Axel Rudi Pell

Axel Rudi Pell, a technically gifted guitarist from Bochum, first attracted notice in the first half of the 1980s when he became lead guitarist for Steeler. After that band ended, he began a long-running and prosperous solo career that has now spanned decades. His opening solo album, Wild Obsession, appeared in 1989 and positioned him among the leading figures in European power metal and melodic hard rock, where he is noted for both range and intensity. Dozens of his studio releases, among them Between the Walls (1994), Shadow Zone (2002), The Crest (2010), and Risen Symbol (2024), together with live sets such as Knights Live (2002) and XXX Anniversary Live (2019), have come out on the independent German label SPV.

In 1981 Pell joined forces with vocalist Peter Burts, guitarist Tom Eder, bassist Volker Krawczak, and drummer Jan Yildiral to form the German heavy metal outfit Steeler, whose name derived from a track on Judas Priest’s British Steel. The group recorded four studio albums and enjoyed modest success before splitting after Undercover Animal in 1988. Pell stepped out alone the next year, retaining Volker Krawczak—who has remained the only permanent member of his solo ensemble—and adding vocalist Charlie Huhn, previously heard with Ted Nugent and Gary Moore. That debut, Wild Obsession, inaugurated an extended and productive association with SPV. His fourth solo album, Between the Walls, became his first German chart entry in 1994 and featured vocals by Jeff Scott Soto of Yngwie Malmsteen and Talisman, one of several singers Pell has employed over time.

Beginning in the late 1990s, Pell established a sustained collaboration with Hardline vocalist Johnny Gioeli, who has contributed to every subsequent release from Oceans of Time (1998) through Mystica (2008), Circle of the Oath (2012), Knight’s Call (2018), and Lost XXIII (2022), as well as numerous live albums and compilations. In 2024 the six-string veteran delivered his twenty-second studio album, Risen Symbol.