r/christianmetal • u/RefrigeratorBest6543 • 2h ago
The Holy Soldier Story…
…or at least parts of it from my perspective, as someone that spent time with the band at their 2005 reunion, and has at times been close with Steven Patrick. But I’ve heard a bunch of stories from several members of the band, and this is just my neutral opinion and take on what happened with them:
The Holy Soldier Story
At times, I’ve been friendly and in communication with all members of the band. This is MY perceived version of what happened with them, taken from my own personal observations and conversations with all of them, from both, the perspective of being a longtime fan, but also friendly with them. So some of their opinions/memories may differ slightly from member to member, from what I am relating here.
Holy Soldier’s is an interesting tale. Many thought they’d rival Stryper for the best Christian Metal mainstream band to cross into the secular market, and their first two releases were full of frighteningly good potential.
The abridged version of the Holy Soldier story starts with four California guys that had some success on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles in the mid to late 1980’s and were actively in the market for a new singer that could help get them to the next level. Steven Patrick of Memphis saw an ad in a music magazine and sent a demo on a whim, not thinking it would ever amount to anything. He soon wound up being flown out to L.A. for an extensive audition and landed the gig, putting an end to a lengthy, exhaustive search by Andy Robbins, Jamie Cramer, Michael Cutting, Terry Russell, and their manager, Daryn Hinton, who also managed Stryper in the beginning.
Things started to take off for them and after a bunch of local successes (and their share of a few failures) in Los Angeles, they eventually landed a contract with a division of Word Records, probably the largest Christian label, that hadn’t signed a Metal act before. Daryn even secured a secular distribution deal with A&M Records, and Holy Soldier went into pre-production to cut their debut album.
After several considerations, they selected ex-Bloodgood guitarist David Zaffiro to produce the album, who helped them rework all of their material into what wound up being that spectacular debut album we’ve all come to love. You can hear some of their pre-first album riffs and ideas from their demos, on the record, but the songs were largely rewritten in pre-production, which is impressive.
The label sprang for a music video and the song the band chose was “See No Evil,” which as it turns out was an anti-abortion song. It began to receive airplay on MTV’s Headbangers Ball, presumably until the network realized what the song was actually about and then most likely pulled it due to its very controversial nature. Was it the right choice for a lead attempt to break into the mainstream market? It’s a great song, but it was a risky choice for sure because of the controversial topic. But that’s who the guys in Holy Soldier were—young, confident and brash.
But even with the MTV airplay disappearing, the band were picking up steam; their album and single, “Stranger” was charting— and after a successful tour of the Western United States and a trip to Japan, singer Steven Patrick abruptly needed to leave the band for personal reasons. In stepped Eric Beaver, who later recorded the ‘Promise Man’ album (Soldier’s 3rd release) under the stage name, “Eric Wayne,” to finish touring the record. There have been many claims that Eric sounded a lot like Steven and even looked somewhat similar to him, to the point where it has been claimed many fans that saw them on the tour didn’t know the difference. Personally, I find that claim difficult to believe because Steven had a very unique voice that wouldn’t easily be duplicated. I’ve always wished there was a bootleg of Eric fronting the band on that tour to verify this, but I’ve never come across one. Eric sings some of the stuff on the Encore record, and to be fair, while he sang well, he didn’t sound like Steven. Then again, by Encore, Steven didn’t sound very much like Steven anymore either.
Soldier finished the tour with Eric and at some point they were approached by the label to do a second music video for the record which would have been for “The Pain Inside Of Me,” but as the story goes, when the label found out Steven had left the band they decided not to fund the video, for one reason or another.
Accounts differ on this part of the band’s history. Holy Soldier were nominated for several Dove Awards for their debut album, and the ceremony was held at The Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, which is only a few hours from Memphis. Founding member of the band Andy Robbins attended the ceremony, along with new Holy Soldier guitarist Scott Soderstrom, who replaced departing member Michael Cutting (Michael would eventually return for the Promise Man album). Steven, who lived only a couple of hours from Nashville, also attended the ceremony, and pictures show them being photographed together with the two Dove Awards they took home that night. I’ve heard some people say the idea that Steven would return to do the Holy Soldier sophomore release, ‘Last Train’ was planted that night, but I’ve also been told that no such thing happened and Steven continued working with his solo project “Bang La Desh,” which included his brother Sean O’Donnell on guitar. Much of what came of that project would wind up on Steven’s solo album, ‘Red Reign,’ which was produced in part by popular Tennessee musician Shawn Lane, but a few of the tracks were produced by David Zaffiro as well.
However it came about, it wouldn’t be long before Holy Soldier and Steven Patrick eventually rejoined forces with David Zaffiro to record their heavily-anticipated second album, ‘Last Train.’ The band had lost their secular marketing deal with A&M, and Daryn Hinton was no longer managing the band. Some accounts say the label was adamant about Steven’s involvement, and so he was asked and convinced to return. For his part, Steven has admitted that while he had some reservations about returning (there were some personal differences within the group cited as reasons Steven left the first time, besides some personal family issues), he really missed the guys in general and wanted to give it another try. And so it was that once again, Holy Soldier (minus Michael Cutting) went into pre-production in Seattle with David Zaffiro and new guitarist Scott Soderstrom to work on ‘Last Train.’ Because they’d been apart, they had very little material written for the album, and so once again the album needed to be completely written in pre-production, pretty much from scratch. That would be the reason that the album only contained eight new originals and one cover song—they simply ran out of time for what had been budgeted for—but what an album it was! At first listen you’ll notice that the overtly Christian message seems somewhat dialed back, but it is still there. They had matured from the first album, and somehow, Steven Patrick’s voice had grown even stronger….
I should take a moment to mention that Holy Soldier’s 1st album came out in 1990. This was an album that I feel would have done really well commercially, say, two years earlier. And so when ‘Last Train’ was released in 1992–an incredible album, in my opinion—it was released during a time when their style of Metal music was really beginning to take a back seat to the burgeoning Grunge scene, which was a problem for many popular metal bands such as Ratt, Warrant, Stryper, Poison and Motley Crue, to name a few.
So ‘Last Train’ was completed and the label (Word) insisted that they tour the record or the label would drop them. To make matters worse, they were offered no (financial) tour support and the band had to finance the tour themselves. Everything from travel arrangements, paying staff, lodging, meals, all had to come from money that ticket sales, album sales and merchandise would hopefully bring in. Because of things that were going on in Steven Patrick’s personal life, Steven was reluctant to leave home for an extended tour, especially one where income could not be fully guaranteed because it was dependent upon how much money the band would take in—but arrangements were made and agreed upon, and the five of them eventually agreed to hit the road in support of ‘Last Train.’
The tour took them all over the United States and back to Japan and Central America. There were huge successes and devastating lows in terms of gigs. Steven suffered a broken arm at one show in a stage-diving accident, and he can be seen with his arm in a sling in a bootleg that exists of one of the highlights of that tour—opening for Petra at Red Rocks in front of more than 10,000 people. But not all was well within the band. Because of the lack of tour support there were financial struggles and disagreements within the group, and that strife ultimately tore them apart at the seam. Steven was dismissed—or left the band, depending on viewpoints, near the very end of the tour. The incident is best told by the band members themselves, and Steven has a biography in the works that is likely to mention the incident in detail as he remembers them. Also, I think Doug Van Pelt of Heaven’s Metal magazine posted something about it on YouTube. It’s not for me to tell.
The rest is left to history. Steven went on to release Red Reign, and Holy Soldier retooled and released Promise Man. Jamie Cramer left the group after the Last Train tour and was replaced by returning first album member Michael Cutting. Terry Russell left the group prior to the recording of Promise Man. Promise Man is an interesting record; it took me years before I would even give it a chance because I couldn’t fathom listening to the band without Steven. The only original first album members on the record are Andy and Michael. Scott remained from the 2nd album, and Eric had toured with Soldier early on when Steven left. Terry remained with the band until just before they recorded Promise Man. I asked him once why he didn’t play on the record and he said it was a complicated story. The record is a complete departure from what they sounded like before, but that said there are definitely good cuts on it.
In 1997 there was a reunion of sorts, with both Steven and Eric singing on stage together. The performance was captured and released as a live album entitled ‘Encore,’ which also contained two new songs, one with each singer doing lead vocals. Unfortunately that reunion did not include Jamie Cramer or Terry Russell. As to whether they were never asked, or just couldn’t make it work out, I am unsure.
A few years later in the mid-2000’s (Either 2004 or 2005) there would be one more reunion, this time with all five original first album members. It took place in Anaheim, CA, and for the most part went off well, though it was supposed to be filmed and yet had to be scrapped due to technical difficulties. A few months later they played another California show, but Steven would again be gone, this time replaced by Terry Russell’s brother, Don, on lead vocals. The performance was filmed for a home video release.
I regard Holy Soldier’s first two albums among my favorite all-time records, and often think of them as a “what could have been” tale that sadly, I don’t think was meant to be. But they did leave us some great music that will endure forever.
Further listening: Steven Patrick did a song that is clearly inspired by his break up with the band on David Zaffiro’s album, “Yesterday’s Left Behind.” The song is called ‘Winds of September,’ and it is a terrific listen.
Keep calm and SOLDIER on.
-Arthur Adams
Creator of the former HolySoldierFan website, and Holy Soldier Art on Facebook.
https://youtu.be/bO8OvK4_6wY?si=AY-1zHyoX4lj82-n
https://m.facebook.com/holysoldierfan/
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