One particular thing of interest that I have noticed growing up during the 90’s is what has happened to Rock and Roll in the United States. The genre that came to define America began a slow decline in the early 90’s, with much of the diversity in the genre getting homogenized by industry executives who were more interested in pushing Alternative Rock over fresh sounds in the other subgenres. By the late 90’s, mainstream modern radio stations across the United States where playing nothing but urban beats (hip hop,) rap, country, and pop. While there was the occasional metal station or classic rock outlet, the genre as it pertained to the mainstream became stagnant; with very few breakout radio hits coming from rock groups for a period of years until the rise of the Indy scene in the mid 00’s. The rock was still there, but by and large it was being ignored by mainstream industry interests.

Now, let’s go back and talk about metal for a bit. Because something very peculiar happened to Rock after it got pushed out of the mainstream in the United States. It went overseas. And it evolved. Today, Europe and Scandinavia are known for their robust metal and rock scenes, which resembles the one America had going in the 1980’s, at least as far as diversity and creativity are concerned. Freedom Call is the starkest example of this that I’ve ever seen. Here is a band that practically screams “American” in name and sound, yet the whole concept was cooked up in Germany.

Drummer Dan Zimmermann, in his spare time between gigs with his main band Gamma Ray, writes short stories – fantasy tales of magic and heroism in the vein of Lord Of The Rings. These he kept largely to himself until Gamma Ray went on a break in 1998. Uniting with his longtime friend Chris Bay, who he played with for a while in the cover band scene, he began to toy with the idea of forming a concept band around his tales of epic fantasy. The excuse was that he wanted to break away from Gamma Ray’s sound for a bit and focus on a straight power-metal sound. Working closely with Chris, the two composed a demo tape, and by the time they had completed the rest of the band’s lineup, they had secured a record deal. Their debut album, “Stairway To Fairyland”, came out in 1999, and the band went on a subsequent tour opening for European metal acts Angra and Edguy.