STORMWIND was founded in 1996 in Stockholm, Sweden... and can be described as the brain-child of guitarist and mastermind Thomas Wolf. Wolf who was Swedish Kyokushin Karate champion and sparring partner of Dolph Lundgren was soon discovered as a brilliant guitar player in Sweden.
The debut album "Straight from your heart" was released in 1996 (Sweden, Japan). An AOR album which took Wolf to a promotion trip in Japan.
The second release "Stargate-98" with different guest musicians like Ian Haugland (Europe), Anna Norberg (Royal castle....) showed a classical metal potential. Stormwind and Wolf received an invitation for a tour in the South of France.
Stormwind became the first Swedish rockband sponsored by the famous Movie Festival palace in Cannes and after this tour Wolf made the decision to put up a stable line-up. Wolf did a tremendous choice with Thomas Vikström (Ex.Candlemass, Brazen Abott) whose powerful, charismatic voice gave Stormwind a remarkable profile. Further on board was the drummer Patrik Johansson (Ex.Without Grief), Bass player Andreas Olssson and Keyboard player Kaspar Dahlqvist (Ex.Treasure Land). STORMWIND became a tight and musically top line-up since that day in October 1998.
Wolf received an invitation to a tribute album of Yngwie Malmsteen -99 which Stormwind appeared on with the Alcatraz song "To Drunk to Live Too Young to Die". The third Neo-Classical album "Heaven can Wait"-99 was released in Asia, Brazil , Argentina, and Europe got some good reviews but it was in the following year 2000 when the album "Resurrection" was released with the new labels Marquee (Asia) and Massacre (EU) their success really began.
Resurrection received tremendous reviews with excellent press feedback in all major metal magazines. Stormwind got everything right this time: great production, catchy melodies, classicaly inspired guitar work including the guitar symphony. (Even though Wolf got a serious tendinit during the recordings). The ballad "Seven Seas" was even played on the airflights around the world. Resurrection sold very well and made the name Stormwind popular throughout Europe and Asia. In the end of the year after a successful Scandinavian tour Wolf was invited to have Stormwind for the opening song on the "Jason Becker tribute" album (David Lee Roth). Stormwind choose the catchy David Lee Roth song "A little ain´t enough" and made a great cover for the release summer 2001. It was now a great opurtunity to take the "royal Stormwind tiger" to a even higher level.
The fifth release "REFLECTIONS" is the most difficult recording so far with big choirs, classical arrangements and an even better production. Reflections is a metal adventure from the battering "War of Troy" to the epic story of "Ramses". Every song has a special introsound referring to the "reflection" of the song, and this album will take Stormwind to the top of the Metal mountain.
Source: http://saga.nu/stormwind/
