Deadlock (band)
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| Deadlock | |
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| Background information | |
| Origin | Balingen, Zollernalbkreis, GER |
| Genre(s) | Melodic Hard Rock |
| Years active | 1995—1997 |
| Label(s) | Riester International Records |
| Website | Rockdetector Website
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| Former members | |
| Frankie Riester Alex Jehs Heribert Rother Uwe Grochowski Steffen Lohrmann |
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Contents |
[edit] Members
[edit] Current Line-Up
- Frankie Riester - male vocals
- Alex Jehs - guitars, keyboards, backing vocals
- Heribert Rother - drums, percussion
- Uwe Grochowski - bass, backing vocals
- Steffen Lohrmann - keyboards, backing vocals
[edit] History
Legendary melodic hard rock band Deadlock from the Balingen region (Zollernalbkreis) in southwestern Germany were founded by Frank Riester (vocals) and Alex Jehs (guitar) in August 1995. With a self produced 4-track demo Frankie and Alex attracted other musicians to the Deadlock table. The following months were jam packed with auditions and the final line-up of the band was complete. Steffen Lohrmann (keyboards), Uwe Grochowski (bass) and drummer Herbiert Rother were from then on to complement acclaimed lead guitarist Alex Jehs and power rock voice Frank Riester. This line-up soon took on a band-like character as each member brought their own influence and passion into the music and more songs were composed by the group.
Without any live experience Deadlock decided to record their first album and found themselves in the M&N Music Productions Studio in Ravensburg (Germany) during November 1995. While the marketing and distribution of their debut album was entirely self-managed, local CD sales were sky rocketing shortly after its release and a large fan base was starting to grow. Titled “A Journey Into The Unknown” this long awaited debut release fully represented the band’s ambitions, talent and drive to make an impact on the German Hard Rock scene. The album was loaded with catchy melodies, heavy riffs, progressive lead guitars and classy hard rock vocals, full of emotions and strong expressions.
When the organizers of the Balinger Open Air Festival (long before the Bang Your Head Festival took over) announced that they were looking for a local band to open for Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow and ZZ Top for the 1996 festival billing, Deadlock immediately decided to give it a shot even though they had not gathered any live performance experience yet! Close to 30 bands from the Balingen region applied for the job but only 5 made it to a final “battle of the bands” like live performance in front of 1000 people strong crowd and in front of a selected jury representing radio stations, festival organizers, record labels and local press. All of Deadlock's efforts finally paid off as their debut CD release opened the door for them to be selected to perform live in the final battle of the 5 finalists.
This legendary first-ever live performance created such hype and rave both with the crowd as well as with members of the jury that evening that even much more established and signed bands were completely outperformed by Deadlock's explosion-like live performance and stage presence that night. It was no surprise that DEADLOCK were announced the winners for this competition and what an achievement this was without ever having played live before! On Sunday, July 21st 1996, the band proudly entered the giant stage of the Balinger Open Air Festival to open for Rainbow and ZZ Top which was one of their most celebrated moments in the history of the band.
The self-confidence Deadlock had gained from the success of the previous months had inspired them to write new song material which they would introduce during numerous live gigs. The new material was eagerly accepted by the fans and led Deadlock to record a new 4-track EP with the title “In Your Head” which would reflect the artistic progression and maturity that the band had attained during the previous months. For the first time, Deadlock experimented with more modern song material as the band tried to attract the attention of potential record labels.
During February 1997 Deadlock went on an international tour for the first time ever but no European or American cities were on the tour calendar, instead two African countries — namely South Africa and Namibia. Band manager, founding member, composer and vocalist Frank Riester, who had lived in South Africa for one year at one stage of his life always maintained good relationships with key people in the music industry in these countries and felt that it would be a great test and experience for the band to tour under circumstances that might perhaps not always be as pleasant as they might be in Europe trying to prepare the band for a life on the road carrier that was hoped to be achieved later on. Taking risks such as poor crowd turnouts, long distance traveling between African cities, poor venue and promotion conditions all had to be considered but in the end Deadlock felt that it was the right thing to do at the time as this would prove to be the experience of their lives.
Three shows were played in Windhoek to a sold-out venue three nights in row while numerous radio and newspaper interviews were given during day time. South African shows were equally successful with several shows being played in the greater Cape Town area as well as in Somerset West, Port Elizabeth and Grahamstown. During this tour the band really grew together even more and many new fans were won and new friendships were made.
After returning to Germany from the Southern African tour, the band continued to play several live shows including some headliner concerts as well as club gigs. The highlight in 1997 was Deadlock's festival show at the Daytona Europe Festival in Lahr (Germany) where they opened directly for James Brown who was in fact watching the Deadlock performance right from the side of the stage. Other bands that performed during the festival were Saxon, Deep Purple, Manowar, Scorpions, Steppenwolf and many others. This time Deadlock did not have to enter a competition to participate and was actually booked by the organizers.
After Deadlock's initial, mainly regional success during the previous year the band slowly took a strain when musical and personal differences cast a shadow over the band. The experiment of exploring more modern and commercial musical styles such as on the “In Your Head” EP did still not seem to attract any attention from any record labels and so eventually Frankie decided to form his own record label offering the band a recording contract.
Tommy Newton, who had just finished the worldwide acclaimed production for Conception’s “Flow” album was approached to produce an all new Deadlock album helping the band to find their true natural character. This was at first well received by the rest of the band and a producer contract was signed after the studio had been visited and inspected.
It was literally a few days after Deadlock had just signed their new recoding contract when they found themselves in an argumentative battle over music styles and line-up issues.
Unfortunately for all the Deadlock fans in Germany and Southern Africa, the two founding members of the band were not able to resolve their dispute and so it came that late in 1997 Deadlock broke up and has never been active since.
Frankie went on in early 1998 to record his first solo album “Frankie’s Playground” with producer Tommy Newton, erstwhile Conception and Ark guitarist Tore Ostby, former Headcrash bassist Otto Van Alphen and ex Victory drummer Matthias Liebetruth.
[edit] Discography
[edit] Studio albums and EPs
| Year | Title | Notes |
| 1996 | A Journey Into The Unknown | |
| 1997 | In Your Head |
[edit] See also
- Music history of Germany
- Timeline of trends in music
- Timeline of heavy metal
- Hard Rock
- Heavy Metal
