Ripper

   I was in Newbury Comics yesterday to pick up the new Michael Schenker cd and stumbled across Tim Ripper Owens Play My Game solo album from a couple of years ago. In the bag that went to. I put it on and fuck me it's really good stuff.

   Got me thinking, as he has been in multiple bands was he in the right place at the right time or vice-versa. Is he entirely blameless for what happened. Let's have a little peek at the bands he was in:

   Priest, the big one. Huge shoes to fill, it's Halford he's replacing for fuck's sake who's on the Mount Rushmore of metal vocalists. Off he goes with Fight (good band) and Two (shite band). Tipton takes over Priest and the resulting Jugulator album fails to set the world on fire. Ripper excels throughout and has no writing credits whatsoever. Odd considering the credits for old Priest were always Tipton/Downing/Halford. The album was heavy but the songs were patchy. The follow up Demolition was more old school sounding. Ripper faultless vocally again but only one writing credit and that's on a track called What's My Name buried on the Japanese release. Not a ringing endorsement of his song craft eh? Two live albums and one dvd and boy can he sing the old shit too. The problem was they were in clubs and so it was inevitable.......

   Yngwie. The control freak. A man who needs an extension bigger then his house to keep his ego in. Ripper hung around to sing for a while. All Yngwie's vocalists hang around for a while. They spend longer offstage then James La Brie from Dream Theater even though Yngwie's songs are two thirds shorter in length. It says Yngwie on the ticket and people come to see ME. Now thinks he can sing to for fucks sake. Ripper had no chance.

   Iced Earth, the Jon Schaffer band. Members come and go except him. Ripper hangs around for a couple of albums. Great vocally again but the fans want Matt Barlow. He did get to write some lyrics though but no chance of a long term deal here.

   So can he write good stuff? Fucking right he can. Anyone who loves great metal should have the Beyond Fear cd in their collection. Great cd. Better then the two Priest studio albums he sung on. Charred Walls of the Damned is good too and so is the solo album I just picked up. Did the guys in the bands he was in think he couldn't write or did they just not want to give him a piece of the pie. Makes me scratch my head. In the end it's their loss. Oh and the solo album is better then Nostradamus too.

Richie.