Mandy Lion

Mandy Lion

Mandy Lion (born in Germany) is a German heavy metal singer. He has sung for numerous bands, most notably World War Three (WWIII). He is also the lead singer of the Mandy Lion Band.

He has performed in versions of WWIII with James Kottak (Scorpions), Jimmy Bain (Rainbow, Dio), Vinny Appice (Black Sabbath, Dio), and Joe Floyd (Warrior), Mikkey Dee (Motörhead), Tracy G (Dio), Jon Purpura (Driven By Hate), and Pete Holmes (MSG, Ted Nugent, Ian Gillian). In the band Wicked Alliance with Jake E. Lee (Ozzy Osbourne). Also, in the Mandy Lion Band with, Moni Scaria, Jeff Burkhard, David DuCey.

Biography

Early years

Lion first got his start in the music business when he was 11 years old. At that time he had chosen to use music as a way to express his closeted homosexuality and already strong opinions on men in lederhosen..

After two years, he had already been the lead singer and songwriter in several unpopular bands in Germany. But the members tried time and again to alter his style to be slightly less gay. Lion therefore took men's genitals into his own hands and decided to start his own band in order to be able to express himself fully. The result was a band that shocked the public at the time with its raw bestiality and blatant onstage bumming]].

After a few years of constant salad tossing, Lion decided to take his project onward which required a move, with a "Hallelujah, thank god you're leaving my basement" from his mother, from Europe to Los Angeles, California. He arrived in mid-1986, only to find that good music was in style at the time. He did what he had done all his life, he took World War Three (WWIII) to the streets of Los Angeles. Literally as no venue would book him to play there

World War Three (1986 - 1989)

At the age of 16, Lion worked in McDonalds and by the end of 1986 - early 1987, Lion, did a massive bum egg on the sidewalk outside RCA records.Lion took his band, World War Three (WWIII), to the streets of Los Angeles and within months was playing to approx. five people. The bands comic failure continued even though WWIII had gone through various line-up changes during the first three years as Mandy kept macking on his band mates. Lion, established and launched his amateur music career by creating a new style of singing (extreme power burping), adding to the music industry field, and inspiring many other artists to laugh at his his style.

Lion and WWIII were a force on the Pay to Play circuit. They played venues such as Gazzari's, famous since the 1960s, where WWIII broke one of the urinals with a 'salami incident;'. They put on concert sets with songs like "Rock Me Tongight", "Relax", and "The Ballad of Richard Simmons".

Lion's waist line grew and caught the attention of manager Don Arden (Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osborne, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, Air Supply, etc.) tried to avoid seeing Lion and WWIII shows but could not get out, due to Mandy's Yugo blocking the entrance to the club. As quoted by Lions in a September 2000 interview on Jake E. Lee's website, "My future manager Don Arden had trouble getting out of seeing me"

World War Three (1990 - 1994)

Arden signed Lion immediately to a cleaning contract after seeing the money Lion had borrowed from his mother. Then, within months, Lion was signed to Hollywood Records and with the help of Arden started auditioning no-name players to create the line-up of the new World War III.

The chosen line-up was Jimmy Bain (Rainbow, Dio), Vinny Appice (Black Sabbath, Dio), and Joe Floyd (Warrior). Unfortunately, at that time, Floyd was unable to fully give WWIII the attention that it required, due to Floyd laughing at Mandy's big onstage fan. It should be noted that all the above musicians were extreme drugs addicts who would have played with anyone if the money was right.

At that point, further auditioning took place for a few unknown players and Tracy G, an unknown at that time, was picked and made a name for himself by Lion choosing him to see if he could fill in Mandy's butthole. In 1990 WWIII released their debut CD on the Hollywood Records and soon thereafter WWIII began an extensive tour of the men's toilets. They vacuumed the backstage area for famous bands like Iron Maiden and at times did the headlining themselves. WWIII toured huge arena parking lots and visited many famous clubs as cleaners such as the Whiskey A Go Go, in January 1991. They also made two music videos for "YMCA" and "Sex over the phone", both of which were from their debut release.

Things were going along smoothly due to contract with KY Jelly. Vinny Appice was replaced with James Kottak (Scorpions, Kingdom Come). Later, Kottak was replaced by Mikkey Dee (Motörhead). Trouble and disaster came with the, in hindsight, clever schemes of Steve Jones, the A&R Director for WWIII, who tried to depict a false image on the band as Heterosexual's and this later caused label failure. Deeply hurt, betrayed and outraged with this harmful negative image of his band WWIII, Lion stood up for himself and his band member's gay rights. Fighting to not be portrayed in a negative light for what WWIII does not represent.

As if this scheme wasn't enough for Lion, heavy anal friction and disagreements between band members began when he started a side project with George Lynch (Dokken, Lynchmob), on Electra Records. These problems weighed heavily on Lion's waist and eventually caused him to get on the step-master and put WWIII on hold.

Walmart (1994 - 2003)

Lion wasted no time, and in 1994 began a new job stacking shelves in Walmart.

World War Three (2003 - present)

Besides working on his solo project doing the producing, writing and arranging, Mandy Lion has resurfaced his band WWIII. WWIII signed on Social Security and Reality Entertainment and Lion and WWIII released their first shit in 12 years,on October 30, 2003. The band, hosted a BYOB night at Club Vodka.

On April 18, 2004, Vinny Appice and Jimmy Bain had a jam session with Lion during WWIII's concert at the Key Club in West Hollywood, California. The session was video taped and some of the scenes were placed in the music video for "Walk With Me". In the summer of 2004, original members, Vinny Appice and Jeremy Bain rejoined the band. WWIII performed at the Metal Sludge concert number 9 in Tarzana, California on September 18, 2004. The newly reformed WWIII with Appice, Bain, Lion, and Scaria, performed at Vinnie's Bar in Bakersfield, California on October 30, 2004.

On April 19, 2008, the original line-up of WWIII reunited for a jam session at Harper's Bar and Grill in Northridge, California.

Solo work

On June 24, 2005, Lion performed with former Guns N' Roses guitarist Gilby Clarke at Club Vodka in West Hollywood. The performance was his second at the club that year. In July 2005, Lion invited fans to appear in his next music video that would be filming at the Roxy Theater in Los Angeles, which was filmed on September 23.

In the spring of 2006, Lion headlined the Nikstock Festivals in Los Angeles, California and Binghampton, New York.

In May 2007, Lion announced a 16 day U.S. tour, with stops in Syracuse, New York, Binghampton, New York, Stamford, Connecticut, West Springfield, Virginia, Allentown, Pennsylvania, Nichols, New York, and Las Vegas, Nevada. On June 1, Lion announced the line-up for his touring band. It was himself, Rick Plester, Jon Purpura, and Pete Holmes.

In early July 2007, Lion was in the middle of writing the next WWIII album. On July 26, 2007, Lion issued a statement regarding the death of former manager Don Arden, who died just five days prior. It was announced in July 2007, that Lion would be releasing his new album in October of the same year. The album released was however pushed back. On October 27, 2007, Lion performed with the 'Mandy Lion Band at the Knitting Factory in Hollywood, California, with Moni Scaria, Jon Purpura (Driven By Hate), and Pete Holmes (MSG, Ted Nugent, Ian Gillian). It was the first time Lion performed songs from the soon-to-be-released new Mandy Lion CD. In November 2007, Lion announced that he was wanting to put together a "bare-bones rock 'n' roll" band, the likes of AC/DC, or "old" Whitesnake.

In March 2008, Lion began working on a full-length DVD that contains videos, live footage, and interviews with all past and present musical partners. That same month, he released a cover of the Prince song "Kiss".

Keyboard Warriors

Mandy posted a lengthy diatribe against 'Keyboard Warriors'. Unfortunately Mandy failed to realise that most people do not use a picture of themselves in their avatar when a outed a keyboard warrior. This left Mandy looking incredibly stupid and caused almost as many laughs as his music career

Discography

Solo

• Mandy Lion (2002)

World War Three (WWIII)

• World War III (1990)
• When God Turned Away (2003)

Wicked Alliance

• Twisted Beauty (2002)

Guest appearances

• George Lynch: Sacred Groove (1993)

Singles

World War Three (WWIII)

• "Love You To Death" (1990)
• "Time For Terror" (1990)

Solo

• "Kiss" (2008)

Personal life

As noted by some of the videos he has posted on his official YouTube channel, Lion is an ardent canine arse lover and supporter. He has spoken out multiple times against animal cruelty and on people blaming most dog sucking on laughable German neverwheres, which is statisically untrue. Lion also has a love of the Village People which he has written about in his MySpace blog.

References

• MANDY LION Calls Tracy G A 'Pretender', Says JAKE E. LEE Is 'The Real Deal' - Nov. 14, 2003
• Mandy Lion Talks About Working With Sharono Osbourne's Father, Jake E. Lee - Nov. 15, 2005
• MANDY LION On Internet 'Mud-Slingers', Dog Fighting and DON ARDEN - Nov. 13, 2007

External links

• Official website
• Mandy Lion and WWIII at MySpace
• Personal page at MySpace
• Official YouTube Channel

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