VIRGIN STEELE: Die andere Seite…

Der Disput zwischen VIRGIN STEELE-Gründungsmitglied Jack Starr und David DeFeis geht weiter. Nun hat Jack Starr einmal wieder auf die Aussagen von David reagiert und da es in solchen Geschichten immer zwei Seiten gibt, wollen wir euch das Schreiben von Jack natürlich nicht vorenthalten…

Der Disput zwischen VIRGIN STEELE-Gründungsmitglied Jack Starr und David DeFeis geht weiter. Nun hat Jack Starr einmal wieder auf die Aussagen von David reagiert und da es in solchen Geschichten immer zwei Seiten gibt, wollen wir euch das Schreiben von Jack natürlich nicht vorenthalten…

Dear Metalheads ,

By now you may have heard of a dispute with Dave Defeis and Jack Starr and I Jack Starr would like to answer some lies that i saw on the noise records website about myself and the metalmayem releases.

Here is the truth:

1. Virgin Steele was started in 1981 by Jack Starr

2. The band was named by Jack Starr who got the name from a poem he wrote called Virgin Snow, he later changed the name to Virgin Steele when he wanted a heavier sounding name to go with the band he was starting.

The name existed before Jack ever met Dave

3. Virgin Steele became known because Jack was chosen to appear on a record called U.S. Metal 2, (Schrapnel Records). At the time this was a record of unknown guitarists some of the other “unknowns” on the record were Marty Friedman of Megadeth, Dave Feinstein of The Rods, Derek Frigo of Enufznuff and Mike Batio of David lee Roth

4. Jack Starr wrote almost all of the songs on the first 2 albums and all the songs were published by Jacks company American Metal Publishing.

5. The album’s Virgin Steele I and II as well as all of the promotional efforts such as adverts in all of the major magazines, t-shirts, bumper stickers, ect were self financed with Jack outlaying the majority of the money.

6. Virgin Steele I was put out on CEP records, CEP is an acronym for Cambridge Educational Press which was also Jack Starr’s company.

7. The Noise website said that Jack Starr forced magazines to write about him. THIS IS RIDICULOUS. Jack is not on a big label that has the power to force people to write about him. He does not have the power of a big corporate record label like Sanctuary but despite that he is very happy that many people in the press are starting to write about him and interview him which proves that the Heavy Metal press is not beholden to any special interest or record labels.

8. Jack Starr is not interested in recording any Dave Defies songs and he has not authorized Dave Defeis or the band he calls Virgin Steele to record any song that is published by his company.

9. If Jack Starr were just motivated by money he would gladly give permission to Dave Defeis to record his songs so he could collect record royalty payments (obviously this is not the case). In his last phone call with Dave Defeis Dave posed the question “I can’t understand why you don’t want us to record your songs Jack, You will make money isn’t that what you want?” (Well obviously there are things that are more important to Jack Starr like integrity).

10. The Metal Mayhem releases are the original releases by the original musicians with the original artwork.

11. The sanctuary releases are re-recordings by different musicians than those that appeared on the original Virgin Steele albums.

12. Anthrax has not rerecorded a fistful of metal that my friend Neil Turbin sang on, Iron Maiden has not rerecorded the first couple of albums

that Paul Dianno sang on and Metallica did not rerecord Kill Em All with a new bass player and better recording technology, IT IS WHAT IT IS, AND WHAT ONCE WAS SHOULD BE LEFT ALONE ANY ATTEMPT TO CHANGE OR REWRITE HISTORY IS CENSORSHIP IT IS SOMEBODYELSE DECIDING FOR YOU WHAT YOU SHOULD HEAR OR SEE.

13. The noise website has called me a loudmouth this is pretty funny when you consider that before all of this I had not spoke to the press or given an interview in almost ten years so I think that does not make me a loudmouth usually I like to let my music do the talking but now I will not be silent any longer when Dave Defeis

attempts to rewrite history!!

14. I read on the website that I wanted to use vinyl as masters to save money this is totally untrue. I said that if the choice were to remix and change the performance then I would prefer the vinyl I am against changing any part of the first 2 albums there is actually a wrong note on the bass guitar which was brought to my attention by my bass player Joe O’ Reilly (The original bass player of Virgin Steele) on the song Still in Love With You and we could have fixed it but in order to do so the bass tracks would have

to have been recorded again and a different sound would have been created. I chose to leave as it was. There is a tremendous amount of echo and delay on Dave’s voice on Virgin Steele 1 but that is what Dave wanted back then and that is the way it will stay (in all it’s totally over the top glory or insanity, pick one)

15. Metal Mayhem Records, www.metalmayhem.com has shown great conviction and pride in painstakingly bringing back these two great records which many consider to be important records alongside Metallica, Riot, and The Rods as hallmarks of the New Wave of American Heavy Metal.

16. A tremendous amount of money was spent to

re-master the 2 albums and yes it was done from the analog master tape reels and some of them because of their age had to be baked in a

convection oven. I have copies of the mixed masters and when they were not perfect we used test pressings which I had saved from the mastering sessions after all the tapes were restored and cataloged they were then

taken to SONY Sound Labs in New York City where their head engineer spent two days re-mastering the tapes the final result is fantastic and

much better than anyone has ever heard this music but more important it is the real thing or in this case the real STEELE !!!!!

17. So if you want David Defeis interpretations of classic Virgin Steele with his new band buy the Sanctuary release. If you want the classic albums by the original musicians buy the

Metal Mayhem release and last but not least you may wish to listen to both releases and decide for yourself

METAL REGARDS JACK STARR

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