1980. NWOBHM echoes could be heard throughout the whole world and bands like Iron Maiden, Saxon, Def Leppard and Judas Priest made England the Heavy Metal Mecca. But not only in the UK Metal was becoming a youth phenomenon. At the same time, five young German boys got together to play the same kind of music their english heroes played. They didn?t take themselves very seriously and just wanded to play their mix of Kiss, Mot?rhead and Judas Priest in schools around their hometown. Their band was called Metal Gods, a clear hommage to Judas Priest. Later the band was renamed into IRON ANGEL... At that time, there weren?t many German Hard Rock / Heavy Metal acts. Scorpions, featuring the Schenker brothers, had some success with their melodic rock and Accept followed a more traditional english style, with Udo Dirkschneider?s unusual vocals as a trademark. However, there was a brand new underground scene willing to breakthrough and show the world a new style, heavier but still influenced by all those classic bands. Everywhere in the world, new bands started popping up, each one adding a new feature to Heavy Metal. Some of these (such as the swedish Bathory and the swiss Hellhammer) followed the steps of the english Venom, a band that became a reference regarding extreme and Satanic metal. Soon, new bands that differed a lot fom the english sound and look started arising in Germany. Running Wild and their unusual lyrics, Avenger, who would soon become Rage, and the ultra fast and melodic Helloween were some of those new German bands. All of them had something in common, and they were pretty different from the traditional english bands, so the term Power Metal started being used to describe their sound.
