Vampire State Building
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Vampire State Building was an industrial metal band from Norway that in their three years of existence (1993-1995) managed to cause quite a stir, a lot of it due to their wildly eccentric live show, which consisted of rubber fetish outfits, video graphics, avant-garde antics, drag strippers (!) and ballet dancers. The band's pioneer work came at a time before bands like Marilyn Manson and Rammstein had appeared on the World stage, and is therefore far more impressive than how their achievements would be perceived today.
They were adored by the tabloids, who used every opportunity of adding headlines involving "sex shock", "rubber fetish" and "satanism". Vampire thus attracted somewhat unfair criticism of being more about show and less about the music, as people gathered in hordes to watch them live. Unfortunately their short career only suggests what could have been, although they managed to release one album "50 Hz Broken" (1994) and two EPs, "Frankie Say: No More" (1993) and "nXt" (1995). The latter spurned a massive radio hit, with Vampire State Building's take on Bronski Beat's "Smalltown Boy". Unfortunately, just as the band was about to make it to the big stage, the band's front-man and main songwriter Stig Jakobsen quit the band, and although Vampire later released a track for a Knutsen & Ludvigsen tribute album, they never played live again, nor finished the second album. They disbanded in the autumn of 1995.
Vampire State Building played the Roskilde festival and PopCom in 1994 (www.last.fm/festival/45518+Roskilde+Festival+'94/reviews), and toured Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Germany.
Vampire State Building consisted of Stig, Jakobsen, Erik Ljunggren, Kai Nicolai Priddy, Jim Ivan Bergsten, Aksel Hagen Tjora, Stine Varvin, and Carl Braathen.
Stig Jakobsen and Stine Varvin went on to have chart success with Lonely Crowd, Erik Ljunggren went on to form Zeromancer with Seigmen members and recently played with A-ha, and Jim Ivan Bergsten and Lars Sørensen went on to join Red Harvest and Aksel Hagen Tjora has since played with Skrømt and Strapfkernerator. Stine has also acted in several feature films, plays and TV soaps.
[edit] Discography
- Frankie Say: No More (1993)
- 50 Hz Broken (1994)
- nXt (1995)
