Former W.A.S.P. guitarist Chris Holmes has taken advantage of the period of non-live activity during the COVID-19 pandemic to offer you new projects. The end of 2020 will see the release of a DVD/Blu-ray documentary, to be followed by a new studio album in 2021.
Fans who participate in Holmes‘s Indiegogo campaign can make a donation in exchange for a consideration such as a CD or guitar picks. You can even acquire Chris‘s leather jacket with its personalized paint or see your name inscribed in the booklet for the new album. Along with the album, you’ll be able to pre-order a collector’s collection of gorgeous never-before-seen photos embellished with Chris‘s thoughts to help you get to know him better. The book will be available in very limited quantities, numbered and signed by Chris himself.
Cleopatra Entertainment recently secured the North American, U.K., Australian, New Zealand and South African distribution rights to the documentary film “Mean Man: The Story Of Chris Holmes”.
Written and directed by French filmmakers Antoine De Montremy and Laurent Hart (whose music production career includes televised interviews with SCORPIONS, DEEP PURPLE, SLAYER, GUNS N’ ROSES and more), “Mean Man: The Story Of Chris Holmes” was a project that was born in 2014 after they had an opportunity to meet and direct Holmes in a music video for the Holmes-penned song “Let It Roar” in Cannes, France. At that time, the former W.A.S.P. guitarist had more or less disappeared from the music scene, leaving his home in the U.S. to seek a new beginning with his wife Sarah in France. Not content with merely directing a music video for the reborn Holmes, De Montremy pursued his bigger dream of writing and directing a documentary film about this iconic metal guitar legend, and for the next several years shadowed him throughout Europe while filming everything from band rehearsals, to recording sessions to live performances.
By creatively combining archival footage, interviews with past and present band members and musical peers, family members and childhood friends — interspersed with beautifully filmed concert performances of Holmes‘s current solo band — De Montremy skillfully portrays the story of an iconic guitar player who has lived a life of extreme highs and lows. After losing the publishing rights of his own songs and combatting dangerous addictions, the legendary W.A.S.P. guitarist is shown starting over from scratch while living at his mother-in-law’s in Cannes, France as he puts together, with his wife, a brand new band and a brand new musical role as not only the main guitarist, but now as the actual lead singer of this newly born musical project aptly named MEAN MAN.
Holmes joined W.A.S.P. in 1982 and remained with the group until 1990. In 1996, Holmes rejoined W.A.S.P. and stayed with the band until 2001. Holmes has not played with W.A.S.P. since.
