Demons and Wizards (band)

Demons and Wizards
Origin	Germany United States
Genres	Power metal
Years active	1998–present
Labels	SPV
Associated acts	Blind Guardian Iced Earth
Members	Hansi Kürsch Jon Schaffer

Demons and Wizards is a power metal band conceived as a side-project by vocalist for Blind Guardian, Hansi Kürsch, and the guitarist for Iced Earth, Jon Schaffer. Schaffer writes the music and Kürsch writes the lyrics. The band's line-up during the recording of their first album in 1999 also featured Mark Prator, who was the drummer on a few Iced Earth albums, and Jim Morris doing most of the guitar solos, Morris also having worked with Iced Earth in the past.

The original goal of the band was to forge the different musical styles of both Iced Earth's dark melodies and Blind Guardian's powerful vocals into one sound. In fact, according to the musicians, the band name is meant to describe the two styles: the self-proclaimed demon-like themes and sounds of Iced Earth and wizard-like themes and sounds of Blind Guardian (the moniker "Demons & Wizards" was inspired by Schaffer's wife always referring to him and Hansi as "Demons and Angels". Hansi always corrected her, since he claims to "not be at all angelic", and that it is more properly stated "Demons and Wizards", in reference to Uriah Heep's album of the same name). The band met with a fair deal of commercial success, though not as much as either of their individual bands.

The idea for the band arose in the spring of 1997 when Kürsch and Schaffer wanted to make music together, after being friends for several years.

The band's first full-length release was in 2000, with the self-titled album Demons & Wizards. In 2005, the band released their second album entitled Touched by the Crimson King. Touched by the Crimson King is partially based on the The Dark Tower series of books (written by Stephen King), in which the Crimson King is the main antagonist.

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