Enlarge image
Mike Howe at a Metal Church concert in 1991
Photo: John Atashian / Getty Images
The band Metal Church was founded by the Dutch guitarist Kurdt Vanderhoof, first as an instrumental band and then again in 1983 in Seattle with the singer David Wayne.
But Wayne was replaced after two albums - Vanderhoof had just produced an album by the band Heretic and was so impressed by their singer Mike Howe that he brought him to his own band.
Mike Howe, born in 1966 in a suburb of Detroit, initially sang in a band in his home state of Michigan before joining Heretic in Los Angeles in late 1986.
After the album »Breaking Point«, which was released in 1988, and Howe's departure, Heretic initially broke up.
Howe's new band Metal Church has often been labeled Power Metal.
What was meant was a mixture of heavy metal, thrash metal and speed metal.
Despite the great acceptance within the scene, she was largely denied a major commercial breakthrough.
But in the phase in which Howe led the band as the front man, the greatest sales successes of Metal Church fall. The album "Blessing in Disguise" made it to number 39 in the German album charts in 1989 and to 75 on the Billboard 200 in the USA. The video for the song "Badlands" received some airplay on MTV in that era.
The subsequent change to a major label then turned out to be a wrong decision, the album "The Human Factor" was not advertised in 1991 to the desired extent. With the advent of grunge, Metal Church's perception was marginalized, and not just in their hometown of Seattle. With “Hanging in the Balance” in 1994 another respectable success was achieved (eight weeks in the German album charts). But the band broke up for the time being. In 1998 there was a reunion, but with the original singer David Wayne. Wayne died in 2005 of a head injury sustained in a car accident. In the following years Ronnie Munroe sang at Metal Church.
Mike Howe had since retired to Tennessee, where, according to Kurdt Vanderhoof, he lived with his family. Howe was lured out of musical retirement in 2014 for a joint project with Vanderhoof. This soon turned into a return to Metal Church - and also a comeback on a commercial level for the band.
The album »XI«, released in 2016, made it to number 57 in the USA and number 34 in the charts in Germany.
In the magazine “Rock Hard” it was said about the album: “The combination of Kurdt Vanderhoof's signature riffs and Mike Howe's still excellent die voice is still thrilling enough to provide enough killer moments, the Metal Church easily to settle a league above the usual Power Metal average «.
Another studio album followed with “Damned If You Do” and a collection of rarities with “From the Vault”.
On Monday evening, Metal Church announced via their social media channels that Mike Howe had died in Eureka, California.
Howe was 55 years old.
The band did not comment on the cause of death, they asked that the privacy of the musicians and the family be respected.
feb
