Manowar has announced that bassist/bandleader Joey DeMaio will do a spoken word world German tour in 2019. Tickets start from €42. The band is currently bringing their Final Battle World tour to stages all around the world Scandinavia and Germany.
Meanwhile, there is still no sign of the album the band started recording in 2014 and for which a series of concerts in the USA was cancelled.

Has the band ever communicated about this, or similar situations in the past? For a band that "would die for metal", they show very little devotion and transparency to the fans. Hell, Donnie Hamzik has been replaced as drummer and the news never shared.

New tour


New album (September 5 2014)

Why do you still follow the second hand embarresment misadventures of this lifeless husk of a joke band?

There is no new album because they announced some time back that they're retiring.

That album must have been real bad to make them just want to quit instead of release it.

A good move. Joey DeMaio's rants are the parts of Manowar's live show that everyone enjoys.



There was supposed to be another album right on the heels of God of War. Then there was supposed to be an album called "Hammer of the Gods", with Donnie Hamzik on drums. Then there was supposed to be a poorly-explained fantasy franchise called "The Asgard Saga". NONE of this happened.

When Manowar announces [thing], chances increase enormously that [thing] will not happen. Honestly, if Manowar announces that the sun will rise tomorrow, I'm going to stock up on batteries and candles.

Agreed. as laughable as this may seem to us filthy casuals Manowar fans eat this shit up. It'll sell

"So, that one time when there were wimps and poseurs in the hall...".

ITT: people that don't like even 1 shitty band

True, an announcement seems of little worth these days...

The reason I'm pointing out the non-released album now is that they cancelled a tour. Comments on that announcement came from angry people who already booked hotels or flights. The Hammer of the Gods fiasco had no other consequences than the album not being released.

The band that would die for metal, but only tour to areas where there is guaranteed big money.

Big fan but hindsight says to me they should have split after KOM.

I think this is hilarious. Everyone takes this band far too seriously. They're a complete joke, and that's why I love them. I don't know how they manage to come up with ideas more ridiculous than the last, but this once again tops it.

Would like to see them live one day, but I'm at least going to see Ross the Boss twice next year.

You might be interested in this interview with Ross the Boss: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qt5Gyz-V2Ys

He has things to say about where Manowar went wrong. He wanted them to tour their asses off, play 200 shows a year, and become the next KISS. Maybe they could have done it. Their early music was good (not great, for the most part, but good) and the 80s couldn't have been a better time for them.

But Joey kind of fucked them. Rather than rely on shitty club equipment, he insisted they haul their own equipment from show to show. This obviously sent the cost of touring through the roof and made it unfeasible to do anything but small tours over small areas. (Mostly Germany these days.)

Maybe they could have broken through, but they were doomed to remain a weird novelty act just because of Joey's perfectionism.

It's also the reason why everyone in the band apart from Joey works a day job.

Cheers.

out of curiousity, what are their day jobs?

Ross says Joey was hostile to other metal bands...Manowar don't seem to have a lot of friends among their peers. Rick Mythiasin once told me Joey was incredibly rude and dismissive of him when Kai Hansen tried to make an introduction in Germany. Ross has ended up working with Sean Peck in Death Dealer and is probably the only band member who has been able to collaborate with other metal artists. There was bad blood with Rhapsody as well when they were signed to Joey's awful label which only has one other band on its roster besides Manowar themselves. The only other band they seem to have a lot of crossings with was Virgin Steele which is somewhat tragic considering how far David DeFeis has also ascended up his own arse. They opened a lot of Manowar shows though.

...and wasn't Joey supposed to release the second Guardians of The Flame album
http://www.blabbermouth.net/news/ex-vir ... ame-album/

well, that's probably never happening.

They have so many unfinished projects, it's hilarious. Will there ever be a "Brothers of Metal, Part 2" for example? Why call the original Part 1 then?

If you haven't seen it before you'll have a great time. Saw Ross the Boss earlier this year and they kicked ass. Much better than Manowar's previous shows that I've seen, although I was having a blast at those too.




From what I remember, Eric is like part-time hunting instructor, part-time construction worker or something. Karl is a guitar teacher I think.

They're pulling a Shatner. Soon they'll put out a spoken word album, half readings from the Eddas, half readings from Manowar lyrics.

I've been watching this Manowar thing with interest throughout the years. The first few albums blew me away in the 80's when I was a teen discovering metal, and I STILL like their music, although I can attest to the fact the last studio album, Lord Of Steel, and the two re-recorded albums are a pile of unnecessary horse shit.

It's intriguing because

- One studio album every five years or so. And that equates to - since Kings Of Metal - 5 new albums only in the last 30 years. Which is an astonishingly low output. Considering this is a band that once put out two albums a few months apart in 1984.

- The Gods Of War concept was supposed to be the start of a series of albums each focusing on Norse mythological gods or whatever else. The Hammer Of The Gods album was supposed to be 'part 2' of that whole set up. It was supposed to be about Thor, and I even heard once that straight after GOW was released, Joey was working on new stuff. This came paired with the collaboration with the author - The Asgard Saga thing - which even had it's own website. Somehow that collaboration fell apart and never ever came to fruition nor was spoken about by the band again.

- Manowar also stated last year that they were working on new material - that has also never been mentioned again. Now there is a farewell tour - and the imminent end of the band - but no album to go with it, or even a last single. Just nothing. Which is also an odd move for a band who were busy preparing a new album and posting YouTube stuff from the studio.

- They had almost an entire album prepared between 'Thunder In The Sky' and 'Lords Of Steel' and that was trashed and dumped by Joey with that whole drummer transition mess.

- Scott Columbus saga.. the band said his child was sick, Scott said later there was no such thing. Assuming Scott's son wasn't sick, that's an absolutely bizarre thing to say.

- Magic Circle. Forcing Majesty and Rhapsody to change names, and then those relationships soured too somehow as they all reverted to their old 'personas' after leaving the label (which, in reality, has only produced a few albums if that). Lawsuits, whatever else between the bands and the label - which is effectively Joey. Which makes one wonder exactly how difficult he is to work with and deal with - which makes you wonder why even start a label with such a lack of PR skills?

- Read about someone who saw Joey in a shop in NY. Said hi, Joey told him to go fuck himself.

- Proclaiming that they will 'Never Turn Down', etc. And here they are quietly fizzing out with one last (very localized) tour - apparently 'world' means a handful of countries in Europe (I'm in Australia - never ever thought for a minute that a tour down here would be a feasible possibility).

- Lord Of Steel was taking the piss - surely. Almost as if they did what Mustaine did a few years ago and released a pile of crap on purpose to meet record label requirements etc. BUT it was their own label! Surely they would have been aware themselves the material was sub par. A couple of great tracks (El Gringo is vintage Manowar imo), but with some of the others, what were they thinking? The writing was lazy as if they couldn't be fucked, and it just wasn't the perfectionistic stuff we were used to from them. I think the final nail in the coffin was 'Hail Kill Die' where they named all the albums in one of the verses - which was written clumsily anyway - but left the Triumph Of Steel out of the lyrics.

All in all, Eric Adams is a fantastic singer - up there with the best (along with Dickinson and Marcolin who to me are in a league of their own). Karl, for all his faults was able to hold his own quite nicely. Who even knows who the drummer is these days. But they weren't bad musicians, and even though I hated the whole image thing (I can't watch their DVDs - I cringe, so I just focus on the music but refuse to LOOK at them), I still say they were astonishing musicians and songwriters in the day, particularly before things turned decidedly weird in the last 10-12 years.

Conclusion - Joey has some sort of weird ego/mental illness/fucked up attitude problem going on there.

It's fascinating and intruguing, but horrible to watch at the same time. A bit like the news.

With all that in mind and gods know what else, I'd be quite intrigued to read a Manowar biography but boy would I want literally anyone but Manowar to write it.

Anyone but Joey in particular, really. A super thorough Manowar biography based on new interviews and testimonies from everyone who has ever been in the band or had dealings with them would be so cool. Joey has probably had everyone ever sign a no-disclosure agreement in perpetuity though.

Joey is a lawyered-up grifter with an ego complex.

That band Gothic Knights was going to get Todd Michael Hall (Riot V) to sing for them a while back and Joey somehow managed to spin together this contract where Gothic Knights had to pay him thousands of dollars in order for Todd to sing for them. Crazy shit

My theory is that Manowar/Joey stays successful by appealing to parts of the world where his underlying motives are less likely to be picked up or commented on, put down to cultural miscommunication, or even admired. He tends to avoid places where interviewers will say "oh come on mate, that's an absolute load of shit" - cynicism is a real cultural nuance and even in places where ESL is top-notch (Germany, Scandinavia), his bullshit will just be naturally harder for the locals to detect. Where an Aussie might smell psychopathic traits, a Swede might just see someone seemingly dedicated to his art. Then once you start heading towards the "MANOWAR IS KINGS OF METAL!!" parts of the world it's basically shooting fish in a barrel.

This of course doesn't mean he won't play dates in the UK or US from time to time, but we all know those markets aren't his bread and butter.

Being Scandinavian myself I can tell you that most Danish metalheads I've met think Manowar are full of shit. Hell, I KNOW they're full of shit, I just like the music.

I dunno, there's a lot to be said. All I can say is when I had the chance to chat with Ross the Boss he said "Manowar announced their retirement when I put my new band together". Let's hope Eric Adams joins Ross for some gigs... Joey can shove it.

I used to be a fan of them, but fuck, I can barely tolerate them now. Aside from my dwindling patience for their cheese-loaded, stereotype-fueled hokiness, they have a penchant for having their heads too far up their own asses, and this just makes it seem like they managed to become a Mobius Strip of head-assedness.

"Come see us not even perform, but rather talk about how fucking great we've always been."

Aw shit, isn't this how Trump was elected?

Prisons have halls. I for one am a free man!

Obligatory:

That speech is so perfect I had to apply the quote to one of my guitars





(I dont have the guitar anymore tho...)

Fuck yeah!

Quite a good collection of drama there, sir. A few more:

- In 2010 a photographer sued Joey DeMaio for millions, claiming he'd kidnapped her. Apparently he drove her to a remote hotel, and demanded (in the presence of scary-looking bodyguards) that she write him a check for $25,000. The whole thing sounds pretty far fetched and I'm not sure I believe it (seriously, no way can Joey afford a team of bodyguards). Not sure where that case ended up.
http://exclaim.ca/music/article/manowar ... _extortion

- After RJD died, Joey DeMaio announced a tribute album of Dio covers. It ended up coming off as a kind of sleazy cash grab. It wasn't endorsed by Wendy Dio, none of the money went to charity (as is normally the case with tribute albums), and apparently one of the artists didn't consent to having his song included.
http://www.metalstorm.net/events/news_c ... essage_id=

- A Manowar tribute band called Womanowar got a cease-and-desist from Mr De Maio. Note that Eric Adams' son plays in a Motley Crue tribute band called Motley Cruton.
http://www.metalsucks.net/2017/09/06/ma ... womanowar/

- Joey wrote a song called "Expendable" in the hopes that Stallone would include it in Expendables 2 (spoiler: he didn't). If you want your song to be in a major Hollywood picture, you probably need better lyrics than "I get professional pay / to make people go away"

- Huge swathes of the drumming from WoTW onward was programmed. That was one of the reasons Scott Columbus left for the second time in 2008-9, he didn't like playing along to robotic programmed beats.

This story sounds like something blown severely out of proportion but it also wouldn't surprise me if Joey DeMaio did get accused of sexual assault. I've heard that he's not the best person when it comes to respecting women.

Never understood this. You got a guy like Columbus who is notorious for beating the shit out of his drums as well as the budget for recording good live drums, but instead you program them. They didn't even sound good either! The drums on Gods of War are really flat and rickety at times, and almost dissipate all impact the album could have.

I'm really surprised these guys would retire after almost 40 years (!) only to have their final studio album release being a re-recording of Kings of Metal. You'd think they'd want to do one more real album before ending it, especially with this "Final Battle" tour going on for what seems like years.

But that's Manowar. I'm a huge fan, but they've always made strange decisions throughout their career. Maybe we'll get some kind of final album or EP after this tour is over, but from recent interviews they don't give any indication of it. I also wonder what kinds of rarities they have in the vaults that could be released. Like that pretty awesome 1986 demo of Brothers of Metal that got leaked on some radio station years back. (Link below for those who haven't heard it)

Nope...the Louder Than Hell version is better.

Louder Than Hell version is definitely way better. Mainly because of the chorus being much more developed. That was cool though; I'd never heard that version before, so thanks for sharing it!

Supposedly the demo came from a pre-Fighting the World demo session where they also recorded early versions of Courage and Number 1. Strange how all three songs weren't developed further for Fighting the World and they chose to wait 10 years to finally re-record them for an album.

But I like the 1986 demo, it's neat hearing a later era Manowar song in their earlier style. Obviously the Louder Than Hell album version is more polished and worked on, but the demo has that early 80s Manowar sound that they kind of lost once they got signed to Atlantic Records.

Here's an early 1986 live version of Courage. Too bad the 1986 demo version hasn't leaked... but this is probably close to what it sounds like.

New album?

https://twitter.com/MANOWAR/status/993230128250486785

There was also an interview with Joey posted a few days ago:



http://manowar.com/interview-with-manowars-joey-demaio/

Not that they haven't teased many an album that never saw the light of the day though...

I swear to god, if what they're working on in the studio is another re-recording...

But I'd definitely welcome an album of all new material. The Lord of Steel wasn't great at all, but I love Gods of War. Eager to hear what they come up with. But hope whatever it is they are teasing doesn't get aborted either.

Spoken word album.