JON SCHAFFER and HANSI KURSCH became close friends, always staying with each other when visiting their respective countries during the decade that has followed. The two bands had always wanted to colloborate on a project at some stage in the future, this had been discussed since day one. However, both bands had very busy schedules, and more often than not they clashed.
It wasnt until 1997 that this dream would bear fruit. Jon was in Germany doing some promotional work for ICED EARTH's "Days Of Purgatory" album, and when he got a couple of days free, he took the oppurtunity to hang out with Hansi for a few days . On the first evening the two went out and consumed large ammounts of alchohol and woke the next morning found themselves hung over and a little bored. Jon decided to pick up Hansi's guitar and started jamming and messing around on it. After a while Hansi started to sing some melodies over what Jon was playing, and after a while had the makings of a song. The two of them decided to go into the BLIND GUARDIAN studio and continue work on it. After a few hours, they had a song recorded.
After being friends for the past seven years, they discovered that they
Towards the end of 1998, the two bands' paths crossed proffessionally once again, when ICED EARTH opened up a few shows for the Guardians in Spain. Hansi and Jon were reminiscing about that day in the studio and after discussing it, they decided that the time then was right to colloborate on a project together, and made plans to get the ball
rolling the following year.
Jon and Hansi wrote most of the new material around the period of Jan-March 1999. What was unusual about this process, was that Jon and Hansi actually worked on the songs simultaneously on seperate continents, relying heavily
on phone calls and Federal Express mailing. They had no misgivings about working this way, as they both pretty much knew what to expect from each other, and were more than confident in each others' abilities.
Basically,
Jon would lay some riffs and ideas down on his eight track recorder and mail
it to Hansi, who would then work on vocal melodies for the music. This was
a change for Jon, who was used to writing vocal parts for most of his own
ICED EARTH music. It made the creative process not only a lot less stressful
for him, but more interesting for him as well, as he got to hear Hansi come
up with totally different vocal ideas than he himself would have had he been
writing on his own. Hansi rellished the idea of writing new spontaneous lyrics
in a different mold than he was normally associated, and a lot of the finished
results were a lot darker and more sinister than what he normally did with
BLIND GUARDIAN.
This was especially true for a couple of songs, where Jon decided to use some
old ICED EARTH material that had oreviously been overlooked, material written
before the band got a record deal. Going through some old tapes, he found
some killer parts that he thought would fit perfectly with what he was writing.
Some of these classic riffs can be found in the tracks "Winter Of Souls"
and "Tear Down The Walls", the intro of which is actually a re-working
of a killer unreleased ICED EARTH oldie called "Haunted House".
Hansi and JIM MORRIS were not aware of this however, and it led to a funny
story during recording, when AL BURGE, Jon's sound man from the early days
wandered into MORRISOUND STUDIOS whilst the album was being mixed and immediately
recognised the song and begun humming along to the guitar parts, much to everyones'
bemusement!
Later that year in June, Hansi flew to the US to stay at Jon's house in Indiana
in order to put the final touches on their new material. Although
the
majority of the writing had been completed, there were few things that needed
to be brainstormed and and it was then that it was done. They also jammed
the new songs in Jon's basement and it was here that they recorded their demo
to shop the album around to prospective record companies. Jim Morris came
up from Florida to help them record.
They decided to call the project DEMONS & WIZARDS. For those familiar
with their respective bands, this was a
perfect moniker as it totally summed up the personas of these musicians, as
well as the differing musical / conceptual styles of ICED EARTH and BLIND
GUARDIAN. The name had it's origins in the good natured fun the bands used
to poke at each other, a play on the classic good vs evil pattern, such as
the way the bands look in their promo pictures, the Guardians always smiling
happily and the ICED EARTH guys always looking serious! After throwing ideas
around with his wife, Jon thought of the name after she suggested "Demons
& Angels". Contrary to what has been written elsewhere on occasion,
they did NOT name it after the famous Uriah Heep album of the same name, that
was just a pleasant co-incidence.
The
next step was for Jon and Hansi to go to Florida in August to record the album.
As always, the choice of studios was MORRISOUND, the difference being that
this time, Jim Morris was going to be playing lead guitar on the entire album
as well as helping to produce and engineer it. Jim is an accomplished guitarist
himself, and plays with great feeling, having proved this in the past with
his guest appearance on
ICED EARTH's track "Watching Over Me", where he played undoubtedly
the greatest solo on the SWTWC album. Seasoned session drummer
MARK PRATOR played the drums once again. In addition to playing the majority
of the guitar on the recording, Jon also used this oppurtunity to delegate
bass playing duties to himself! On this recording he wanted to acheive a Gene
Simmons' style slightly distorted bass sound. Being a closet bassist, this
was something he really enjoyed, and it is a little known fact that Jon has
played some of the bass parts on many of
the ICED EARTH recordings.
Everything went well in the studio, and the band recorded 12 tracks for their
self titled debut album, as well as a couple of potential bonus tracks, including
a cover version of the old CREAM classic "White Room". With the
album complete and self financed, the next step was to find
the right record company to promote it. It was hoped to get the album released
by Jan / Feb 2000, irrespective of which label it would be on.
There was naturally a lot of record company interest for this album, due to
the high profile of the two musicians involved in the project, and many labels,
including ICED EARTH label CENTURY MEDIA, were in the game.
Everyone in the business knew this was going to be hot property, so Jon and
Hansi held out for quite a few months of negotiating before finally settling
on the SPV label, quite simply because they offered them the
DEMONS & WIZARDS was released in late January 2000 in Europe. The response was overwhelming! The album sold extremely well, and earned the band some impressive chart positions. The album went straight into the Greek Charts
at No.1! They also reached No.35 in Sweden, and as high as No.13 in Germany, which is very impressive for a metal release, in fact there have only been about 5 metal bands who have ever acheived this feat, BLIND GUARDIAN being one of them. The album reached sales of 80 000 in its first THREE WEEKS of release in Europe, which is something
the band could be very proud of!
Jon and Hansi went to a selection of record stores in Germany to do some in-store record signings to promote the album, as well as one chaotic signing in Greece. There was a huge turnout for their appearance, numbering into the thousands, a figure unheard of for an event like
this! The atmosphere reached fever pitch, and the police had to be
called in order to prevent a full scale riot from starting. Things took a turn for the worse when a crowd ended up crashing through the shop window, and there were kids injured and general mayhem ensued. The hurt were taken to hospital, and the police advised the band to stay and keep signing to avoid more chaos.... 4 hours later the crowd subsided....
A crazy, but true story!
Originally there no plans to do any touring, due to various recording schedules of their main bands, but they recieved offers to play some European festivals, including the Gods Of Metal Festival in Italy, as
well as the Bang Your Head Festival in Balingen, Germany, where they played second on the bill just before The Scorpions.
Things have returned to normal now, the Demon and The Wizard are back in their respective groups, recording, writing and touring new material. The success of their collaboration was phenomenal, but the best news so far is that it is not over yet..... Yes there will be more to come....
