol. 5 . In-house production 1996

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A blast from the past: intervista a Ricky Van Helden (Attack). metalskunk.com (Italian), accessed September 24, 2012 .
  2. ↑ metal1.info ( Memento of the original from October 29, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.metal1.info
  3. ↑ attackmetal.com , accessed on August 22, 2012
  4. ↑ lastfm.de  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.lastfm.de  
  5. ^ Discogs.com , accessed August 21, 2012
  6. ↑ musik-sammler.de
  7. ^ The Valley Of The Damned. ( Memento from May 7, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  8. ↑ metalexpressradio.com
personal data
SURNAME Heroes, Ricky van
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German rock musician
DATE OF BIRTH June 18, 1959
PLACE OF BIRTH Nienburg