Kingdom Come - Kingdom Come (1988) {Polydor US LP} 24/192

The group was formed in 1987 after the breakup of Wolf's moderately successful rock project Stone Fury. Wolf recruited Pittsburgh-based lead guitarist Danny Stag, Louisvillians Rick Steier (guitar) and James Kottak (drums) and Northern Californian Johnny B. Frank (Kenny Brewer) on bass. Stag and Frank had previously been members of the bands WWIII and Population 5. Kingdom Come marked the first band where Wolf sang without playing guitar. The frontman later admitted that, for a while, it was a very awkward adjustment.

In 1988, the band released its debut LP, Kingdom Come. The band's first single, "Get It On," was a big enough hit on AOR stations that the band's eponymous debut went gold. Their second single/video for the power ballad "What Love Can Be" received much airplay on US radio and MTV. By the time the single/video "Loving You" was released, the album had sold to platinum status in the United States, Germany and Canada, among other music markets. The band was chosen to open for the North American Monsters of Rock tour in 1988, supporting Dokken, Scorpions, Metallica and Van Halen. Following that, they were tapped to support the Scorpions on their North American "Savage Amusement" tour, until they were forced off. (According to Stag, Lenny Wolf found the stage ramps reserved for the Scorpions' set irresistible. After several reprimands from The Scorpions' management, the singer continued to use the full stage and the band was asked to forfeit the rest of the tour. Coincidentally, Scorpions were also signed to PolyGram, though only in America.)





Comparisons with Led Zeppelin

The musical style on Kingdom Come's debut album was very close to the early blues-rock style of English rock band Led Zeppelin, to the point that some listeners initially thought that Kingdom Come was actually a Led Zeppelin reunion. With a sound that was thought by many to be highly derivative of Led Zeppelin's, there was a backlash from critics, with the band being dubbed "Kingdom Clone" in the press.

Led Zeppelin's guitarist and producer Jimmy Page himself commented in 1988:

"Obviously it can get to the point where it gets past being a compliment, and it can be rather annoying, when you've got things like Kingdom Come, actually ripping riffs right off, that's a different thing altogether."




Lenny Wolf Interview


When the band first started there was this strange uproar about you sounding a lot like Led Zeppelin. What the heck happened back then?

"It's like unbelievable old news. I don't know what to say to that anymore. I mean Led Zeppelin is one of the biggest bands ever, we were very influenced by them obviously. Here we are. When we started off in the early days of Stone Fury, my first American Band right before Kingdom Come, we had the same influences and my voice sounded the same, but nobody was bothered by it because we only sold 2 or 3 records and then all of a sudden Kingdom Come took off and went through the roof. All of a sudden it was a crime to be influenced by the big guys, so to me it's all a bunch of baloney.

At first they were celebrating that finally there's a band that sounds like them again, I mean at least a little bit, you know. All of a sudden they come around a couple months later and the whole thing has changed and mainly I believe some writer over heard Dave Stag's saying "Who's Jimmy Page?" Obviously it's bull shit. We all know exactly who he is, but after months and months of talking about the same old baloney it gets very tiring and boring and Danny at some point just said Who's Jimmy Page?" Some guy obviously picked it up and just claiming Kingdom Come saying they never heard of him and this is like ridiculous, but again it's old news -who cares. It's the year 2009 and certainly much more exciting issues to talk about. Rock n Roll."



Track listing

1. "Living Out of Touch" 4:17
2. "Pushin' Hard" 4:47
3. "What Love Can Be" 5:14
4. "17" 5:26
5. "The Shuffle" 3:40
6. "Get It On" 4:21
7. "Now Forever After" 5:36
8. "Hideaway" 5:38
9. "Loving You" 4:46
10. "Shout It Out" 3:37



Band members

Lenny Wolf – lead vocals
Danny Stag – lead guitar
Rick Steier – rhythm guitar
Johnny B. Frank – bass
James Kottak – drums


Credits

Produced by Bob Rock and Lenny Wolf
Recorded by Bob Rock and Tim Crich at Little Mountain Studios, Vancouver, B.C.
Mixed by Bob Rock at Electric Lady Studios, New York City, N.Y.
Assisted by Ken Steiger
Mastered by George Marino at Sterling Sound, New York City, N.Y.



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