“We formed the band on D-Day (in 2011), so we’re kind of his history nerds, just like Iron Maiden,” Chris Osterman said with a laugh as he shed light on Iron Kingdom, the band blessed with his guitar playing and vocals.
The man can sing and shred like leather’d metal warriors of the early-1980s, when such bands ruled high schools from Surrey to South London.
Fifteen years into it, “classic” heavy metal continues to power Iron Kingdom on their new Shadows and Dust album, their sixth, to be released on D-Day (June 6), the day after a June 5 gig/party at Rickshaw Theatre in Vancouver.
Osterman is joined in the band by Langley’s Leighton Holmes on bass, Max Friesen on drums and, on lead guitar, Megan Merrick, who happens to be Osterman’s common-law wife.
“We’ve had some songs about girls and cars but we’re more of a fantasy, history, mythology kind of band,” the singer noted. “Our bass player writes most of the lyrics and I do a lot of the music, but now with Megan in the band we kind of split that duty a little bit more.”
The June 5 concert launches a long summer of cross-Canada touring for Iron Kingdom, the history of which dates back to Osterman’s high school days in Clayton Heights, circa 2004, under a different band name.
Thanks to uncles who gave him CDs at an early age, Osterman grew up loving bands like The Scorpions, AC/DC and Deep Purple.
“Eventually I started to find stuff like Rush, and some of those bands weren’t really touring in the early 2000s because (the music) wasn’t very popular,” he recalled. “Basically I was like, ‘Well, I’m going to just do it myself then (and play the music), if nobody else is doing it.”
It didn’t go all that well at first.
“People were making fun of us,” Osterman said. “They were like, ‘What are you guys doing playing solos and stuff like that and singing with the high vocal range?,’ all that kind of stuff. They thought it was a joke.”
Undaunted, the band played a lot of places in Surrey including high schools, community centres, the old Clova Theatre, even a retirement home.
Things got more serious in 2011 as Iron Kingdom. Since then, a few musicians have arrived and left, leaving Osterman and Holmes as the only originals still playing in the band. The current lineup has been active since 2020.
From Toronto, Merrick joined after moving to Vancouver to study kinesiology at UBC.
“She had a band in Toronto when we met, but they kind of fell apart because of the long-distance thing,” Osterman said. “We started hanging out and dating, around the time our guitar player left because we were touring heavily. When she joined it was a big conversation because I mean, most people don’t really want a relationship in the band. We did an extended audition with her, and eventually we knew it was the right choice.”
Now living in Port Coquitlam and working in the lighting/AV industry, Osterman helps make Iron Kingdom shows look and sound as good as possible, echoing ‘80s metal.
“We just picked up a package of moving lights that I’ve programmed and can run through my guitar pedalboard,” he said. “We have a bunch of fog machines and stuff that adds to the atmosphere. For example, we’re playing in Halifax in a little pub (in August), and they’ve probably never seen a light show like this in there.”
Look for Iron Kingdom tour dates, songs, bios and merch on iron-kingdom.com. Videos include Defenders, Blood and Steel and Deadhouse Gates, all from the new album, released by France-based Steel Shark Records. Listen on Spotify.