Winters Bane

It seems as the genre gets older, more and more bands become known as "the former band of so-and-so", and Winters Bane is no exception. Winters Bane is the former home of one Tim "Ripper" Owens, who had taken over from Rob Halford when he took his solo stint outside of Judas Priest; Owens has since moved on to join Iced Earth. Indeed, their 1993 debut, Heart of a Killer, featured Owens on vocals, as well as Lou St. Paul (vocals/guitars), Dennis Hayes (bass; later of Wretch) and Terry Salem (drums). The debut proved to be a solid slab of "American power metal" (a style most notably being thrash metal but with more melody, here lumped in with basic heavy metal) much in the style of Rob Halford's Halford project work.

Season of Brutality (1995) saw the line-up now feature Lou St. Paul (vocals/guitars), Ken Stadelman (bass), Todd Bertolette (drums) and John Comprix (guitars).

For the follow-up, Girth (1997), St. Paul and the now returning Dennis Hayes (bass) dispensed with the rest of the band and recruited Todd Bertolette (drums) to produce an album similar to style as the first. St. Paul himself handing both guitar and vocals. After a long break following the album, St. Paul once again dismissed the band to recruit Alexander Koch (ex-Spiral Tower; vocals) and Jeff Curenton (drums) but by the time of the release of Redivivus (2006), St. Paul had once again changed the membership to feature Mark Cross on drums while retaining Koch on vocals and took guitars and bass for himself. After the release Jeff Curenton took drums (formerly in the band back in 2003), while Bryan Morris took bass.