Vision Divine were born in 1998, originally as a solo project by Olaf Thörsen, the former guitarist and mastermind of the Italian band Labyrinth. He was soon joined by Fabio Lione on vocals (now in Rhapsody), who he had worked with in the early Labyrinth line-up ("No Limits" album). What was supposed to be a solo project soon turned into a real band. The band name is a composition of Labyrinth's original name Vision, and the title Olaf wanted to give his first solo album, Divine. The line-up was completed by Mat Stancioiu (drums), Andrew McPauls (keyboards) and Andrea Tower Torricini (Bass).
In their first three years of existence the band released two albums, "Vision Divine" and "Send Me An Angel", and thanks to the great sales they started touring around the world, with a special mention for the great South American Tour in Dec. 2000, where for the first time an Italian heavy metal band got the chance to play (and sell out shows) in countries like Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Panama, and Mexico.
At the end of 2002, Olaf decided to leave Labyrinth to focus just on Vision Divine, putting a stop to the annoying rumour created by a certain magazine, pretending to consider Vision Divine as nothing but a "side project". For the same reason, Andrew and Mat left the band, being replaced by the highly talented Oleg Smirnoff (ex-Eldritch, now Death SS) on keyboards and Matteo Amoroso (ex-Athena) on drums.
In 2003 the band were writing material for their 3rd album, when unfortunately Fabio started having problems regarding the coexistence of his career and band related duties. After a few months, they mutually agreed to part ways in a friendly way. A new singer was chosen in the person of Michele Luppi, a highly skilled and talented musician (graduated in '98 from VIT in LA) with extensive experience in live performance. With this new line-up it was finally possible to complete the last few songs needed, so the new album entitled "Stream Of Consciousness" could be recorded.
With a brand new line-up and renewed ambitions, the band is preparing to promote the new album and getting ready for more live action. Surely nobody can seriously call this a "side project" any more…
Source: http://www.metalblade.com/bands/vision_divine/index2004.html
