THOR **********

THOR Thunders Into London For The First Time In 25 Years









Asgardian thunder is shaking the very foundations of Midgard in celebration of the 25th anniversary of THOR’s Only The Strong. This anniversary is marked with the release of the album, re-mastered and including bonus surprises. Thor is also getting the magical goats – Tanngrisni and Tanngnost - harnessed to his Thunder Chariot for a World Tour. It also marks Thor’s first visit to London in 25 years as well – a truly historic event.

“We’re looking forward to a spectacular show to promote the ‘Only the Strong’ album!” Thor exclaimed. “It’s been 25 years since I last came to England – that was when ‘Only The Strong’ first came out. I think that is pretty fascinating to come back again.”

The show will be at The Gaff in London on April 19, with special guests NEONFLY. Appropriate, since Neonfly’s guitarist/composer Frederick Thunder was instrumental in making this show happen. (It’s also appropriate that the Thunder God and Frederick Thunder team up at some point along their careers – two amazing talents!)

Thor commented, “He’s really a great person as well. He really knows some talented people around the world. He’s a nice guy, and he knows a lot about the industry. He’s a hard working fellow. He’s a tremendous musician as well! He’s going to be playing rhythm guitar for my band!”

This historic event is sponsored by Total Rock Radio.

“Malcolm Dome who runs Total Rock is a friend of Freddy Thunder. Also, back when I lived in London in ’84 and ’85, I used to know Malcolm Dome very well. He was a great supporter of Thor. He wrote for Kerrang Magazine at the time. It was the Bible of Rock and Metal back then. I think it’s still around, but most of the writers and editors from that magazine are with Classic Rock Magazine right now, which is a beautiful magazine, I think. Full of color, it’s quite thick, and they’re also great supporters: Jeff Barton is there, Xavier Russell, I think Chris Welch writes for them sometimes.”

This triumphant show serves as the European CD Release Party for Only The Strong (Ektro Records).

Thor said, “We thought it was important to put this one out because it’s the 25th Anniversary of Only The Strong, which is one of our most successful albums ever in our career. A lot of people thought it was Keep The Dogs Away, but actually Only The Strong was our biggest seller. It’s got some of our most memorable hits, like ‘Thunder In The Tundra’ and ‘Let The Blood Run Red’, which did well on the charts in the UK at that time, then crossed over into the US as one of the Cult Hits.”

As befitting a Thunder God, the album shot like lightning up the UK charts when it was originally released in 1985 on the strength of such anthems as the title track, 'Thunder In The Tundra', 'Let The Blood Run Red', still audience favorites to this very day! The original release was on vinyl, however, and ravenous fans have hungered for the album to be released in CD form. Not only have their prayers reached Asgard itself, they’re treated to these favorite songs remastered with the strength and polish of a well-honed sword.

“We totally re-mastered and enhanced everything, remixed it,” said Thor. “ I give all the credit to Steve Price and his studio Stepco Sound in Boca Raton, Florida, for doing that. Steve really worked hard in the re-mastering.”

The set list will concentrate mainly on Only The Strong for this show.

According to Thor: “We’ll probably do ‘Only The Strong’ in its entirety. But we will have a couple others, like 'We Live To Rock' – everybody always wants to hear that one from “Rock ‘n’ Roll Nightmare”, which of course was recently voted The Greatest Rock & Roll Movie of All Time by Exclaim Magazine, which we’re very proud of! That’s over A Hard Day’s Night and all the biggest Rock movies of all time! Even Spinal Tap! We were very proud to get that award! That song ‘We Live To Rock’ is from that movie, and everybody wants to hear it all the time. So we’ll play that. Of course we’ll play some of the favorites, but we’re mainly concentrating on ‘Only The Strong’.”

The London show is being filmed as part of a documentary on Thor’s career which has been in the works for awhile and is soon to be released.

“It’s the documentary that Riff Rock Productions has been filming for 10 years, following me all over the place,” said THOR. “I’d really like for them to finish this movie. They want to come to Germany to film some last scenes, and the UK. They’re supposed to be coming over to film the London show. It would be great to have Freddy Thunder on there and have him interviewed as well.”

Thor has plenty of other irons in the fire now as well: besides the aforementioned documentary, he’s starring in a new movie, “Thor Vs. Hercules”, and his Vancouver Millionaires sportswear line is doing extremely well, especially during the Winter Olympics recently held in Vancouver, BC!

“It was the rage of the Olympics,” Thor enthuses! “As you know, I had Wayne Gretzky wear a jacket. We had a Vancouver Millionaires store downtown, one in North Vancouver. On CBC Television, Shane Foxman who’s the major newscaster there said it was the ‘Unofficial ‘Official’ Logo of The Olympics’. Of course, Bannock and the Olympic Committee were very worked up about that, but nonetheless it sold really well. It was a rage! If you go to VancouverMillionaires.com, you’ll see all these people wearing them: Wayne Gretzky and Luc Robitaille, which of course are huge icons in Canada! I know hockey is a Canadian sport and not as popular in the United States, but up here it’s a way of Life. Hockey IS Life in Canada. To have Wayne Gretzky wearing the Vancouver Millionaires is absolutely amazing for me. It got us huge publicity. So Vancouver Millionaires are doing phenomenal right now – greater than I could have ever imagined.”