DragonForce Biography
Saturday, September 16, 2017
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DragonForce was founded by Herman Li and Sam Totman with the name Dragon Heart. The two then found a vocalist ZP Theart through an ad, soon after that they recruited Matej Setinc as drummer, Steve Scott as bassist and Steve William on Keyboard. Totman and Li have experience playing together in their former band, Demoniac. DragonHeart then released a demo, toured with Halford, Stratovarius and showed their own show under the names. The band later discovered that there was already another band with the same name, then they changed their name to DragonForce in 2002.
Drumer Matej Setinc left the band in December 1999 to continue his studies in Slovenia , he was replaced by Didier Almouzni . The band parted ways with Steve Scott in November 2000 and with Steve Wiliam in early 2000. Steve later rejoined and again unplugged from the band in December 2000, days before the band toured with Halford and Stratovarius. Steve Scott then joins with ShadowKeep and then with Power Quest.
Bassist Diccon Harper joined the band in November 2000 with keyboard Vadim Pruzhanov, joining in February 2001 to complete the lineup to record their first album.
Harper played on DragonForce's debut album, Valley of the Damned in the settlement, but left the band in 2002 because of a Tendon problem that had to be operated on.
Valley of the Damned (2002 - 2003)
Dragonforce recorded their first demo in 2000. It was an independent release, but enough to make them become one of the most famous Power metal bands in the UK at that time. Their song "Valley of the Damned" was released as their first single after they changed their name permanently to DragonForce. A promotional video featuring live footage from their European tour has been released along with the song. The song was also a huge success on MP3.com as the most downloaded song. Shortly after the demo was released Steve Williams keyboardist and bassist Steve Scott left the band and was replaced by Ukrainian -born Vadim Pruzhanov on keyborad and English -born Diccon Harper on Bass . Steve Williams then went on to form Power Quest's power metal band .
In 2003, the band signed a contract with Noise Records and began recording their full lenghth debut album, Valley Of The Damn. The title track, re-released in album promotion, is one of DragonForce's most recognizable songs to date and is a staple of their live performance for today. The band tour for Valley of the Damned lasted until 2004, with the tour ending in Tokyo, Japan.
Sonic Firestorm (2004-2005)
The band's follow-up album, Sonic Firestorm , proved to be more successful with the lead single "Fury of the Storm". Sonic Firestorm was the first album featuring Dragonforce Adrian Lambert on bass and Dave Mackintosh on drums. When Mackintosh entered the band in 2004, they began referring to their musical style as "extreme power metal" due to fast blastbeats and double bass rhythms. It was around this time that the band began to become popular internationally and earned the nicknames like "Bon Jovi on speed" and "Journey meets Slayer."
The tour was longer than the band's tour for "Valley of the Damned" and featured more headlines than ever before. The band toured with many other famous metal bands such as WASP and Iron Maiden.
I nhuman Rampage (2006-2007)
The band underwent various changes before settling with the current six members. The band was introduced to the mainstream with their third album Inhuman Rampage , released in 2006 after signing with RoadRunner Records in the UK, USA, Canada, France and Australia. The song "Through The Fire and Flames" is one of their most famous songs and features in Guitar Hero III and Guitar Hero: Smash Hit . Lindsay dawson former bandmate Herman Li and Sam Totman, Demoniac, appeared as backup vocalist for this album. Prior to the album's release, bassist Adrian Lambert left the group to raise a newborn child in November 2005. He was replaced with Frederic Leclercq for the rest of the Sonic Firestorm Tour. Frederic later became an official member of the band in January 2006. He also appeared in the band's music video for their second single off Inhuman Rampage, Operation Ground and Pound. Inhuman Rampage is a common favorite among Dragonforce fans because of the heavy sond and the complexity of the songs in it. The 'Through The Fire and Flame' single disc reaches gold status in the United States and Canada.
Ultra Beatdown (2008-2009)
The band toured with Diturbed and Slipknot throughout the summer of 2008 at Rockstar Energy Metal Mayhem Festival. The band returned in the spring with the release of their 4th studio album, Ultra Beatdown . The first track and single, "Heroes Of Our Time", was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best metal Performance on December 3, 2008, losing to METALLICA with their song "My Apocalypse". A short version of "Heroes Of our Time" is also featured in Skate 2 video games and the full version in NHL 10.
On January 22, 2009, the music video for their song "The Journey Last Home" was released to the Xbox Life Community a week before it was released online.
DragonForce conducts an Ultra Beatdown tour in Latin America, North America and Europe. They were supposed to play in Latin America in May 2009, but the tour was postponed until the end of 2009. They performed at the Two Day Festival Sunday in Weisen, Austria on 4 September. Later, they performed in several cities in Canada and the United States from 15 September to 11 October, with special guest stars Sonata Arctica and Taking Dawn . The next tour is in Germany, from October 16 to October 30 followed by a single live performance in Luxembourg on 31 October. Then, they go to Latin America to perform in Curitiba, Porto Alegre, Sao Paulo, Mexico City, Santiago, Buenos Aires and Bogota from November 6 to November 14. The final part of the tour is done entirely in the United Kingdom, from 19 November to 12 December.
New album and departure Theart (2010-present)
Herman Li has stated that DragonForce will stop touring in December, spending time at home for Christmas, and then will start writing and recording a new studio album scheduled to be released in 2011.
On February 22, 2010, the band re-released two albums, "Valley of the Damned" and "Sonic Firestorm." Valley of the Damned included new remixes and remaster tracks while both albums included bonus tracks, updated packaging and DVDs featuring live footage , comments, and more. Both albums were also released in a set of boxes featuring t-shirts, guitar picks and an inflatable guitar.
On March 8, 2010, he announced via Roadrunner that DragonForce has parted ways with vocalist ZP Theart and will now be looking for a new vocalist. Herman Li stated:
" It is with great regret that DragonForce announced a farewell way with singer ZP Theart. This is due to dissipated musical differences but the rest of the band ZP sincerely wishes great success with its future projects. While the core creative members have begun writing the fifth album, they are also starting to search all over the world for new vocalists. We are looking for a strong, melodic singer to write a new chapter of Dragonforce with us. "
The story was removed the same day, but was officially confirmed by the band days later in a press statement that it also contained a link to ask for the audition.
The band released their first live album on September 13, 2010 in Europe and September 14, 2010 for the US and Canada. This is a double-disc disc titled Twilight Dementia . The album art, title, and release date were revealed on the band's official website on June 22, 2010. The performance is recorded at the end of the Ultra Beatdown World Tour. Regarding the album, guitarist Herman Li stated:
" Over the years, fans have asked us to record a live album, but honestly, we never really have time because of our commitment around the world tour and album recording studio. However, due to the very positive feedback from fans on the 'Ultra Beatdown World Tour', we finally decided to put some real thoughts into it ... This recording really captures the raw sonic energy of the DragonForce event in fine detail. It is so real that you can hear the voices of crowds and experience shows like that night - you can even hear the pedal guitar being trodden!
Music Style
The band has often been referred to as their style as Power Metal. Herman Li Comments on the style band description in an interview with Guitar World : "'Nintendo metal', 'extreme power metal', 'Bon Jovi on speed', 'Journey meets Slayer' ... people always come up with weird labels for us". These bands are sometimes mislabeled as Speed Metal bands because of the fast tempo present in their songs, but always as a supplement to other types of metal descriptors.
Controversy
The controversy for DragonForce took place at the end of 2006 shortly after the Inhuman Rampage tour gained a larger audience in the later towns. The band experienced many technical difficulties with the guitar, which is considered the most "stand-out feature" in their music. The band also drop-tuned their instruments for the E-tuning tour. This, coupled with the low recording quality of live performances that were later uploaded to the Internet, created a rumor speeding up their in-studio music bands for not being able to do that live at that speed. Although this rumor has been denied by the next tour in which the band performed their music at the same speed as it appeared on the album. Herman Li stated, "Graspop Metal Meeting of 2006 is a total disaster. Our technicians did not even tune the guitar and no monitoring was done right. We did not hear anything ... ". He also said that most Inhuman Rampage tours were bad due to the overall technical difficulties.
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