The band Pretty Maids was formed back in 1981 in Horsens, Denmark. The rumour says, that Ken Hammer chose the name Pretty Maids from the cover of a book he had seen, but never read, -he just liked the sound of it! Another old story tells, that he and Ronnie Atkins got together because of a small add in the local newspaper, where a singer was looking for a band. Lucky for the world, that these two metal-geniuses found each other. With the influence from names like Thin Lizzy and Deep Purple, the band sweated away in their rehersal-room, to find their own unike sound. This made the band the actual creator of the concept melodic metal.
The demotape was given to Ken Anthony, a manager from Copenhagen. In 1983 the band signed up with the English label Bullet Records. Hoping for an international breakthrough, all bandmembers got English names before the release of the selfnamed album Pretty Maids in September 1983. So that’s how Kenneth Hansen became Ken Hammer and Poul Christensen changed to Ronnie Atkins. The rest of the original bandmembers were: Pete Collins (Jan Piete) on guitar, Phil Moorhead (Henrik Andersen) on drums, John Darrow (Johnny Møller) bass and Alan Owen (Allan Nielsen) on keybords.
After the release, the band went on tour in England, but to everybodys horror, Bullet Records went broke in the middle of the tour and Pretty Maids were back where they started. Fortunately CBS (later Sony) were interested in taking on the band, and in the spring of 1984, the album Pretty Maids hit the streets once again in a remixed version, and with a more ’heavy’ looking cover.
Before going back in the studio, the band went on their first successful tour in Scandinavia, as supportband for Black Sabbath.
At this time, Pete Collins and John Darrow left the band. Rick Hanson (Kim Hansen) joined the band to play guitar and Allan Delong (Allan Jensen) took over the bass.
The album Red, Hot and Heavy was recorded in Denmark in 1984, with Billy Cross as producer, and released in October the same year.
Sometimes succes can be bitter-sweet, the album was the steppingstone to a tour, as supportband for the english megaband Saxon. But had the boys known what awaited them, they would probably have stayed at home. As warm-up they gave their very best, but the British fans were horrible. Screaming, spitting and throwing beercans, they made the tour a nightmare. The Saxon-gang was no help, they were no better than their fans!!
After this doubtful experience, the band (now without Rick Hanson) went to Bearsville Studios in Woodstock north of New York, to start recording their next album, with Eddie Cramer as producer. This constellation turned out to be a bad idea, and Cramer was sacked half way through the project. Kevin Elson and Flemming Rasmussen took over, and after 130 days in the studio in the middle of No-where, Future World was a fact.
This was planned to be the big breakthrough in the US, and to please the sensitive parts of America, the original album titel ’Yellow Rain’ had to be changed to the more political correct Future World.
Future World was released in April 1987, and became the bands best selling album ever. Far over 250.000 copys went over the counters. Especially the German metal-market opened, and the album sold over 100.000 copys here alone.
In contrast to Scandinavia, Germany had a really big interrest in Heavy Metal, and Pretty Maids were invited to play at the ’Monsters Of Rock’-festivals. In Nürnberg alone, they played in front of 50.000 fans and the concert was a huge succes.
During the summer-tour Pretty Maids got a brief visit from guitarist Angel Schleifer from Germany, but he left the band when he was headhunted by the German metalband Bonfire.
To strike while the iron was hot, Pretty Maids brought in Ricky Marx to play guitar, and went back to the studio, to record the next album. This time with a budget of half a million dollars. The bass-player from Deep Purple, Danny Glover was hired as producer. Unfortunately he was involved with Deep Purple affairs at the same time, and the album was delayed over and over again.
During the recordings, drummer Phil Moorhead had a terrible car accident, and was hospitalized for over six months. In the end, Deep Purple-drummer Ian Paice had to step in for him and play the drums on ’Young Blood’.
Keyboard player Alan Owen had always had serious problems with his eyes, but when this had left him almost blind, he decided to leave the band during the following mixing-phase.
Finally in the spring of 1990, Pretty Maids could release Jump The Gun. At this time, the album had been almost 2 years delayed.
The sound was very different from Future World, and the metal-critics were not so pleased with the result. Everybody, even Pretty Maids them selves said, that the sound was too close to Def Leppard. Had the album been released two years earlier, as originally planned, it would have been just right, but during the waiting time, the metal-scene had changed to a more raw sound, and compared to this, Jump The Gun was too polished.
Again CBS had objections to the title, and the album was released under the name ’Lethal Heroes’ in America.
The fact that the sound was more polished and radio-friendly, may have been a problem in Europe, but this was exactly what the Japanese liked. They welcomed Pretty Maids with open arms.
In spite of the half-hearted european reception of Jump The Gun, Pretty Maids went on tour as planned, and they had no problem filling the halls and festivals all over Europe with faithful fans.
Late in 1990, the small curiousity ’In Santas Claws’ was released. It included two christmas songs. One written by Pretty Maids and a coverversion of a Thin Lizzy song. The last three tracks were live-recordings from the Roskilde-festival 1990.
With the Pretty Maids Star shining high above Europe and Japan, business was booming, but one continent was falling behind, -America…
From the very beginning, CBS had filled the band with promises about a breakthrough in Gods Own Country, but with every new release, promises turned into bad excuses, and no effort was ever put into promotion or airplay. This was very confusing for the members, and after so many years of hard work, Phil Moorhead and Allan Delong finally gave up and left the band in fustration.
In reality Pretty Maids were now dissolved. The only members left, were Ronnie Atkins and Ken Hammer. They took a long break to think things over, and came to the conclution, that the overproduced Jump The Gun should not go over in history as the final of Pretty Maids.
They recruited two new members, Kenn Jackson (Kenn Jacobsen) on bass and Michael Fast (Michael Fast Andersen) on drums. Soon they had formed a great unity, and Pretty Maids were again ready to take on the world. They went back in the studio, this time with both Dominic Gale and Alan Owen on keyboards.
In February 1992 the result was released. Back in the true metal style Sin-Decade was accepted by both fans and critics. The album included a cover version of Thin Lizzy’s ’Please Don’t Leave Me’. This song gave the band a Danish Grammy in 1993, and their biggest succes in their homecountry ever!
As the Japanese market got bigger and bigger, the band tried to ajust the versatility a little bit, and in the end of 1992, they released the EP Offside in Japan. It was an acoustic album, again with two cover versions of Thin Lizzy songs, one song by Brian May and two Pretty Maids songs, -very different from their usual style.
After years of controversy with the manager of Sony, Pretty Maids finally saw a way out of their contract.
Pretty Maids were released of the contract with Sony, and signed up with the German label Massacre. They made the album Stripped in 1993 for the european market. The style was now half-acoustic.
The grand old heavy style was found in the writingphase of the next album. Metallica-producer Flemming Rasmussen was back in the seat, and in 1995 Scream was out. Again both critics and fans were falling head over heels for the energy in this album. A fantastic tour followed and in Tivoli in Copenhagen, the follow-up Screamin’ Live was recorded. This album was released later the same year.
In 1995 the band recorded the song ’Det Bedste Til Mig Og Mine Venner’. It was part of a tribute-album to the danish seventies band Gasolin (titled Fifi-Dong, by Columbia-records)
With the new-found energy, the band went back to recording again in the end of 1996. They released the album Spooked in 1997. Again with a little help from their old friend, keybord player Alan Owen. Eventhough the metal interrest was fading in the late nineties, the album went on the bestseller charts in several countries and gave the band a Danish Grammy again in 1998.
In 1998 the Japanese fans could buy the compillation CD The Best Of… Back To Back. All the tracks were chosen for the japanese market. Including the danish song ’Det Bedste Til Mig Og Mine Venner’ (which means: the best for me and my friends!), bacause the fans insisted on hearing the band singing in danish.
Pretty Maids had always stayed true to their heavy metal roots, and the public opinion was leaning more and more away from this type of music. The band’s confusion over this ridicule, resulted in the next album Anything Worth Doing Is Worth Overdoing from 1999. The title (-a quotation from the Aerosmith biography ’Walk This Way’) was a hint to the critics, -to back off or Face Me!
Again the following tour brought the band around big parts of Europe and also to Japan.
Still in high spirit, Pretty Maids rushed back to the studio to finish their next album. Already in 2000 Carpe Diem was in the shops. The concert calender was full the next six months. As the normal tour keybord player Dominic Gale had left, the band hired Jørgen Thorup and went back on the road.
The year 2002 was officially the 20th anniversary year for Pretty Maids, and they kicked in with the release of Planet Panic in March. The lyrics on this album were saturated with the chock and fustration after the terror-attack on World Trade Center on September 11th 2001.
A new keyboard player, Jan Møller was hired for the following tour, -this time only in Europe.
For the nearest future, Pretty Maids have planned the release of a live-CD. It should be in the shops late March or early April. The album includes recordings from concerts in Japan in 2001, plus Hamburg and Bochum, Germany in the spring of 2002.
