Heavy Metal… the bastard son of early rock n’ roll and the blues has remained a driving force in music since the day it reared its ugly head. Blistering guitar histrionics with razor sharp vocals and attitude to shatter the eardrums of anyone within striking distance!
Couple all that with a rabid and loyal fanbase, heavy metal is a genre of music that refuses to die and yield no matter what the musical landscape is at any given moment.
And somebody’s come along to fight the good fight, and give that music a new home. We’re talking Crusader Records, a new divisional imprint of Golden Robert Records, whose president & founder Mark Alexander-Erbe commented:
‘’Crusader Records was spawned to nurture, curate and bring you the best young talent on a global scale. We live and breathe the metal ethos and we will join forces with the artists on our label to bring you loud, hard and fast music that will stand the test of time.
“After running our other labels for the past few years we found a need to create a brand new metal label to fill the gap in the genres in the music we were releasing so Crusader was born and we hand-picked three incredible bands from around the world to lead the charge with our new label.’’
Those bands are NoN, Shotgun Mistress and the Rick Pierce Group, all with pedigree behind them.
Founded in 2012 by former Pretty Maids guitarist Ricky Marx and bass player Kenn Jackson, under the lengthier named Now Or Never but now as NoN, musically you can trace the evolution of hard rock into modern metal music in their work. The current line-up, also featuring vocalist Steph Honde (Hollywood Monsters) and drummer Ranzo are looking to release their new album III later this year.
Australia’s Shotgun Mistress kicked their career off by recording the hard-rocking anti-domestic violence banger ‘No Friend of Mine’. It went to number 12 on the Australian Independent Charts and number 3 on the iTunes Rock Charts and was played globally on community radio and featured nationally on Redwave Media and Rebel FM.
The band was formed by speed demon guitarist Matt Wilcock (The Berzerker, Akercocke, Abramelin), and also features ‘Diamond” David Lee on drums, bass player Ben Curnow (Earth) and vocalist Glenn Patrick (Collegians).
The Rick Pierce Group, or RPG, is led by the founding member, lead guitarist and songwriter of the Seattle hard rock band TKO, whose debut release Let It Roll continues to cement the band’s cult-like status. TKO toured the world with the likes of AC/DC, Van Halen and other huge acts.
After his successful stint with TKO, Pierce remained true to his metal roots and teamed up as lead guitarist for power metal band Q5 with Floyd Rose (inventor of the Floyd Rose tremolo system) and followed that with Nightshade who released the indie chart topping album Dead of Night, among others. As of now there’s ‘’A new band on a new label.,” said the guitarist. “We’re honoured to be part of the initial roster of Crusader Records and ready to storm the gates!’’
