BAND

The history of Rage goes back in 1983 , when Peavy Wagner , a young bass player/singer from Dortmund formed the "Avenger" . They released a demo of raw thrash music , much influenced from Judas Priest . This demo drew the attention of the Fishbone record company , who offered them a contract . So the band really debuted in 1984 with the mini album "Depraved In Black".The band was still inexperienced but they showed great potential.Next year , 1985, the band's first full length album "Prayers of Steel" is released . This album was better than the previous one and gave the band new power.
Because there already existed a band named "Avenger" , Peavy changed the name to Rage and signed a contract with Noise. With Guiness (Guitars) and Stefan Gruening (Drums) , the band released a new debute "Reign of Fear" in 1986.The album was a success in the thrash/speed music field and severely criticised for its cover , picturing a terrorist from Lebanon . The same year they got a new drumer , Jochen Schroeder ,and a new guitar player , Rudy Graf (ex Warlock) and went on tour with Kreator and Destruction.
In 1987 the second album was released "Execution Guaranteed" and the band went on tour again , this time with Holy Moses.This year proved very important , as Peavy decided some important changes: he hired Manni Schmidt in guitars and the greek Chris Efthimiadis in drums.The new blood proved worthy with the next release "Perfect Man" (recorded in Berlin in February 1988) . The music had more melody and the refrains of the songswere catchy . To promote their new album , the band went again on tour with Sabbat and Risk .The same music style was kept in the 1989's "Secrets in a Weird World" and in the much weaker "Reflection of a Shadow"(1990) . In order to support their latest album they released the "Extended power" EP and toured in Europe with Risk and Living Death. In 1991 they took part in the first metal festival in Berlin , celebrating the fall of the Berlin Wall , with Coroner , Kreator and Tankard . From this concert came their new EP "Beyond The Wall" and a video.
In 1992 they came back with the album "Trapped!" and in 1993 followed "The Missing Link" and an EP (only in Japan) . In 1994 they participated along with Gamma Ray and Helicon in the live double album "Power Of Metal" . This same year Manni left the band .
1995 was the band's 10th anniversary and their first year with their new company G.U.N./BMG .Manni was replaced with two new guitarists , Sven Fischer and Spyros Efthimiadis (Chris' brother). Rage anniversary album "10 Years In Rage" included new versions of their old songs , even some old Avenger songs .That same year they released "Black In Mind" and went live in Metal Meetings festival of Germany. In 1996 they released "Lingua Mortis" , a performance of their songs with the Prague Symphonic Orchestra , an extraordinary binding of classical and metal music , and "End Of All Days".

Many thanks to Efi Haikali for those materials.