Die Warzau - History

History

Originally signed to Chris Parry's Fiction Records, the group released Disco Rigido in the late 1980s.

A second album, Big Electric Metal Bass Face, was released in the early 1990s. Contributors to the band at the time included Chris Vrenna and James Woolley (both members of Nine Inch Nails during the mid-1990s), and audio visual artist Burle Avant, who went on to co-create the MTV television series Amp.

Engine, a 1995 release on Wax Trax/TVT, was the last album the group released before going on hiatus for almost a decade, and included contributions from Chris Randall of the band Sister Machine Gun (SMG). One of the songs written by Die Warzau during this time, "Hole In the Ground," ended up on the SMG album Burn.

Die Warzau as a group then went on hiatus for a number of years, with Marcus and Christie working on other projects. Jim Marcus founded the pure funk group Everplastic while Van Christie worked on another project called Eco-Hed.

In 2004, the duo re-united, together with new members Abel Garibaldi and Dan Evans, releasing Convenience on their Chicago-based label Pulseblack Records.

2008 saw the release of Vinyl 88, a collection of remixes and previously unreleased tracks including "Born Again" (for which a video was released) and "Hitler's Brain", a collaboration with funk pioneer George Clinton. While some of the tracks had seen prior release, many of the remixes featured re-recorded elements.

In 2009, Die Warzau made several songs – many from the recent Convenience and Vinyl 88 releases – available for remixing at RemixGalaxy.com The different musical elements (vocals, drums, bass, etc.) of each song are available as separate tracks, which allows fans (and/or budding remixers) the opportunity to create their own versions of the songs or incorporate the parts into their own original tracks under personal, non-commercial license.

In 2011, Die Warzau announced on their Facebook page that their performance at the WTII Minifest 2 on June 12 would be the band's last performance before breaking up. The live personnel included Jim Marcus, Dan Evans, Vince McAley, and Jay Ramirez.