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Lucifer's Friend    - the original line-up
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Legendary German rock cult band, formed in 1970 in Hamburg.
The group were noted as early practitioners of heavy metal and progressive rock.
They also incorporated elements of jazz into their music.
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The British born John Lawton was vocalist for a group called Stonewall.
Peter Hesslein, Dieter Horns, Peter Hecht and Addi Rietenbach were
members of a band called the German Bonds.
The five joined together to record an album under the name of Asterix in
1970, which later became  Lucifer's Friend.
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The early albums were released on the Vertigo Records label in Europe,  but in the United
States those albums were released on a series of small independent record labels,
often a year or more after release in Europe.
Thus, despite airplay in some markets and a cult following the band's albums were
hard to find.
Lucifer's Friend was known for changing musical styles and influences on each album.
Their influential and ground breaking self-titled 1970 debut album had dark and  stripped
down lyrics, guitar , organ style and sounded similar to Deep Purple, Uriah Heep,
Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath
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The single release "Ride the Sky" became a rock classic, having been
covered by many of today's younger rock bands.
That album is still sought after by fans of early heavy metal music
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The second album, "Where the Groupies Killed the Blues" (1972), took an entirely
different direction; it was a very experimental album of progressive and psychedelic rock,
lyrics mostly composed by John O'Brien Docker.
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On the third album, "I'm Just a Rock & Roll Singer" (1973), they changed direction again
this time in the straightforward rock style popularized by such groups as
Grand Funk Railroad, and gritty "life on the road" themes in the lyrics.
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"Banquet" (1974) featured extended, multi-layered jazz fusion compositions and a 30-piece
backup band, alternating with some shorter tracks reminiscent of Chicago and Traffic.
Those first four albums are all concept albums of a sort and along with
the self-titled Asterix album are the most sought after today.
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"Mind Exploding" (1976) established a holding pattern and tried to
combine the jazz of Banquet with the garage-rock of Rock & Roll Singer.
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Vocalist John Lawton left in 1976 to join Uriah Heep and was replaced by Mike Starrs,
former vocalist with Colosseum II.
Recording "Good Time Warrior" 1978 & "Sneak Me In" 1980 with them.
On the two albums without Lawton they moved to a more commercial sound.
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John Lawton returned for the 1981 album "Mean Machine".
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John Lawton's 1980 solo album on RCA, "Heartbeat", was a Lucifer's Friend album in
everything but name, with the line-up from "Sneak Me In" performing as backup musicians
on that project.
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Lawton's official return, "Mean Machine", found the band returning to
heavy metal, this time in the vein of Rainbow.
The band officially broke up in 1982 but briefly reformed as "LF 2" in the
early 1990s to release a new CD, "Sumo Grip".
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Lucifer's Friend reformed at the end of 2014, a the request of the fans...literally...
some 30 years after they recorded their very last studio album.
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2015 saw the release of 2 CD set "Awakening" with 1 CD a best of compilation featuring 10
songs from their original studio  PLUS FOUR BRAND NEW STUDIO TRACKS on a bonus disc.
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In June 2015 followed "Sweden Rock Festival" were the band headlined the 4 Sound Stage,
recording the "Live @ Sweden Rock Festival"  CD, released January 2016,
capturing the bands excellent live show.
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After playing several high profile festivals during 2015 & 2016 incl. "Sweden Rock",
"Night of the Prog" and "Rock of Ages" etc... the band released the album
"Too Late To Hate" their first true Studio Album since 1981.
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2017 Lucifer's Friend have been invited back to play the "Sweden Rock Festival" while
simultaneously working on new song material for a possible 2018 release.....;-)
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2019 saw the release of "Black Moon" with 10 new tracks, which proved to
be the last LF CD in the final line up.
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Sadly Dieter Horns passed away on 19. December 2020, due to  Covid, having
suffered from bad health for a while.
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The passing of John Lawton on 29. June 2021 came totally unexpected, due to
Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm .
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December 2021 saw the release of the LF compilation CD "The Last Stand"
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in August 2023 a tribute CD "Celebrating The Life Of John Lawton"
in honour of John Lawton, was released.
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Peter Hesslein, the only surviving member of the 3 LF main players
will still continue to write solo music.
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Check out Peters solo instrumentals "Night Drive 1, 2 & 3"
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