Following their co-headlining tour with Ivory Tower in spring 1999, several open air festivals in late summer 1999 (e.g. with the Scorpions and Overkill), and their popular appearance at the Wacken Open Air 2000, Mob Rules are currently planning a European tour for January / February 2001. Several discussions with well-known headliners who are planning tours for the same period, have already been held. Mob Rules was formed in late summer 1994 by bass player Torsten Plorin and guitarist Matthias Mineur. The two musicians had left their former band after many years in order to work on a more professional basis. Within a few months, they found the perfect musicians to form their band, in the form of drummer Arved Mannott and singer Klaus Dirks. This line-up of Mob Rules gave countless concerts, with Crossroads, C.I.T.A., and Pink Cream 69, to name but a few. Spring 1996 saw Mob Rules extended by the guitarist Oliver Fuhlhage, whose sensitive solos perfectly suited the band's melodic sound. In autumn of the same year the band produced an EP, the basic theme of which later formed the foundation of the concept of Savage Land and Temple of Two Suns. Thanks to the EP, Mob Rules received several contract offers and signed with Limb Music Products in spring 1998. Their debut album, Savage Land, was released worldwide in March 1999 and received great reviews both at home and abroad. Quotes such as "...the most talented German newcomer band since Helloween and Blind Guardian" (Matthias Mader in E.M.P.-Katalog-Mag), "...brilliantly unforgettable" (Rock Hard), or "...poetic powerfest, a highly impressive debut album" (Promethean Crusade, USA) were nothing unusual, and a fan club was immediately formed in Australia. From early May, Mob Rules then went on the road with their label colleagues Ivory Tower for a German tour comprising 16 dates in well-attended halls before appearing at various festivals. The Scorpions and Overkill invited them to share the billing with them, thus permitting the Wilhelmshaveners to increase their fan following. In October 1999 the musicians began the preparatory work for Temple of Two Suns. The songwriting was completed by April 2000 and after the pre-production phase Mob Rules, went into the studio in early July. The recordings were paused only for a warm up gig in Hamburg's popular `Headbangers Ballroom` and for the show at the Wacken 2000 Open Air, during which the band thrilled their fans by playing three songs from the new, then unreleased album. The excitement is therefore understandably running high, not just amongst fans, but also amongst the musicians themselves in view of the demands which will be placed upon them after the release of Temple of Two Suns.
MOB RULES
