Soul Cages

The band SOUL CAGES comes from Hemer (Germany) and was formed in December 1990. All members played in several metal-bands (mostly Speed-/Thrash-Metal-bands) before. Cause of all different experiences in music of all members during the years and different influences and favorites of every person in the band, they joined each other and tried to create a more flexible, melodic and interesting style in music.
So the music is influenced by lots of different kinds of music-styles and sounds. The aim of the band is to create a kind of sound in music, which you could describe as timeless - away from the trend during the time.
The most important thing for the band is, that their songs get interesting sounds of harmonies in combination with the sound of lead-and backing-vocals.
The creation of the untypical sound of music should knowingly show the listener different feelings. The realization is reflected in combination of the lyrics with the music.
The band itself would describe their music as „melodic Art-Rock combined with progressive influences“.
The band started with a line-up of five persons with a lead-vocalist called Frank Lau, a good friend of the band. At the start there were no female backing-vocalists.
Cause of a lot of new ideas all members had from the start, SOUL CAGES wrote 4 songs in three months and joined the first time the PWS-studio of Peter Waldhelm in the beginning of 1991 to record their first demo-tape, that had never been released officially.
During this recordings the band and their lead vocalist recognized, that there were different opinions about voice-lines and so Thorsten (he only did backing-vocals before) made his first steps in working out the lead-vocals.

At the end of 1991 SOUL CAGES joined the studio again and recorded their first and only official demo-tape with four songs on. There had been the following songs on it: The Narrow Path Of Truth; New Horizons; Soul Cages and Mindtrip.
During this recordings the band thought, trying to put more backing-vocals on the ballad „Mindtrip“ and remembered the female backing-vocalists of a local band called „Latoya“.
Beate and Patricia were asked, if they are interested in to do this unusual job for a demo-production.
They agreed and did the background-vocals for this song.
After these recordings the band was surprised and proud of the interesting combination with female-background-voices in their music and they decided to have a try in using more female-voices in their material. Afterwards Beate and Patricia joined the band.
The demo-tape was published in spring 1992. It got lots of very good reviews in a lot well known magazines in Europe and some songs of this tape were published on different CD-Sampler and MC-Sampler.
In December 1992 SOUL CAGES signed the record-deal at MASSACRE-RECORDS.
In 1993 the band recorded their first album at first at the home-studio of the record-company. Afterwards SOUL CAGES were not satisfied with the result of the recordings and so they recorded the material in the PWS-studio again during two weeks including the mixing.
The debut-CD, called „Soul Cages“, was released in May 1994. It was published in Europe and Japan.
After the publication of the debut, SOUL CAGES played some live gigs with such well-known bands like SAXON and GOLDEN EARRING.
In the summer of 1995 Patricia left the band cause she didn’t have that much time that‘s needful to work with the band cause of her job. She only did a few more live-performances with the band and helped with the recordings to the „Moments“-album.
The recordings of the second SOUL CAGES album were also made at the PWS-studio by Peter Waldhelm and Ingo Vieten at the end of 1995.
The second SOUL CAGES-CD, called „Moments“, was released in February 1996.
In March/April 1996 SOUL CAGES were on tour with „SAVIOUR MACHINE” from the USA and „VENI DOMINE“ from Sweden for about three weeks. Live gigs with well-known bands like RAGE followed.

Afterwards SOUL CAGES worked at new material for their third album and did several pre-productions.
In August 1998 the band got a constant keyboarder called Enrique Foedtke as a full member of the band.
The recordings of the „Craft”- album were made at „Skyline-studios“ in Düsseldorf in March 1999. The producer was Matthias Black.
The album was released in August 1999.

In July 2000 SOUL CAGES quit the contract with the record-company MASSACRE-RECORDS.
Afterwards the band works constantly at new song-material for the following album and did several pre-production in their own built up „SOUNDCAGES“-studio.
Enrique Foedtke left the band because of musically differences in July 2001.
Stephan Tigges left the band because of starting qualifications in his normal job as a technician in summer 2002.
In the beginning of 2003 Jörg Bode, normally not a bass-player but a guitar- player joined the band as bass-player and worked with the band at the material for the “Moon”- album.
The recordings of the “Moon” album were made at the “SOUNDCAGES”- studio. The album was produced by SOUL CAGES and the songs were mixed and mastered by Ingo Vieten.
In January 2012 Jörg Bode left the band because of musically differences. Ingo Vieten joined the band as constant bass-player and full member of the band in April 2012.
In March 2013 SOUL CAGES formed their own label called “SOUNDCAGE-music” where the new and actual album “Moon” was released afterwards. This album is self distributed and only available at the webshop at the official homepage of the band, at different internet platforms or at live performances of the band.
http://www.soulcages.com