Spirit of the Sun

Domain was founded by Bernie Kolbe (lead vocals, bass), Axel Ritt (guitars), Cliff Jackson (guitars), Volker Sassenberg (keyboards) and Freddy Friedrichs (drums) in 1986. Before Domain Bernd Kolbe (this is his original name) and Jackson played in a band called Red Roosters and formed Fagau's Epitaph with James McGillvray (guitars) in 1970. Some time later the name was shortened to EPITAPH, the band signed with Polydor Records and after adding Klaus Walz (guitars) released the debut album "Stop, Look And Listen" in 1972. The music of EPITAPH was hard/art rock in the vein of Uriah Heep. Through the years Epitaph released six successful albums, changed their line-up several times (in particular, famous German drummer Fritz Randow (later in VICTORY, SINNER and SAXON) played on three albums of the band) and split in 1982.
After the split Kolbe and Jackson joined Ritt, Sassenberg and Dietrichs to form a new band KINGDOM. The newcomers caught attention of ELOY singer and producer Frank Bornemann, who helped them to record their first demo tape. The tape found its way to the leadership of Teldec/Frontrow company that signed the band. After several months of hard work in Horus Sound Studio (HALLOWEEN, STEELER, GAMMA RAY, VICTORY) KINGDOM released its first album "Lost In The City" in early 1988. It's hard to describe the scale of success they got with it! "Lost In The City" was a classic hard rock record with amazing keyboard parts and the band was listed to follow the success of Scorpions, which was something unbelievable for a band with only one album out!
Everything seemed to be perfect but right at that time German singer Lenny Wolf (ex-Lenny Wolf's Germany, Stone Fury) released the first album of his new band Kingdom Come in the United States. In order to avoid confusions Kingdom changed its name to DOMAIN and re-released "Lost In The City" as "Our Kingdom" still in 1988. In early 1989 the new song "Hearts Of Stone" written for the second album "Before The Storm" was included in TV-series "BASTARD" and was released in several variants including a CD-single. Albert Boekholt, who worked earlier with DEF LEPPARD on „Hysteria“, MAGNUM on "Wings Of Destiny" and TREAT on "Dreamhunter", stepped into produce the new album to which Dietrichs' successor Torsten Preker (18) contributed drums.
Especially for promotion purposes "Teldec" released a sample with four tracks from the new album and a huge interview with DOMAIN members in both German and English languages. The third album "Crack In The Wall" produced by Kalle Trapp (BLIND GUARDIAN, SAXON) came out in 1991. Right before the release Preker and Sassenberg left the band and Bodo Schopf (ex-MCAULEY / SCHENKER Group) played all drums on the album. The disc was not that big success mostly due to the fact that the whole rock scene was literally paralyzed by the rising grunge wave in the United States. In 1991 Kolbe, Ritt and Jackson also took part in the recording of the song "Let Love Conquer The World" made by German Rock Project which was a kind of response to Ronnie James Dio's Stars thing. In 1992 Domain split up. In order to cash on the band's history their record company released a compilation album called "Collection 86-92" with hits, single tracks and an unreleased tune "Walk On".
For many years only guitarist Axel Ritt kept the DOMAIN reunion deep in his mind. In 1994 he joined the all-star project X-RIDE with ex-members of SIGN and FOXX but it disappeared from the scene really soon. That's when Ritt came up with an idea to form his own company Humbucker Music. Finally the dream came true when Ritt announced the long-awaited reunion. People were waiting for the original line-up to get together but it proved to be impossible for other musicians refused to participate (for example, Jackson has now nothing to do with rock anymore and plays country music)
The brand new Domain consisted of Carsten Schulz (lead vocals), Axel himself (guitars), Dirk Beckers (bass), Erdmann Lange (keyboards) and Edgar Schmidt (drums). The new album was symbolically named "One Million Lightyears From Home" and was released on February 15, 2001. It turned out to be a classic Domain record with the typical sound that the band used to have in the 1980s. After a short tour the band went to studio once again to release the mini-album "New Horizons" in autumn same year. A mini-album only? Well, that's right if you call seven acoustic tracks with BADLANDS cover "In A Dream" a mini-album. By the way the "lizard only version" of "In A Dream" is Schulz singing the song alone ('lizard' is him nickname).
In 2002, DOMAIN released the studio-album follow up of „One Million...“, named „The Artefact“, keeping the typical band sound, but putting more strength to the single compositions. The higher grade of heavyness tapped new cicles of listeners and guided the band more to the Power Metal section, warm welcomed by the fans. After the release, the band made their first big European tour together with Glenn Hughes (DEPP PURPLE / BLACK SABBATH) and Joe Lynn Turner (RAINBOW / YNGWIE MALMSTEEN). Finally, in lately 2002 Domain went to studio to record the new album "The Sixth Dimension" scheduled for release in September.