War & Peace
| War & Peace | |
|---|---|
| General information | |
| origin | Los Angeles , California , United States |
| Genre (s) | Hard rock , progressive rock |
| founding | 1989 as Flesh & Blood |
| Founding members | |
| Jeff Pilson | |
Electric guitar |
Randy Hansen |
E-bass, keyboard |
Michael Diamond |
| Vinny Appice | |
| Current occupation | |
Vocals, electric guitar, electric bass |
Jeff Pilson |
Electric guitar |
Daniel Irmas |
Electric guitar |
Alex Masi |
Drums |
Michael Frowein |
| former members | |
Electric guitar |
Darren Housholder |
Electric guitar |
Russ "Satchel" Parrish |
Electric bass |
Tommy "Hendrix" Henriksen |
Drums |
Ricky Parent |
Drums |
James Kottak |
Drums |
Bartholomew Toff |
War & Peace is the Los Angeles , California- based band of ex- Dokken bassist Jeff Pilson . It was founded in 1989 under the name Flesh & Blood and experienced frequent line-up changes, so that multi-instrumentalist Pilson sometimes changed instruments or operated several instruments on album recordings.
history
After the breakup of Dokken in early 1989 (the band he was a member of for six years and whose wave of success he had seen), Jeff Pilson formed his own band in Los Angeles, which he called Flesh & Blood. He, who had played bass with Dokken, now took over the vocals and the rhythm guitar . The bass was played by Michael Diamond, formerly the band leader of Legs Diamond and who has been cooperating with Pilson for some time. For the lead guitar they found a blank slate in Randy Hansen, while the selected drummer Vinny Appice could already show engagements with the genre greats Black Sabbath and Dio . Hansen left the group in 1990 and was replaced by Darren Housholder, who would later become a Love / Hate guitarist, who had just left the music college . The band structure did not work in this composition, however, so that Pilson tried out different musicians for more months, which had totaled a year and a half since the end of Dokken, until he met ex- Doro bassist Tommy "Hendrix" Henriksen in November 1990 , with whom he harmonized - also in terms of songwriting . The assignment of the other instruments came naturally with Russ "Satchel" Parrish on guitar and Ricky Parent on drums.
There had also been problems with the band name because the names were identical, which is why it was now War & Peace. In the spring and early summer of 1991 the band rehearsed and passed the live baptism of fire in around a dozen concerts on the east coast . Then she took a break to record a demo with the pieces Can't Slow Down , Sticky Situation and Hard Times for Love . With showcases and the demo, they introduced themselves to the record companies in New York and received an offer from Titanium Records, which Badlands and Tuff had under contract. Since Parrish maintained relationships with Shrapnel Records in California through his musician friend Paul Gilbert and his band Racer X , the contract was signed there. The album Time Capsule was released in 1993. Only the opening track Can't Slow Down was taken from the demo tape .
It wasn't until 1999 that Pilson, who was temporarily employed in other bands, let himself be heard again, albeit not with the result of songwriting in the meantime, but with the unused original recordings that were still made under the name Flesh & Blood, i.e. with the crumbling line-up Pilson, Hansen , Diamond and Appice. The title of the album suggests the retrospective: The Flesh and Blood Sessions . The next War & Peace album Light at the End of the Tunnel from 2001 cannot necessarily be called a band album, because the line-up changes from song to song, the only constant besides Pilson is the Scorpions drummer James Kottak at the time . On the 2004 album The Walls Have Eyes (Z Records), which is no longer bound to Shrapnel and which contains twelve songs, Pilson finally played all instruments himself except for the drums. Michael Frowein took over the drums on five pieces and Bartholomew Toff on seven drums Percussion . The guitarists Daniel Irmas and Alex Masi only contributed an additional guitar track or a solo.
Pilson also has a friendship with Tommy Henriksen, which is also expressed in a joint project called Underground Moon (where Pilson calls himself “Dominic Moon”). Their joint album was released in 2001 and was re-released in 2008. The sessions album was also re-released . In 2013 it was released, visually spiced up, provided with liner notes and expanded by an unpublished recording in which Darren Housholder (after his love / hate time as a soloist with Shrapnel under contract) participated.
style
Jeff Pilson described the musical concept of War & Peace as “heavy grooves with strong melodies”, just as Dokken did. And he doesn't shy away from harmonies either . The Metal Hammer used the formula "strong melodies with a lot of power". Discogs assigned the albums to hard rock . In contrast, the Internet music sites notreble.com and barstoolrockers.com rely on progressive metal .
On hooked-on-music.de the album Light at the End of the Tunnel is analyzed in detail and it is found that influences from Pilsons previous bands Dokken and Dio are recognizable. In the case of Dokken, you don't hear the “radio-friendly mainstream rock” from Under Lock and Key , but their “hard rocking” side. From the Dio album Angry Machines , Pilson picked the song he had written by himself and expanded it here compositionally; he changed the title slightly. The review also notes "a proper reference to early queen ". Overall, the work is a "timeless [s] heavy rock album" with "sometimes bulky [m] song material".
Discography
- 1993: Time Capsule (Shrapnel Records)
- 1999: The Flesh and Blood Sessions (Radio Media Records)
- 2001: Light at the End of the Tunnel (Shrapnel Records)
- 2004: The Walls Have Eyes (Z Records)
- 2013: The Flesh and Blood Sessions (expanded re-release; Deadline Records)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c War & Peace: War & Peace to Release The Flesh and Blood Sessions on 4/23/2013. In: screamermagazine.com. March 12, 2013, accessed December 2, 2018 .
- ↑ a b c War & Peace. Profile. In: discogs.com. Accessed December 2, 2018 .
- ↑ a b c Liner notes from the re-released album The Flesh and Blood Sessions , 2013.
- ↑ a b c d Chris Welch: War and Peace . In: Metal Hammer . The international hard rock & heavy metal poster magazine. July 1991, p. 131 .
- ↑ a b c d War and Peace Breaks Out! In: Metal Hammer . The international hard rock & heavy metal poster magazine. June 1991, Hard Fax, pp. 13 .
- ↑ War and Peace . In: Metal Star . Europe's leading hard rock. July 1991, News, p. 10 .
- ↑ Urban "Wally" Wallstrom: Jeff Pilson. In: rockunited.com. 2004, accessed December 2, 2018 .
- ^ War & Peace - Light at the End of the Tunnel. In: discogs.com. Accessed December 2, 2018 .
- ↑ Kevin Johnson: Beast of the bass: An interview with Jeff Pilsen. In: notreble.com. April 13, 2018, accessed December 2, 2018 .
- ↑ Episode 14: Jeff Pilson. In: barstoolrockers.com. August 22, 2018, accessed December 2, 2018 .
- ↑ Martin Schneider: War And Peace. Light at the end of the tunnel. In: hooked-on-music.de. July 31, 2001, accessed December 2, 2018 .
Web links
- War & Peace at Discogs (English)