Peter "Peavy" Wagner
Peter "Peavy" Wagner, born on 22nd of December 1964 at the heart of the "Ruhr area", came into contact with music quite early. His parents, both teachers, were real active musicians. His father Paul conducted a music group which liked the music of the Renaissance. Thus, Peavy, his brother and his two sisters already became acquainted with classical instruments and choir music in their childhood. No wonder, he soon devoted himself to the classical guitar. After some years of lessons given by Dirk Zdebel, music conductor at the university of Dortmund, it became too tedious for Peavy to just play just the old masters and he started to celebrate his own songs on the electrical guitar. By the way, Peavy's nickname was found as early as time he went to school. His first inspirations in his youth would be the Beatles and Police, followed by Rush, Motörhead, the Sex Pistols, as well as Judas Priest and their mates of the NWOBHM. At the time when the definition "Heavy Metal" had just become a trademark for the music of the hard bands in the years around 1980, he as a consequence founded his first band the "Dark Lights". After some time he changed from guitar to bass, being inspired by Lemmy who thoroughly impressed Mr. Wagner with Motörhead that time. Except for some pictures there are only a few live recordings available of this first band, which due to their bad quality have never been released. Together with Jochen Schroeder and Alf Meyerratken, Peavy founded Avenger in 1983. For more infos on the further development please read the band history.
Worth mentioning are also some projects Peavy ran in the mid '80s: First of all, there was that punkband called "Der Riß" where Peavy was responsible for the guitar. Among the other musicians of this band were Jörg Michael, the current drummer of Stratovarius, and the former manager of RAGE Gerald Wilkes who was playing the bass in "Der Riß" . However, this liaison lasted just one tour. There's a vinyl release by "Der Riß" (They All Do What Their Image Says - 1983, Wishbone Records) which is no longer available. Then there was the renowned band "Mekong Delta", the great-father of the Prog Metal movement, with whom Peavy was working together from 1985 - 87, first as a guitarist on the first demos and later as a singer and composer of the lyrics on the first two album (Mekong Delta-1985 ; The Music of Erich Zann -1986). Unfortunately the co-operation with bandleader Ralf Hubert ceased while working on the third album. Very rarely does Peavy make an appearance as a guest musician. Among the ones worth mentioning are the albums "Black Moon Pyramid" by "Axel Rudi Pell" (as guest bass-man), "The Lake" by "GB ARTS" (as guest vocalist ), "Let Love Conquer The World" by German Rock Project and the legendary "X-mas Project".
Discography:
All RAGE CDs
1985 - Mekong Delta - "Mekong Delta"
1986 - Mekong Delta - "The Music Of Erich Zann"
Guest appearance:
1985 - X-mas Project
1989 - German Rock Project - "Let Love Conquer The World"
1996 - Axel Rudi Pell - "Black Moon Pyramid"
2000 - GB ARTS - "The Lake"
2002 - Mob Rules - "Hollowed Be Thy Name"
2008 - Markus Grosskopfs - "Bassinvaders"
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