Michel Kiske, former singer of Helloween, returns to Rock with the Place Vendome album. Featuring Pink Cream 69 members and a fabulous set of songs. One of the melodic highlights of the year!
Release Date: 10-10-2005
Genre: Melodic Hard Rock
Michael Kiske's career in music began at 17, when he was the vocalist of his school band called ILL PROPHECY whom he left in order to join HELLOWEEN. The former singer Kai Hansen was indeed not able anymore to care about the singing as well as playing guitar at the same time. With HELLOWEEN, Kiske recorded the second album of the band, entitled "Keeper of the Seven Keys - Part 1", released in 1987. World-wide it went on to sell a million copies, shifting over 125'000 in Germany alone. Released in America on the RCA label it peaked at n. 102 in the Billboard charts and its success enabled the band to appear as part of the “Hell On Wheels” U.S. tour along with GRIM REAPER and ARMORED SAINT.
“Keeper of the Seven Keys - Part 2" was released in 1988 and gained even more success charting in the US and in several other European countries. But the dream came to a halt when, after internal conflicts, Kai Hansen, decided to leave. After a couple of years hiatus, during which they signed with IRON MAIDEN’s management, the band released via EMI their fourth album “Pink Bubbles Go Ape”, followed in 1994 by “Chameleon”.
During the HELLOWEEN years, Michael Kiske gained a strong reputation as one of the best singers of the scene and he has been often rumored to join very successful metal. Kiske however, after the decision to quit HELLOWEEN following the release of “Chameleon”, started to work on his solo career.
He debuted in 1996 with “Instant Clarity", that counts former band-mate Kai Hansen and Adrian Smith (IRON MAIDEN) as special guests. The sound style differs from the old work with HELLOWEEN and paved the way for more records (“Readiness To Sacrifice” and the “SupaRed” project) that would have departed him more and more from his Heavy Metal roots.
During the winter of 2004 Michael, whose voice is still nowadays regarded as one of the most fascinating of the whole scene in rock (hence his participation in several rock operas including the very successful “Avantasia” and “Aina”), accepted to be part of a melodic rock oriented project patronized by Frontiers Records’ President Serafino Perugino.
The resulting PLACE VENDOME debut album includes songs set to follow a straight melodic rock sound, "comparable to bands like FOREIGNER or JOURNEY", according to Kiske.
Production duties are handled by PINK CREAM 69’s Dennis Ward, with songs written on purpose for the record by himself with his bandmates David Readman and Alfred Koffler, with contributions also from Gunther Werno of VANDENPLAS.
Musicians on the album include, besides Ward on bass, Kosta Zafiriou (PINK CREAM 69) on drums, Gunther Werno (VANDENPLAS) on keyboards, Uwe Reitenauer (PINK CREAM 69) on guitars.
In a quite ironic twist of fate Michael found himself to work with members of PINK CREAM 69, when the band’s original singer Andy Deris took his place in HELLOWEEN when he left! Still Kiske had a lot of fun during the recordings, as he really liked the material that is going to show a new and exciting side of his great singing and artistic abilities!
