Piledriver

In 1985 an unknown band called Piledriver burst onto the metal scene, with an over-the-top image (just check out the ridiculous album cover), tacky lyrics ("Sex With Satan", "Alien Rape", etc), but also a surprisingly well-executed power/thrash style. Metal Inquisition was just plain great fun to listen to, one of those guilty pleasures that one could both smile at and headbang to at the same time. Some time later, the followup, Stay Ugly, appeared, and was quite a disappointment, as the production and songwriting were both below average, and the style had shifted a bit toward messy thrash. The band soon disappeared without a trace.

Years later, the Piledriver story was told. Pile Driver himself (real name Gord Kirchin) tells how the idea of the band came from a record exec who basically just wanted to make a quick buck. The band, as such, never really existed at all, as Kirchin was only hired to do vocals for two separate studio projects (which explains why the two albums differed as much as they did), with all the names made up (though with member names like Former Lee and Knuckles Akimbo, that wasn't hard to figure out), as was virtually everything else about the band. After the Piledriver efforts, Kirchin got involved in another similar band (Convict) before later putting together his own band in DWJ, and in the intervening years worked sporadically on a solo career.

Fast forward to 2005, and Piledriver was back, with Kirchin assembling a new crew (a real band this time) to relive past glories and by 2008 a studio album (Metal Manifesto) was released, still featuring the outrageous tackiness that the band was always known for. He disbanded that effort a year later, and then recruited members from the local band Spewgore to comprise yet another version of the band, now officially called The Exalted Piledriver. That version of the group released a live album in 2011, and lasted until some time before Kirchin's passing in 2022.

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Discography

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