Power metal icons FIREWIND, the band around former Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Gus G., today announce its new line-up. A new studio album will be released in 2020.
A NEW CHAPTER OF FIREWIND
The band states:
"Dear friends & supporters,
We’ve been pretty quiet about the new album but we’ll cut right to the chase.
After many years, Bob Katsionis is stepping down from the ongoing touring lifestyle and focus on his work as a producer / studio engineer as well as his own projects.
We’ve also parted ways with Henning Basse due to personal reasons that will prevent him from completing the upcoming album touring cycle and continuing with the band overall.
We thank them both for their time and contributions to Firewind. There’s absolutely no bad blood here, the guys are part of our legacy and we wish them best of luck for the future.
While this was a big challenge for us, it is a change that needed to happen in order for the band to continue. This is a rebirth of Firewind and a new chapter in our musical history.
At the same time we’d like to welcome new singer Herbie Langhans (Avantasia, ex- Sinbreed).
Herbie is a hell of a singer and his powerful style breathes new life on our new material but also on our back catalogue. He recently completed the vocals for our 9th studio album which is due later this year.
We’re very excited to finally reveal the upcoming album and share the new sounds with you! Stay tuned as more announcements coming real soon!"
ONLINE
LINEUP
Gus G. - Guitars, Keyboards
Petros Christo - Bass
Jo Nunez - Drums
Herbie Langhans - Vocals
{tab=title="BIOGRAPHY" class="orange"}
Time to wake the sleeping giant...
It’s been about five years since Greek melodic Power Metallers FIREWIND released their critically acclaimed seventh album “Few Against Many” (2012), but in the meantime the band and its individual members have all been extremely busy with various activities. Main man and guitarist Gus G. has released not one, but two solo albums, toured worldwide in support of both of them and hit the road once again with the ‘Prince of Darkness’, Ozzy Osbourne, whose band member he has been since 2009. His fellow FIREWIND band mates have also been far from idle too, but despite the prolonged break in activities, FIREWIND was always going to return… strong and blasting on all cylinders!
After already returning to the international live-circuit already throughout the last months, January 20th, 2017 will see FIREWIND release their newest studio album entitled “Immortals”, which returns to the infectiously catchy and highly anthemic origins of the group. Throughout the 10 new tracks on the record, FIREWIND sound fresher and more determined than ever before, showcasing not only a high quality level of individual instrumental skills, but also a tasteful and matured song writing ability, making the 44 minutes playing time of the album an energetic rollercoaster between the realms of traditional Heavy Metal, epic Hardrock influences as well extremely melodic Power/Speed Metal craft.
“The songs were written in a much slower pace this time, as it's the longest break we ever took between albums. So we took our time writing this and concentrated on keeping ideas that were really strong”, says Gus G. Another noteworthy element to “Immortals” is that this album marks the first time FIREWIND used an outside co-producer, working with Dennis Ward (Unisonic, Pink Cream 69), who not only engineered, mixed and mastered the album, but also co-wrote it together with Gus G.
“Immortals” also once again features a new FIREWIND frontman, even though not at all stranger to the band and their followers: Henning Basse (ex Metalium, Sons Of Seasons) already performed across the world with FIREWIND back in 2007 on the “Allegiance” tour and has been a close friend and collaborator of the band, as well the most recent vocalist for Gus G.’s solo touring band. His rich, classic rock referencing vocals are the perfect foil for the wealth of material the band have been working on and he brings a reinvigorated power to the fold.
Conceptually packaged with suitable artwork courtesy of longtime visual partner Gustavo Sazes, the lyrical theme for “Immortals” is explained by Gus G. as follows: “This is our first concept album and it has to do with ancient Greek history and more specifically the Battles of Thermopylae and Salamis in 480 BC during the second Persian invasion of Greece. In Thermopylae, The vastly outnumbered Greeks held off the Persians for seven days (including three of battle) before the rear-guard was annihilated in one of history's most famous last stands”.
Upon release of “Immortals”, FIREWIND will strike back with further live activity, as they first embark on a headline tour of Europe & UK in February 2017 and then are set to follow up with several summer festival appearances, which are already being confirmed and soon to be announced...
DISCOGRAPHY
Between Heaven and Hell - 2002
Burning Earth - 2003
Forged by Fire - 2005
Allegiance - 2006
The Premonition - 2008
Days of Defiance - 2010
Few Against Many - 2012
Immortals - 2017