The Great Kat

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The Great Kat
General information
Genre (s) Speed ​​metal
founding 1986
Website http://www.greatkat.com
Founding members
The Great Kat
Tom from Doom
Adam Killa
Current occupation
Singing, guitar, violin
 The Great Kat
bass
 Jeff Ingegno
Drums
 Lionel Cordew
former members
bass
 Chip Marshall
Drums
 Kevin Dedario
Drums
 Scott Borrero

The Great Kat (* 1966 in Swindon , real name: Katherine Thomas) is an American metal guitarist and singer. With her band she plays classical music in speed metal guise. She describes her style as "Shred / Classical Music".

biography

Katherine Thomas was born in 1966 in a US Air Force hospital in Swindon, Great Britain . Her family moved back to the United States when she was three. Characterized by the Viennese classical music at an early age , she began to learn the piano when she was seven . At nine she received violin lessons . Six years later she received a scholarship at the renowned Juilliard School . There she won numerous awards and after graduating she went on tour with the violin through the USA, Mexico and Europe.

During this time she was already taking guitar lessons and began looking for a new field of activity. She began to combine classical music with speed metal and gave herself the name "The Great Kat". Her first demo Satan Says from 1986 caught the interest of the record company Roadrunner Records , which she eventually signed. The first album was released in 1987 with the title Worship me or Die! . It consisted only of original compositions, but a clear reference to the classical music was evident. She had hired bassists Tom Von Doom (later with Cycle Sluts From Hell ) and Adam Killa as backing musicians .

Beethoven on Speed , the follow-up album, is based on a different concept: On this album, The Great Kat plays cover versions of Ludwig van Beethoven and Niccolò Paganini with the guitar, in addition to his own compositions and the piece Der Hummelflug by Nikolai Andrejewitsch Rimski-Korsakow . The latter is considered to be one of the fastest guitar pieces of all time and earned the artist several entries in the top lists of various guitar magazines.

After Roadrunner had canceled the contract, she released "albums" on various record companies, which lasted no longer than 15 minutes and are actually EPs . These followed the same concept as Beethoven on Speed , however pieces by Gioachino Rossini , Richard Wagner and Antonio Vivaldi were used here. Her live shows went further and further into the BDSM area, as did her image.

reception

Her controversial image and her absolute self-conviction, as well as her lightly dressed style with the addition of extreme poses repeatedly caused mockery and ridicule in the metal scene . So she poses on the record covers lightly clad with rivets and cartridge belts and contorts her face in the process. Your musical abilities remain unaffected and are well recognized in the scene. However, her singing style is often described as inaudible. After the first albums, the exotic bonus was gone and The Great Kat sank again in the underground .

" " I'll explain to you the exact theory behind The Great Kat's "provocative" image: The Great Kat is taking highly complex classical masterpieces of Beethoven, Bach, Paganini, Mozart , Vivaldi (music that is out of the intellectual reach of the average idiot) and bringing these masterpieces to them, by wearing provocative clothes, leather, vinyl, whips and chains, so as to distract the morons from the musical complexities of the genius composers, by targeting directly to their penises — which is where their brains are located! " "

- The Great Kat : Interview with Rock Eyez

Discography

  • 1986: Satan Says (demo)
  • 1987: Worship Me or Die!
  • 1990: Beethoven on Speed
  • 1996: Digital Beethoven on Cyberspeed (EP)
  • 1997: Guitar Goddess (EP)
  • 1998: Bloody Vivaldi (EP)
  • 2000: Rossini's Rape (EP)
  • 2002: Wagner's War (EP)
  • 2005: Extreme Guitar Shred (DVD)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Biography on the official homepage
  2. ↑ a b biography in the Allmusic Guide
  3. ↑ Stratmann, Holger (Ed.): Rock Hard Lexikon, Dortmund (Rock Hard GmbH), 1998, ISBN 3980517101 , p. 190
  4. ^ Beethoven on Speed in the All Music Guide
  5. ↑ Interview with Rock Eyez

Web links

personal data
SURNAME The Great Kat
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Thomas, Katherine (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American metal guitarist and violinist
DATE OF BIRTH 1966
PLACE OF BIRTH Swindon , England