Band-info:

Digger was just Grave Digger under a new monicker. When Peter Masson left Grave Digger early '86 after the "War games"album in May, Uwe Lulis became their new guitarist, while they shortened the bandname to just Digger and tried with a different direction, whenalso they couldn't completely get rid off the pure Heavy Metal influences at all. I guess Boltendahl tried to lead Digger's music into the commercial Heavy Rock corner, and f.e. with the title track of the only Digger album that pretty much worked. But here and there a few Heavy Metal rockers still popped up occasionally, which makes the album seen in the whole a quite inconsistent affair, that wether could appeal the Heavy nor the Poser factions. During December '87 a message was spread that Boltendahl had realized his mistake and he added "Grave" to the name Digger again, and only played live material on stage of the first 3 albums with his new crew Uwe Lulis (guitar), Jochen Wiek (bass) and J.J. Börner (drums). When Chris Boltendahl has put Grave Digger on ice isn't 100 % sure, but must have been during 1988, as he started the band Hawaii together with Chris Lulis during that time, but after they both was tired of Hawaii in 1991, Boltendahl and Lulis unexpectedly reformed Grave Digger. C. F. Brank joined the band S.A.D.O.

Band-info:

One of Germany's longest lasting Heavy Metal pioneers, thought their career stagnated in the later 80's and Chris Boltendahl experimented with different other bands till he eventually revived Grave Digger to started their second spring in the early 90's, that would become way more coined by success then the earlier incarnation of the band. Grave Digger was founded by Boltendahl, Peter Masson and a drummer in Gladbeck 1980 and the early phase featured a dozen of different drummers till they recorded their first Demo with Philipp Seibel in 1982. For the second tape 1983 the line up once again got changed. The 2 Challenger members Albert Eckhardt (drums) and Willi Lackmann (bass) completed the classic fourpiece and this tape gained the band alot attention within the underground, ending in a record deal with the young Noise Records label, who firstly put 2 trax on their "Rock from Hell" sample and 1 year later produced the bands debut album. Interestingly after recording the Demo during mid '83, Grave Digger already disbanded and Boltendahl went to play with Lackmann's band Challenger. When Noise offered them a record deal, they decided to merge Challenger with ex-Grave Digger members and revived Grave Digger once again. The same titled album featured with "Heavy Metal breakdown" a timeless Metal hymn, that was perfectly reflecting the needs of the young headbanging crowd. Boltendahls vocals made Grave Digger to stand out of the mass of bands, though the albums quality in the whole was fluctuating between breathtaking power bangers and rather middle league numbers, as the guys couldn't constantly keep the level of songs like "Headbanging man". The second album was released as a trio, with Boltendahl playing the bass once again. With the Running Wild inspired title track "Witch hunter" Grave Digger could set some course, but once again the qualitative level couldn't get kept on the same level throughout the whole album at all. While the speedy songs pretty much made them playing in a league with Running Wild or Tyrant, the midpaced material dropped that impression immensely. February '86 the last album with Peter Masson on guitar was published, featuring the new bassist C.F. Brank (later in S.A.D.O.), that equally to the previous 2 LP's had to struggle once again with qualitative differences from song to song. Masson quit in May '86 and the band name got changed to just Digger, while Uwe Lulis replaced Masson on guitar and the sound of the band changed towards commercially influenced Metal with Glam touch, as shown on Digger's only album "Stronger than heaven" from 1986 too. As a result of the less successful album during December '87 a message was spread that Boltendahl had realized his mistake and he added "Grave" to the name Digger again, and only played live material on stage of the first 3 albums with his new crew Uwe Lulis (guitar), Jochen Wiek (bass) and J.J. Börner (drums). When Chris Boltendahl has put Grave Digger on ice isn't 100 % sure, but must have been during 1988, as he started the band Hawaii together with Chris Lulis during that time, but after they both was tired of Hawaii, official announcements appeared already in spring ‘89, that Grave Digger have just reformed and either had recorded a 13 track Demo tape. It took a while once again though till Boltendahl and Lulis unexpectedly returned 1991 with new line up (ex-Exray/Asgard Thomas Göttlich on bass and Peter Breitenbach on drums), and new Grave Digger Demo, that featured real Heavy Metal like from their old days and lead to an highly appreciated new Grave Digger album with the immortal Jörg Michael behind the drums, entitled "The reaper" in 1993, which was the start for the bands second, much more successful career, that still hasn't found it's end yet.