Vancouver, Canada has unleashed a wild one upon us. KICK AXE which is Victor Langen, bass, Brian Gillstrom, drums, George Criston, vocals, and Larry Gillstrom, lead guitarist and spokeperson for the group, are a hot heavy metal act that hear to invade your town next! Their third and newest album ROCK THE WORLD was released this June in the US on Mercenary Records and the band is currently on a home-based Canadian tour but plans to hit the States sometime after the five week tour ends. It started July 2.
KICK AXE have toured with the likes of JUDAS PRIEST in 1984 for thirty-two date summer tour and then went on to do a few with the SCORPIONS as well as QUIET RIOT and WHITESNAKE during the summer of '85 and later, the band did a double bill tour of the States with AUTOGRAPH.
After a lot of good breaks, KICK AXE hit the rough terrain fighting the 'bad manager' war along with the 'freedom of creativity battle' against their record company. The band dealt with everything from poor managerial judgement to embezzlement, to loosing a member, guitarist Ray Harvey, of the band, and leaving their label. About this time the band's guitarist Larry Gillstrom took over the managerial position and things started turning around.
The band has released two albums already, the first, VICES, and the second, WELCOME TO THE CLUB. On the latter of the two they had a big hit on the Canadian airwaves with the BEATLES "With a Little Help From My Friends" where reputable Canadian artists like RICK EMMETT and LEE AARON were not only heard but seen joining in as well in the video which still plays on the Canadian video station MuchMusic.
Unfortunatelly, while the band was having some limited success, they weren't happy. They were being pressured by the record company to be a commercial rock band but that wasn't what they wanted. Finally, after the second album, the band left the label and put out ROCK THE WORLD. "This is our album that we wanted to do. We sort of back lashed with all that we couldn't record before. We finally got to get back to our heavier sound. We believe this to be our most honest effort on vinyl."
At some point in the next year vocalist George Criston will be releasing a solo project that guitarist Larry Gillstrom will produce. "He will get to do some stuff that he doesn't get to do with the band. He's got a really nice voice so he'll probably do some ballads and slower tunes on it."
But now, their third album ROCK THE WORLD is out and they can be caught live which is always better than vinyl, or should be anyway. Just ask your local concert promoter when they'll be coming to your area and check out KICK AXE ROCK THE WORLD.
