Shadow Warriors (band)

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Shadow Warriors
"Feel the force of evil"
Background information
Origin	United Kingdom
Genre(s)	Punk Metal, Comedy rock
Years active	2000-?
Label(s)	unsigned
Associated acts	DragonForce, Power Quest
Website	shadowwarriors.alturl.com
Members
Akimo, Naoki, Kazuma, Jyuohki

Shadow Warriors was formed by Guitarist Sam Totman of DragonForce then known as DragonHeart in late 2000 as a "pop punk" side project that was never meant to be taken as a serious band. Much to Totman's surprise the little one man band soon grew a cult following that originated from the then DragonHeart fanbase and migrated soon across the web on various message boards.

Shadow Warriors characterize themselves as playing "evil ninja punk metal", but much like earlier DragonForce their style is more reminiscent of melodic hard rock with video game music influences.

Shadow Warriors recorded most of their demo songs in late 2000 around the same time DragonForce recorded and uploaded theirs to the online music service MP3.com. There are many similarities in vocal lines, lyrics, as well as the instrumentation between the Power of The Ninja Sword demo and DragonForce's Valley of the Damned demo. This is due to Totman's involvement with the writing process of DragonForce and being the solo writer for Shadow Warriors.

In late 2001 Shadow Warriors made available their demo CD Power of The Ninja Sword for purchase through MP3.com, but via an artist page error, the demo CD was not able to be purchased. By the time the error was fixed, it was decided to leave the demo up for download only and not make it available to purchase through MP3.com. A few demo CDs were burned to CD-R with the full album cover and tray inserts in early 2002, and were handed out to a few people as 'collector's items' by Akimo AKA Sam Totman.

In early 2002 Master Samurai created a website for the Shadow Warriors on the free web hosting provider Angelfire, and much like the demos this website was created in only a day. Although the website contained many HTML errors, unfinished pages and other source code problems it did serve its purpose for the time being by gaining the band more exposure as well as providing more information on the Shadow Warriors as well as supplying a guestbook for fans.

Further on, the Shadow Warriors' presence and interest waned, but picked up once again. As the popularity of the Shadow Warriors grew so did the demand for more Shadow Warriors material. It was at this time that talk about reviving the Shadow Warriors began amongst Totman and two colleagues, Knightrider of Doom and Samurai Sweetie. In early 2003 it was decided to give the website a complete makeover as well as the artist page on MP3.com.

With the help of Knightrider of Doom, Samurai Sweetie AKA Master Samurai (who took over for the previous webmaster) created a new website for the Shadow Warriors that offered more information and material related to the band. Among the new material made available on the website was guitar tablature, MIDI songs, Winamp skins, wallpapers, lyrics for the demo songs as well as a Yahoo Group. At this time the original demo songs were remastered and made available for download directly from the website along with the original low quality demos from Mp3.com.

Over the years much controversy has arisen and still goes on as to who exactly were and are the musicians who formed the Shadow Warriors, but there was only one real member in the Shadow Warriors, Akimo AKA Sam Totman. Naoki AKA ZP Theart was only a 'guest vocalist' that recorded vocals for the project as he did for Power Quest on their demo CD, he was never a full time member of the band. There is also much speculation still going around that Herman Li actually played a part in the Shadow Warriors, but there is no truth to that assumption. Herman Li debunked such rumours in a couple interviews and was also confirmed by Sam Totman that Herman Li had no involvement with the band.

Later on, two members (Knightrider of Doom and Samurai Sweetie) were recruited by Totman that would give new life to the band and its sound. A new demo song was written but never recorded based on lyrics from an earlier demo that was never finished. Due to the three Shadow Warriors living far apart from each other, having to deal with personal problems, conflicting lifestyles, as well as the growing popularity of Sam's main band DragonForce, Shadow Warriors once again vanished.

In early 2005 the Shadow Warriors re-emerged with a MySpace account. Through MySpace, the Shadow Warriors received more attention. MySpace also got the Shadow Warriors more exposure, getting the band offers of a few record deals, many gigs, and even a couple endorsements. The offers had to be declined for the time being due to conflicting schedules.

As of late 2006 the Shadow Warriors are once again dormant.