Live Nervous Breakdown: White Wizzard Breaks Up Before Our Very Eyes!

Image4In 2009 just after moving back to Atlanta, GA I found myself sitting in a coffee shop one sunny morning.  I was going through my emails of bands to listen to and one of them was an email asking me to give a band called White Wizzard a listen.  That album?  Over the Top.  The minute I started the album I felt this huge smile grow on my face and all of the sudden I knew right then and there that I was hearing something really magical and really special.  This was a band that I was so excited to hear as these guys were playing the music of my youth; the very music that changed my life one fateful night in 1983.  Well,  little over four years to the day I am sitting at this same coffee shop on the same red couch drinking coffee, listening to Over the Top and shaking my head.  What happened to this band?  What was it that kept this band from growing from this amazing record and being a band that could eventually rule the metal world?

In the beginning, White Wizzard was a completely different band which was founder/bassist Jon Leon along with guitarist James J. LaRue, singer James Paul Luna, and drummer Tyler Meahl.  After putting out their debut EP High Speed GTO, the band wasn’t happy with the direction that Leon wanted to head towards leaving them with no choice than to abandon ship and start their own band Sorcerer (later Holy Grail).  This left Leon to put together what would be the most popular and easily best line up (known as the Over the Top lineup) of White Wizzard featuring lead vocalist Wyatt Anderson and guitarists Erik Kluiber (now of Gypsyhawk) and Chad Bryan.  These guys put together the one of the greatest metal albums of this generation.  Actually, Jon Leon would say that it was HIM who did it all.  Ok, here’s the deal.  Just because you’re an architect and you draw out all the plans for a home, someone has to build it.  Same with this album.  He may be the main writer of these songs but it was the guys in his band that gave that vision a life and an amazing one at that.  Without those guys playing those songs, it would’ve just been a bunch of ideas on paper along with a sub par bassist/guitarist ego maniac.

After this album, things go ugly.  Band members started dropping like flies.  White Wizzard had so many singers and at times had singers return.  It looked like this:

James Paul Luna > Wyatt Anderson > Mikey Gremio > Wyatt Anderson > Mikey Gremio > Wyatt Anderson > Joseph Michael

Um, what the fuck is that all about?  Do you REALLY wanna see what it looked like as a whole?

whitewizzardlineup

If that doesn’t make your fucking head spin I don’t know what will.  The word on the street and from these people was that Jon Leon was impossible to work with.  He was a guy who made false promises and was very obviously a delusional freak basket case.  I mean, this guy made Steve Harris from Iron Maiden seem like a pushover to work with.  With every member’s departure came accusations, verbal mudslinging in public forums, and just all out ridiculousness with Jon Leon as the captain of the keyboard.  It got to the point where every time the name “White Wizzard” was posted on any metal site you just knew that it was going to be followed by news of a lineup change.

White Wizzard released the weakest of all their albums The Devils Cut this year featuring the line up of singer Joey Mikey, guitarists Will Wallner and Jake Dreyer, drummer Giovanni Durst, and Leon himself on bass and shitty rhythm guitar.  This line up managed to tour and stay solid for a little over a year which in White Wizzard years is a fucking eternity.  At one point this year drummer Giovanni Durst left the band and it didn’t even show up on the news sites.  Why?  Because a member quitting White Wizzard just isn’t news any more.  It’s just expected.  The band silently replaced him (with who knows) but this was just the beginning of a New Wave of Troubled Heavy Metal.  Things came to an ugly recently when, in a nutshell, while on their UK tour the entire band crumbled right before everyone’s eyes via Facebook:

ww03ww06Poor Joey Mikey.  As much of an arrogant, pompous douchebag as he is, even he seemed to have met his match with Jon Leon.  The poor guy couldn’t take anymore and just drank himself retarded and threw his hands up to quit.  So what does Jon do?  He gets former WW singer Peter Ellis to fill in that night.  I love how he praises Ellis when after Ellis departure a couple of years ago he slammed him admitting that he couldn’t really sing and that all his stuff was “fixed” in the studio.  That’s classic Leon though.  Taking shit and burning bridges like a 12 year old.  “Yeah, I didn’t wanna be your friend anyway.  I’ll find a BETTER friend than you.”  Yeah, pretty much.

But wait… there’s more!

ww04

Jon says FUCK YOU JOEY MIKEY!  We are four strong and we won’t let this stop us!  Oh really?

dreyerUh oh.  It looks like Jake Dreyer had about all he could take.  Wise beyond his years without a doubt.  So Jon, how about standing 3 tall?

wallnerUm, looks like guitarist Will Wallner is licking his wounds and getting outta there before losing a limb.  I’m guessing that Jon is now standing two tall?  Oh who am I kidding?  We never even heard who this mystery drummer was that he had.  Was it Thunderstick?  Was the it chick from The Donnas?  Who knows.  All that being said… Jon Leon stands alone.

wwaloneAnd there we have it folks.  Jon Leon stands alone.  Even Earache Records finally had enough of Jon and decided to part ways with him and the White Wizzard name.  This took them way longer than any of us expected but as it is, that is it for White Wizzard and for Jon Leon.  Where most bands are proud to leave a legacy of music behind them, Jon Leon and White Wizzard left behind them a legacy of bitterness, arguments, public mudslinging, and endless, hilarious drama.  Where most band’s news read like news, White Wizzard news always read like Onion headlines.  What could’ve been a powerful band that very well could’ve ruled the scene instead is nothing more than a joke.  Former members of this band will spend a good bit of time trying to not be branded with the stigma of being a part of a band that, in the public eye, was nothing more than a sitcom that put out two truly great albums.

So here I am, listening to Over the Top and as I listen to this album, I still hear a band that could’ve ruled the world.  At the end of the day, this is how I will choose to remember White Wizzard.  I will always remember them as a band that released two amazing metal albums with two distinct line ups that I will enjoy for as long as I live.  It really is amazing that just listening to this album I can forget all of the drama and bullshit that followed and enjoy it for what it is; a fantastic piece of heavy metal history.

So what is Jon Leon to do?  Well, according to the band’s Facebook page, he is launching his own record label and even offering advice on how to deal with record labels.  Things that make you go “hm…” indeed.

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