Canada's best exponent of melodic Hard Rock have to be Kick Axe and it takes more than a kick in the nuts to keep these four Canadians down. So far in Europe we've seen two excellent albums from them. "Vices" and "Welcome to the Club", both of which were released in Europe through CBS. For some reason though, the band's third album "Rock the World" won't be out on CBS as rumours have it that they just weren't interested. "Rock the World" meanwhile is going to appear on one of the Independants. So do the band see them being dropped off CBS as a blow to their pride and has it put a dent in their status?
According to the guitarist Larry Gillstrom it hasn't affected anything. "No, it didn't hurt our pride and neither did we think that it affected our status in any way. Things haven't changed for us in any way. If anything has changed it's for the better, because an Indie always has more time for its acts rather than a faceless giant. Anyway, Kick Axe stand for quality and quality is what you get from us. Quality has nothing to do with what label we're released through. Our position is safe." Larry founded the band together with Victor Langen back in '76 and right from the start they made a name for themselves delivering work that never had as much as a bum note in it.
The band's strategy was to get recognition by playing perfect covers of songs whilst also playing their own numbers. It worked and soon they had a healthy following. For two years Helix kept it up until Raymond Arthur Harvey joined them and they moved from Saskatchewan to Vancouver on the west coast. Since then the band have never looked back and have won respect not only at home, where their album sales are always on the top, but also abroad.
