Nightmare Records
| Lance King | |
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Vocalist Lance King of progressive rock band Krucible playing 2007 ProgPowerUSA festival on Oct. 4, 2007
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Lance Thomas King |
| Also known as | MEGALOUD |
| Born | November 23, 1962 |
| Genres | Heavy metal, power metal, progressive metal, hard rock |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, record producer |
| Instruments | Vocals, rhythm guitar, keyboards |
| Years active | 1981–present |
| Labels | Nightmare, EMI, Pony Canyon, Avalon Marquee, King, Massacre, Lion, Frontline, Replica, Melodic Heaven, Point, Rubicon, Metal Heaven, Advantage, Silent, Irond, Ulterium |
| Website | www.LanceKingVox.com |
Lance King (born November 23, 1962) is an American heavy metal vocalist specializing in melodic rock progressive and power metal. Lance has sung with many groups over the last 35 years and started the record label Nightmare in 1990 to release his own music and is presently still at the helm of the label.
An American hard rock band 1981–86
As a performing musician since 1981, King has sung with many bands in his career, in 1981 the summer after he graduated high school in Winona, MN, King was asked by a few musician friends that he had jammed with in the past to join a small weekend club band called "The News" The band focused mainly on Canadian rock covers and after a couple shows they decided to change the name of the band to "Freelance". During his five years with the band from (1981–1986) Freelance began playing local bars on the weekends, almost every weekend, then the band reached out to talent agents in the Twin cities and the band began playing farther and wider, by 1983 they were doing club shows, from British Columbia, and Idaho to Michigan in an old school bus they had renovated and dubbed "the urban insult vehicle" mostly due to the fact that they had simply painted it primer grey so it wasn't school bus yellow anymore. Freelance did create 10 songs of original material and played these live, but never recorded them properly and thus are lost to the world.
An American Hardrock / Metal band 1986–1993
In 1986 when Freelance was beginning to fall apart, King joined a Rochester, MN based band Gemini. Gemini had been playing a circuit of clubs and ballrooms in the tri-state area of Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin for over ten years when King joined in 1986 they were a cover band playing as much new wave as they were corporate rock, after a year King gave the band an ultimatum, that either they started writing songs and trying to move to the next level or King was moving on to something else. After somewhat of a power play, King managed to become the driving force in the band and in 1988 they started breaking into the clubs in the Minneapolis and Saint Paul market, eventually dethroning the reigning club champions of the day in the premier rooms "The Mirage" and the "Iron Horse" while also playing many other rooms. Gemini was doing exceptionally well with their show attendance, normally having between 700-1000 people a night at their shows, playing over 250 shows a year, they started having major labels coming to the shows. The band was courted by labels and managers but nothing solid was ever offered by the major labels due to the band only having a few originals at the time. The managers contracts King deemed unworthy of the band. So Gemini continued to play shows and write in the clubs during the days, testing the new material on the crowds at night, and every month saving enough to record a couple of their new tunes they felt strongly enough about. By 1990 the band had released its first self-titled, self-financed and self produced album on King's own label Nightmare records... "Coming Home" was picked up by local station 93X and pirate radio station Z-Rock, the troops station in Iraq during operation Desert Storm as well as several regional broadcast stations from Minnesota and Iowa. The band began extending their shows reach by playing major markets in Kansas City, Chicago, Milwaukee, Winnipeg and all points in-between in an effort to build. The line up had continual lineup changes of second guitarists, drummers, and bassists, the only consistency was King and guitarist Rob Kruger. Rob and Lance switched off on vocals, guitar and keyboards during the band three hour shows. In 1992 Gemini released their second album Out for Blood. With the demanding schedule of playing so many shows consistently over the last several years, the band was waring on each other due to too many chemicals and lack of sleep. In 1993 King departed to start his own band "The Kings Machine".
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