Biography
Bill Leeb first gained notice through his roles in the hard-edged industrial group Front Line Assembly and the ethnic/ambient outfit Delerium. Born in Austria, he moved with his family to Vancouver, Canada, near the age of twelve. He appeared on the original roster of the pioneering industrial act Skinny Puppy under the name Wilhelm Schroeder before exiting in 1986 to launch Front Line Assembly alongside sampler/programmer Rhys Fulber and synth player Michael Balch, who departed the lineup in 1990. Over the following decade Front Line Assembly kept up a steady flow of releases, including the influential Caustic Grip in 1991, Tactical Neural Implant in 1992, and the guitar-driven Millennium in 1994, all of which helped industrial music reach broader alternative listeners. At the same time Leeb and Fulber began the more subdued and reflective side project Delerium, which issued early recordings on a small German label in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The higher-profile, guest-filled Delerium album Karma arrived in 1997 and spawned the international hit single “Silence,” styled in the manner of ethnic fusion artists such as Dead Can Dance, Enigma, and Deep Forest. Karma performed strongly on new age charts, and its brooding, atmospheric character built a lasting cult audience for Delerium that extended to the 2001 release Poem, another record with wide international reach. Fulber then stepped away to pursue production work and was succeeded by Chris Peterson, prompting Leeb’s earlier collaborations with Fulber, among them Intermix and Noise Unit, to recede as the new Peterson partnership produced Pro-Tech and the drum’n’bass-oriented Equinox. Leeb delivered the next Delerium album, Chimera, in 2003.
Albums
Singles
