"Even if Courtney Love sang with Primus or Patti Smith with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the GUANO APES style could never be completely captured."
(Subway)
What's behind these words? Very simple: It's difficult not to get caught up in the Guano Apes!!
In 1994, as everything began, you could already tell that it wasn't just any old band that was on its way to take the rock world by storm. The four from Goettingen ø all in their early 20's ø are already virtuosos on their instruments: Bassist Stefan Ude slaps, strokes, and pounds his four strings in a frightening manner. Drummer Dennis Poschwatta makes a first impression like that of Animal from the Muppet Show; but he works together with Stefan so well that you can justifiably speak of a rhythm section from another world!
Guitarist Henning Rümenapp has a well versed understanding of the rare art of setting sound accents so that you actually already don't miss anything! But there was something else, wasnÕt there!?
Right...the vocals! Sandra Nasic is the name of the delicate, almost unnoticeable creature, that, when let out of its cage, sings its contemporaries into the dirt! Sometimes aggressive, sometimes silky-soft, and always loaded with emotion, she constantly imports new colors into the music! The band brought all of this under one roof on PROUD LIKE A GOD, their debut album in October, 1997 in Germany.
Inch-high goose pimple songs like "Maria", full-out rockers like "Open Your Eyes" ø also the 1st single -, and eclectic Crossover-Fusion-Crackers like "Crossing The Deadline" will raise the blood pressure of anyone into good music! What an absurd statement? Maybe, but if there was ever a band that fits the description, "extraordinary" in every conceivable way, then it is certainly Guano Apes!
Those who have seen this band live before will understand why they won Germany's most highly endowed up-and-coming Battle of the Bands competition in 1996. 1,015 competitors had to settle for at best 2nd place as Radio ffn and VIVA TV started the "Local Heroes" Festival, and that's not nothing!
Guano Apes live their music 100%. One small band anecdote as evidence: As Dennis, Henning, and Stefan retreated one last time before the big breakthrough to regions Southern to bake their bellies in the sun, after just five days the Three Wise Men realized that they were missing something. No, no, not Mama's cooking. The three wanted to get back to their instruments and their musty rehearsal room! In no time they packed their things and jetted back home!
And who knows, maybe the three gentlemen will reminisce about that day, then since PROUD LIKE A GOD has made the kind of impact that one associates with monster albums, there'll be little time for vacations for the next three years!

Musical revolutions can foment in the oddest places: Athens, Georgia, Aberdeen, Washington, Bakersfield, California. 
That's right, Bakersfield; a bleak, arid little town just west of Death Valley that could double as a David Lynch movie set-if there were anything going on, that is. As a kid Fieldy spent much of his adolescence "standing around in the dirt field, drinking beer, watching other kids fight." At some point, Fieldy and some friends decided their time would be better spent taking out the their frustrations on musical instruments instead. And rock music would never be the same. 
So Fieldy, James "Munky" Shaffer, David Silveria, Brian "Head" Welch, and eventually, an assistant coroner with a troubled past named Jonathon Davis left Bakersfield for Los Angeles and collectively became known as KORN. It helped that they all had common influences - the angry, urban stylings of hip-hop, the heavy, riff-driven angst of death metal. But the sounds emanating from this band's Huntington Beach rehearsal space would soon set an entirely fresh musical precedent - and set off a wave of imitators that eventually threatened to engulf the band itself. 

After touring for nearly two years, KORN was signed by Immortal and released their now-classic eponymous 1994 debut. KORN opened with the prophetic, gravel-throated challenge "Are you ready?!" before kicking into the heaviest guitar sound yet heard in rock thanks to the team of Shaffer and Welch, who tuned their already-low 7-string guitars even lower and played with no regard for traditional harmonic consonance. The sound was metallic sludge, but tempered oddly by bassist Fieldy and drummer Silveria, who added a mix of porn-soundtrack funk and hip-hop rhythms that was puzzlingly aggressive and chill. Next, nursery-rhyme melodies were woven into the dark mix, helping make KORN the creepiest, heaviest debut since Black Sabbath. But Davis had no desire to sing about devils and witches; he was busy exorcising real-life demons. Songs such as "Faget" and "Shoots And Ladders" were discomfortingly personal confessions of shattered childhood, and by album's end Davis was literally in tears in the harrowing "Daddy." 
"Are you ready?!" Well, commercial radio sure wasn't. And neither was MTV. Not yet, anyway. So KORN took their grisly show on the road someplace they knew it'd get noticed; back to the tour circuit, and a stint on Ozzfest. The band's unique sound may have been unfamiliar, but the kids knew it rocked mightily-and many of them could relate to Davis' grim lyrical obsessions. At that point in time, there was quite simply no band on earth like KORN. 
And so they began to amass a following that would send their next album, 1996's brutal yet cheekily titled "Life Is Peachy", into platinum sales. And this time at least the press was ready. "...Perverts, psychopaths and paranoiacs" gushed Chicago Tribune. "An ingeniously twisted piece of personal hell" raved Cleveland's Plain Dealer. And while Peachy served more to reinforce the band's core sound rather than innovate in the manor of the debut, it did introduce to the world to a side of the band no one ever suspected existed: humour. 
The bagpipe-driven cover version of War's "Lowrider" was just one example. An A-Z dictionary of vulgarity called "K@#%!" was another-though some critics and self-appointed moral guardians were put off by the language. One Zeeland, Michigan high school administrator told the press that KORN was "indecent, vulgar, and obscene" shortly after suspending a student for wearing a T-shirt that merely said "KORN." After the band filed a cease-and-desist order against the school on behalf of the student, he was reinstated. But the episode marks yet another milestone for the band: it was the first of many times the band would go to bat for its fans. 
Years of touring followed again as the band fortified its fan-base to the degree that their x album, 1998's "Follow The Leader," would debut at No.1 on Billboard's Top 200. The band charted two bona fide singles with "Got The Life" and "Freak On A Leash," while the album's actual "rap-metal" tracks ("Children of the KORN" with guest rapper Ice Cube, and "All In The Family" with guest abuser Fred Durst) were some of the band's hardest-hitting to date, and reaffirmed their status as the band by which others would be judged in this genre. Others seemed to agree. Rolling Stone christened "Follow The Leader" one of the best alternative lbums of the '90s, praising KORN's ability to channel "their disgust with the state of the nation-and the generation doomed to inherit it-into booming, articulate violence." 
Booming, articulate violence aside, "Follow The Leader" exposed yet another side of KORN. When a 14-year-old boy suffering from terminal intestinal cancer requested to meet the band for a few minutes through Make-A-Wish foundation, the band was stunned. And nervous. But they hit it off, and the few minutes turned into a day, and that turned into a few more days, and then a song- "Justin." 
Reaffirming KORN's populist roots were their weekly live Internet video broadcasts from the studio during the album's making. These "after school specials" kept fans up on the progress of the record, offered them live, call-in Q&A sessions with the band themselves, and introduced them to guests running the gamut from members of 311, The Deftones, and Limp Bizkit to port stars like Ron Jeremy and Randi Rage. 
In yet another populist move, the band launched "KORN Kampaign '98," a political campaign-style American tour to promote their album that featured "fan conferences" in major cities throughout the country. KORN also put together a heavy-rock-and-rap arena circus, mockingly called the Family Values Tour, which featured everyone from Ice Cube to Limp Bizkit to Rammstein, and proved to be one of 1998's most successful tours. A live compilation CD, The Family Values Tour '98, was certified gold the following summer, when KORN performed and explosive set as Woodstock '99. 
Meanwhile, KORN's record label Elementree was up and running just fine as its first signed act, Orgy, scored a platinum record for them with Candyass. By now, almost every heavy band on the planet was playing down-tuned 7-string guitars (which were virtually extinct before KORN). The proliferation of sound-alike bands ironically places the band in a tenuous position: Not only was KORN in danger of seeming "played out" in the very genre they spearheaded, the beginning of a backlash to "rap-metal" chart domination were cropping up in the media. KORN knew that another Peachy or Leader, however great, however welcome by the fans, and however commercially successful, would not do. It was time to reinvent themselves and break from the pack-a risky more given the band's traditionally loyal following. KORN took some time off to work on what would be one of the most important records of their career. 
"We knew when we wrote this album that we were going to have to do something really great," Shaffer said at the time. "...We had to move forward, push the boundaries, and create something very personal." In yet another nod to their audience, KORN allowed the fans to design the cover. Fans submitted their work, and one fan painting was chosen for the record's striking cover art. Several runners-up got limited edition album covers of their own work. Musically, "Issues" turned out to be the best album since the group's debut release, and eclipsed even that record in strength of song writing. When "Issues" was finally released, all the band's efforts paid off wildly. For the second time in their career, they debuted NO.1. They had yet another high-charting single with the eerie, crushing "Falling Away From Me." And the record went quadruple platinum. This was followed by yet another massively successful tour, which kicked off on Halloween 1999 at Harlem's historic Apollo Theater. If "Issues" represented an artistic, critical, and commercial triumph at a crucial moment for the band, how would KORN respond to the inevitable pressure of its follow-up? 
By making a better one: "Untouchables." Using a 24-BIT sampling rate-twice the highest rate normally used for recording-KORN and producer Michael Beinhorn have created a rich sonic panorama. Unfathomably heavy, uncompromisingly introspective, and startlingly unique, "Untouchables" catapults KORN to yet another level. 
But what should we expect? After all, this is a band marked by an insatiable desire to push the rock envelope. It's what makes them KORN.

Damian Marley

Damian Marley, was born on July 21, 1978 in Kingston, Jamaica, and is
the youngest male child of reggae legend Bob Marley, and the only child
born to Marley and Cindy Breakspeare, the Miss World 1976. Damian's
nickname is Junior Gong which is derived from his father's nickname of
Tuff Gong.

A talented artist in his own right, Damian has been performing since the
age of 13. He shares with his brothers and sisters a full-time career in
the Marley family business, music. Unlike his brothers and sisters,
however, his musical specialty is "deejaying", the Jamaican style of
"rapping" which some consider a predecessor of modern hip-hop. He is
very much at home in this element, as his stage presence attests, and he
is also an adept song-writer. As of 2005 he has released three albums,
his first, Mr. Marley in 1996, his second, Halfway Tree in 2001, and his
third, Welcome To Jamrock in September 2005. Halfway Tree was the
2002 recipient of the Grammy Award for Best Reggae Album."Welcome
to Jamrock" won 2 grammy's in 2006. Damian frequently tours with his
brothers Julian and Stephen, who are both members of the Ghetto Youths
Crew, their own band.
In the summer of 2004 Damian participated in the 27-city Bob Marley
Roots, Rock, Reggae Festival Tour with his four brothers, Ziggy, Julian,
Stephen and Ky-Mani, each of whom have their own professional
recording careers.
Damian has many records, including the highest placed reggae album in
the USA billboard album charts with Welcome To Jamrock (the album),
and the highest place reggae song in the UK Top 40 with Welcome To
Jamrock (the single).
At the 2006 Grammy Awards he won Best Reggae Album for Welcome To
Jamrock and Best Urban/Alternative Performance for the song "Welcome
To Jamrock".
Like his father before him (before he converted to Christianity) and the
rest of the Marley family, he is a Rastafarian and his music reflects both
his beliefs and the Rastafarian guiding principles of one love, one planet
and freedom for all. While he travels and tours the better part of the
year, his home base is split between Kingston, Jamaica and Miami,
Florida. He is single and has no children.
Damian participated in Season 3 of Extreme Makeover Home Edition by
performing a special concert for the Rainford family, whose father
Dunstin is a Jamaican native.

Rammstein was formed in 1993 by an assembly of factory-weary proletarians raised in East Germany. They took their name (adding an "m") from the location of a German tragedy where 80 people were hurt and killed as the result of a crash during an American Air Force flight show. The literal translation of "ram stein" is a battering ram made of stone. 

Word of Rammstein's horror romanticist blend of theatre and music spread like wildfire. One-time Olympic swimmer Till Lindemann would sing entire songs engulfed in flame from head to toe. The band's first album, Herzeleid (or Heartache), built on the grounds created by the band's live reputation. Scaling the German charts (and remaining there until the release of the second Rammstein LP some two years later), the album also introduced the band to the world outside of the Germany/Switzerland/Austria region. As Rammstein's second album, Sehnsucht (Longing), was released, the band was headlining throughout Europe to crowds of 10,000 to 30,000 people. Sehnsucht entered the German charts at number one immediately upon its release, and came very close to doing to the same in Austria and Switzerland. Within weeks, entries on other countries' charts had Sehnsucht rubbing elbows with Prodigy, Radiohead, and the Rolling Stones on Billboard's cumulative Eurochart. From there the fever spread, transcending any perceived language barrier. Mutter followed in 2001, Reise, Reise in 2004 and Rosenrot in 2005.

Static-X

It seems like just yesterday that Static-X were the venerable newcomers on the heavy metal block, the release of Wisconsin Death Trip in 1999 serving as a coming-out party for the Los Angeles quartet’s molten hybrid. Equal parts heavy metal, industrial thunder, and hook-laden, songwriting savvy, they scraped the senses with the untempered energy of digital screams and mosh pit mayhem. The debut went platinum, and it’s follow-up, Machine, has been certified gold as the band toured side-by-side with the biggest names in music, from Reinventing The Steel alongside Pantera and Slayer, to Family Values with Linkin Park, Staind and Stone Temple Pilots, and amongst Black Sabbath, Godsmack, P.O.D. and Queens Of The Stone Age on OZZfest 2000.
Now, with the release of Shadow Zone, frontman Wayne Static, guitarist Tripp Eisen, bassist Tony Campos and drummer Nick Oshiro stand armed and dangerous, equipped with an album that bleeds with the conviction we’ve come to expect, and slams with the crushing fury of a monster truck run amok. While it may sound cliché to call the release their strongest effort to date, anything less wouldn’t do the band justice, as the songs have evolved from brute slabs of sonic fury, to fine-tuned acts of musical misanthropy. “I can’t compare this to the other two albums at all, because it was an entirely different experience this time,” says Static of the new release. “Tripp was in there this time, and it was the first time I ever had a songwriting partner. It was a very refreshing experience, because he wrote some of the songs, and all I had to deal with was putting the vocals to them. I try to look at music as a challenge, and in a way I think this record sounds a lot more well-rounded.”
Granted, it was Eisen’s first time in the studio with Static-X—he joined the band immediately following the recording of Machine—but it’s Static who was most responsible for Shadow Zone’s jagged depths. “The funny thing is, most of the traditional Static-X-style songs on the record are the ones that Tripp wrote,” he says when asked about the vocal melodies that manifest themselves throughout the album. “I mean, you always want to push yourself and stretch—it gets kind of boring if you do the same shit over and over again—and I think that when I did ‘Not Meant for Me’ for the Queen Of The Damned soundtrack, that was real singing, and I had never done that with Static-X. People responded really well to it, and it was a lot of fun, so I figure that I might as well go for it…”
The results are an album with vocal hues as colorful as the music that carries them. Lead single “The Only” introduces a crisper, cleaner sounding Static, industrial-strength bites and barks replaced by a melodic texture that makes the music even more impacting. From crisper and cleaner, to downright eerie on “So,” where emotion and distress take center stage on one of the most haunting songs of the band’s catalog. It’s that variety, though, that makes Shadow Zone such an inviting place. “In past bands, I have done everything from acoustic songs to speed metal/death metal stuff, and I think this new album is a culmination of every type of genre I have ever done,” says the frontman. “Before, we were trying to be a little different, trying everything we could to try to differentiate ourselves, and I spent more time disguising my lyrics and trying to not sound too personal. Now, I don’t really care about that anymore. Now, Static-X are who we are, and I just want to write great songs and see what we can build upon.”
So in addition to the savagery of “Destroy All” and the pulverizing effect of “Kill Your Idols,” you’ve got the somber aura of the album’s closer, “Invincible,” a headfirst dive into a twisted psyche. And Static isn’t the only one with a conscience, as Eisen’s political savvy shines through the mirth on “Dead World.” “That’s a song that has some of my lyrics,” says the guitarist, reciting “Sometimes I wish I could see beyond this dead world…” “The verses, the lyrics that I wrote, are philosophical; describing how this world and our culture has been brought down because of governmental policies that are just destroying the free market system—We are living in a dead world and it’s just going to get worse unless we realize how to turn it around.”
“Writing with Tripp was kind of strange at first, because I’d never really written with anyone before,” admits Static, “but we really got into a rhythm with things and figured out how to communicate…” “And we communicate really well,” Eisen adds of the quartet. “We all worked on these songs—There are thirteen songs on the new album, and each song has its own history and way it was written. There are a couple of songs where I wrote all the music and Wayne wrote the lyrics, some of them were full band efforts, and there’s even one song from a few years ago that we re-worked. We wrote a couple songs all together, jamming, like the first single, “The Only”—That was the first one we all wrote together as a full band.”
The newest addition to the Static-X camp is drummer Nick Oshiro, who quickly established himself as the perfect successor to departed drummer Ken Jay, and the ideal player to fill the parts laid down by Josh Freese [A Perfect Circle] in the studio. Despite the fact that Static and Campos are the only two remaining original members of Static-X, the band’s namesake feels more confident than ever with their present lineup. “The chemistry is actually better than it ever was,” he says. “It’s weird, because [original guitarist] Koichi came in right before we got signed, did the record, toured, and he quit. In my mind, it’s like, ‘Was he even in the band?’ He was in the band for like two years, and Tripp has been with us for more than three years now—We are all laidback, and with Nick, we made sure that we got someone in the band that fits in, that we will like touring with, and it feels good… Really good. The old songs still sound the same, maybe even better.
“There are always going to be a few people who say, ‘I miss Ken, I miss Koichi.’ But you know what? Life goes on, and I feel our show is still one of the most high-energy shows out there, and people can’t deny it. I think it’s because offstage, we all get along, we are like family, and everyone is a really good player and we love what we do. We are performing, not acting, and we’re not trying to be any certain thing, we just go out and rock and kick everyone’s ass. I think we will continue to evolve while keeping some of the elements that make us who we are. That’s what we’ve done with Shadow Zone. This is the next step in our evolution.”

Heavy metal band Disturbed came together through the matching of a band with a singer. Longtime friends Dan Donegan (guitar), Mike Wengren (drums), and Fuzz (bass) played together in Chicago for some time before hooking up with singer David Draiman around 1997. Draiman had grown up in a religious family against which he rebelled, being expelled from five boarding schools in his adolescence. His anger found an outlet in the thrashing sound of Disturbed, and the band built up a following on Chicago's south side before a demo tape led to their signing to Giant Records, which released their debut album, The Sickness, in March 2000. The band gained more fans and exposure playing the main stage of the 2001 Ozzfest, then breaking away to do their own self-described "victory lap" around the U.S. that fall. Also during this period, they managed to record a vicious new version of wrestler Steve Austin's theme song that was so good it managed to receive radio play, and they were one of the many bands announced to work on a high-profile Faith No More tribute album. The band stepped into the studio after stepping off of the road and began work on a new disc that would reflect their growth as a band. Feeling experimental, the group worked with producer Johnny K and mixer Andy Wallace in order to create an album that could compare to other classic metal records they admired. Amplifying their fondness for groups like Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Pantera, and Soundgarden, Believe was released in the fall of 2002 and was recognized as a heavier, more varied, and ultimately superior record to their debut, ultimately reaching the top of the Billboard 200. The tour document Music as a Weapon II appeared in 2004, and the ambitious studio full-length Ten Thousand Fists in September 2005.