Warlord (band) - Post-Warlord Activities

Post-Warlord Activities

The inability to retain a working line-up, that is the difficulty in procuring a sure-fire vocalist led to inner tensions and despair, thus Warlord finally ground to a halt in 1986, with Tsamis moving from California to Florida and eventually undergoing a spiritual conversion. The band's label, Metal Blade, would issue Thy Kingdom Come, a quasi Best Of, in December of that same year. An extended version, including the whole Deliver Us EP, followed in 1989, titled Best of Warlord. It was the first time the band's music had been issued on compact disc.

Tsamis initially recorded an acoustic demo under the name Lordian Winds and worked for years on a project called 'My Name Is Man' (a 75 minute music video concept): an epic story based on John Milton’s 'Paradise Lost' and similar to Homer’s 'Iliad' and 'Odyssey'. Hopes of turning it into a proper movie never came to fruition as no producer could be found to take on the project. Tsamis next formed a new Christian apocalyptic-themed venture called Lordian Guard with his wife, Vidonne Sayre Riemenschneider, serving as lead vocalist. Lordian Guard issued two albums, Lordian Guard (1995) and Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God (1997) through Germany's Hellion Records. Many of the songs, especially those on the self-titled record, had originally been planned for inclusion on the unreleased My Name Is Man album or a second Warlord full-length. A third album, titled The Holy Empire, was planned but never materialized as the project was disbanded.

Following Warlord's demise, drummer Mark Zonder would retain the band's practice facility in the San Fernando Valley, expanding and building it into one of the top rehearsal spots in the Northern Los Angeles area over the next several years. He also kept busy as a studio drum consultant and in-demand session player, including a stint with Animotion off-shoot Plane English, and eventually joined Metal Blade recording artists, Fates Warning, in time for 1989's Perfect Symmetry. Zonder's association with Fates would last a decade and a half covering a total of 6 studio and 2 live albums. In 2004, Zonder announced that FWX would be his last album with the band and he left the following year. He began to collaborate with fellow San Diego, CA-based multi-instrumentalist Wayne Findlay (Michael Schenker Group, Vinnie Moore) in a new band called Temple Within who released their eponymous debut album under the name Slavior in 2007 on Inside Out Music.