Frank Riester

authors

Founder & President

I first got into metal at age 12 when my friend and I secretly sneaked into his elderly sister’s room and browsed through her vinyl collection and thereby bumping into Deep Purple’s Made In Japan album.

The first 3 records that I bought with my own money were surprisingly all live records and included the aforesaid album as well as Queen’s Live Killers and Tokyo Tapes by Scorpions...

The first studio albums I bought were Blackout by Scorpions and Judas Priest’s British Steele. I turned into a complete Scorpions fan throughout most of my teen years but also had huge aspirations for Rainbow, Dio and loved most of the 80s lot.

Based on the inspirations of the aforesaid bands I went on to become one of the founding members/vocalist/songwriter for the Balingen based Hard Rock band DEADLOCK with which I had some respectable success in the region by opening for Rainbow & ZZ Top at the Balingen Open Air Festival 1996 (before it was Bang Your Had) and also shared the stage of the Daytona Europe Festival 1997 with the likes of Deep Purple, Manowar and Scorpions. After my band broke up I recorded a solo album (FRANKIE’S PLAYGORUND) which was produced by Tommy Newton and featured Tore Ostby (Conception, Ark) on guitar, Otto Van Alphen (Junkie XL, Headcrash) on bass, Matthias Liebetruth (Victory, Running Wild) on drums and others.

In 1998 I fulfilled an old dream and immigrated to South Africa which I got to know during a 1 year internship in 1990. It was here that I founded my own record label RIESTER INTERNATIONAL RECORDS.

Although no longer directly involved in the industry as a performer/songwriter I still get involved in music business related projects as and when the opportunities arise. Today my musical preferences have widened substantially compared to the old days and my favorite genres can be considered being Hard Rock, NuMetal, Progressive Metal and AOR.

VOICEOFROCK.COM is my baby and I sincerely hope that I can give something back to Metal since it has always been there for me during highs and lows and because Metal has had a huge impact on my life and to a large extent made me what I am today.

Long live Rock ‘N’ Roll.