Hey Metalheads!

Ever go back and listen to a band that once had a major impact on you but you sort of forgot about over the years? Iron Savior is one such band that fits into this category. They were a band that had a huge impact on me years and years ago and although I kept track of them over the years and have bought all their albums and singles, they just got lost in the mix with all of the other bands that I was listening to over the years.

To go into more detail of what I am talking about....let's go back almost 15 years to 1997. I was 19 and a die hard metalhead for quite a long time. I grew up on the thrash metal scene of the 80s (Megadeth, Anthrax etc) and loved classic bands like Maiden and Priest. This year however is where I discovered a brand new sound, a sound I had been looking to find for quite some time. That's right, melodic european power metal. This was before I met the guys in Helloween, started singing in bands, before I became a fan of prog and this predates the Metal Command show as I had not yet taken the reigns behind the microphone! Sure I grew up on the American stuff like Metal Church, Iced Earth and many other American power metal bands but the sound I was truly looking to find next was the European power metal sound, mainly coming out of Germany. I was already a big fan of Helloween, Gamma Ray and Blind Guardian and I had just discovered Grave Digger, Running Wild and Rage. These bands just had this huge impact on me not only as a person but as a musician. This stuff is by far what elevated my interest in metal to the next level.

Iron Savior in particular was a band that had an impact on me. I remember buying Somewhere Out In Space by Gamma Ray which was my favorite album of 1997. I listened to it quite a bit and then via the internet, in it's early form I remember hearing about a band Kai Hansen was involved with called Iron Savior. The band had just released their first self titled album called Iron Savior. I didn't know anything about them nor did I know what they sounded like and back then sound samples were hard to come by. Remember the internet was just starting out and dialup with a 56k modem was the pinnacle of technological breakthroughs! I couldn't find the album anywhere that had come out but I always kept it in the back of my mind that if I ever saw the disc I would buy it.

I used to attend a lot of record shows back in the day, especially around this time as I would look for old Iron Maiden stuff on vynil and sometimes vendors there had some hard to find import CDs. Well wouldn't you know it as I was browsing the inventory one of these import dealers I found the self titled Iron Savior album! This was a big deal back then as I felt like I struck gold when this album appeared before me! I immediately paid my 15 bucks for it and then literally ran to my car. I was so desperate to finally hear this band I almost broke the case trying to get the wrapper off once I finally got to my car to drive home. When I heard Atlantis Falling I had to almost stop what I was doing. This song just really grabbed me and I had found yet another really awesome metal band from the European metal scene. I listened to this album almost nonstop for a month. It was the only thing I wanted to listen to day in and day out for weeks.

When I started hosting the Metal Command I was able to talk to Piet Sielck for the first time. This was when the band's second album Unification had come out. I also interviewed him again when the Interlude EP had come out. I was hooked on Unification and the EP. Unification in fact is still one of my favorite albums of all time. I can say as a kid back then I was beyond excited to speak to Piet and to be able to feature this band on my show. Piet was one of the earliest interviews I did on this show and both interviews were very well received back then. Them something happened that happened with a lot of the early bands I interviewed in the early days of the show. I lost track of the people in these bands and didn't contact many of them. Not because I didn't want to but time just wasn't on my side and I had so much coming at me musically and there were so many other people I was interviewing for the show at the time. I also will admit I didn't listen to Iron Savior that much because of all of the new stuff coming out. Sure I liked their albums but with so many bands and releases it was really hard for me to keep track of them and they were lost in the shuffle. I liked their albums and would listen to them as they came out but for whatever reason they didn't have the impact on me that the first two releases and the EP did back in the day.

Let's fast forward a bit to 2011. It's towards the end of the year and I heard that Iron Savior was going to release another album. As usual I checked it out and listened to it like I would any other release out there. I was expecting it to be like their last few albums, good to decent heavy metal but not something that would be in my top 20 (much less top 5). When I started to listen to the album I was really surprised at how good it was. I listened to the entire thing, then I listened to it again. Low and behold I realized that this album had me hooked! I listened to it quite a bit and the song Heavy Metal Never Dies sealed it for me. The solo and guitar harmonies on that track had me just as excited about listening to Iron Savior as I had been when they first came out. This entire album is just freaking awesome and it went to number 5 on my best of list for 2011!

Now let's talk about the interview with Piet. I can nell you that he seems a bit different than when i first had talked to him, although the one thing that has never changed is the fact that he is a very down to earth guy and very knowledgeable not only about music but the production and business ends of it. This is the type of guy you could talk to for hours if you wanted to. He is also the type of person I would love to have on this show again down the road.

The reaction to the interview was pretty positive. Many people didn't even know Iron Savior still existed which to some degree is bad but at the same time if I ended up exposing people to this band again or if people listening to the show decided to check them out for the first time then as far as I am concerned mission accomplished!

Well that's about it, I invite you all to check out this week's interview with Empires of Eden Guitarist Stu Marshall!I guarantee you will not be disappointed with them and the interview is flat out awesome!

My top 10 for the week

1. Iron Savior - The Landing
2. Star One - Victims of The Modern Age
3. Pharaoh - Bury The Light
4. Havok - Time is Up
5. Virgin Steele - Invictus
6. Van Halen - A Different Kind of Truth
7. Cage - Supremacy of Steel
8. Empires of Eden - Reborn In Fire
9. Primal Fear - Unbreakable
10. Nightwish - Imaginarium

Until next week metal on!

-Tony

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