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INTERVIEW WITH MANDY MEYER

INTERVIEW AND LIVE PHOTOS BY MARKO SYRJÄLÄ
TRANSCRIPTION BY DUKE

Canadian born Armand “Mandy” Meyer was born at 1960 in Saskatchewan. Some years later his family moved to Switzerland where he started his musician career in the late seventies. Now, years later, his list of credits includes work with such names as ASIA, Gotthard, House Of Lords, and Katmandu. At present, Mandy is playing in the legendary Swiss band Krokus. Although he worked with Krokus in the early eighties (two years touring), it wasn’t until last year that he kind of returned in fold when he replaced founding member Fernando von Arb, who had just parted ways with the band. Last year was a busy time for Mandy and Krokus. There has been a lot of touring, including the bands first USA tour in a long time. Last month Krokus released a brand new studio album called HELLRAISER.This interview was done in June 2006 at the Swedenrock festival and then we had this nice conversation about the new album, Krokus tour, his past bands, as well as many other interesting topics. Hope you like it!  
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MARC STORACE

Singer Marc Storace was originally born on the Island of Malta in 1951. At the age of 19 he moved to London while he was trying to start his musical career but only one year later, in 1971, he ended up in a Swiss band called TEA. Together they released three studio albums and toured a lot, mostly in Switzerland but also in U.K and other European countries. In 1976, Marc moved back to London and formed another band called Eaze Money but they never make it big time. A few years later in 1979 Marc was invited to join another Swiss band KROKUS and things really started to change. The band sold millions of records during their “heydays” in the early eighties and up to this date they are still the most successfull Swiss band of all time. Albums like HEADHUNTER, ONE VICE AT TIME and HARDWARE are highly praised hard rock classics. Unfortunately things started to go bad at the very end of the eighties and after several line up changes and some less than successfull albums the band broke up in1989. After the breakup in the early nineties, Marc did several projects and albums with such names and artists as China, Glenn Hughes and Amen. Althought the band did a brief reunion and one studio album in 1995 things really started to roll again in 2003 when KROKUS released their highly acclaimed ROCK THE BLOCK album which went directly to number one in Switzerland and did quite well in the rest of the world. Then, after two very succesfull years of touring and the release of another live albun FIRE AND GASOLINE, lead guitarist and only remaining founder member, Fernando von Arb surprisingly decided to leave KROKUS. Against many expectations the band decided to carry on and they hired old friend Mandy Mayer ( ex -ASIA, Katmandu,Gotthard) , who used to play in KROKUS in 1981, to be their new lead guitar player. At the moment, in the sping of 2006, KROKUS are once again in the studio putting the final touches on the upcoming studio album which should be out in the upcoming months. I met Marc in Stockholm last December and here are the results of our long and interesting discussion about the past,present and future of Marc Storace and KROKUS.

INTERVIEW, LIVE AND OFFSTAGE PICTURES BY MARKO SYRJÄLÄ    

  TRANSCRIPITON BY DUKE 

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