Here’s an official statement, taken from the band’s website:
Seven years with the same line up is a pretty long time and this was a very important decision for us to make! The main reason was that Jonas wants to be able to concentrate on his guitar playing, but it's also a chance for us to develop our whole vocal arrangements!
At first Jonas thought about doing just the vocals but the guitar appealed more for him since he has been very active in the song writing!
We thought about this and we would never have like a regular audition and get a stranger in the band, so the first guy who came up in our minds was Jimmy.
It couldn't be better, he had just quit his band DRIFTAWAY and he's been a friend to the band since many years! He has mostly been singing "Rock n roll" through the years but we knew he would take on the RAISE HELL challenge! And just as we expected he learned the songs very fast and it already feels like he's a full member in our band!
We're totally sure that nobody will be disappointed when they hear him; he can do Jonas vocals and more! He used to do clean vocals so he got a lot of capacity in his voice!
Jonas and Niklas will do backing vocals so this is just gaining and no kind of loss.
We are rehearsing as hell right now and we can't wait until we will have our first gig out there with Jimmy. DON'T MISS IT!
See you in Hell!
//Dennis, Jonas, Niklas, Torstein and Jimmy of RAISE HELL
Here’s a statement of new vocalist Jimmy as well:
I've known the guys in RAISE HELL since High school and I've been singing in several bands both rock n roll and metal but I never been into extreme vocals before. Me and Dennis have played together in different metal projects before all Dennis time had to go to RAISE HELL.
I had just quit my band DRIFTAWAY when Dennis called me up and asked me if I wanted to try the vocals in RAISE HELL. I was very surprised that Jonas didn't want to sing any more, but I decided to give it a shot after Dennis explained that Jonas wanted to concentrate on his guitar playing . At first it felt a little strange to sing Jonas vocals but the guys thought it sounded cool and really pushed me to go on. When we started to rehearse more regularly I really enjoyed it. Things are going great now and we will record a new song as soon as possible. Hopefully I'll see you all out there to raise some fucking hell together!
Cheers!
//Jimmy
http://www.raise-hell.net
