There’s a classic metal revival beef a’brewin’. In May we told you about Earache Records signees White Wizzard, and just last week we reported on Holy Grail, a recent Prosthetic signee made up of three former members of White Wizzard. Seems that the recent press attention received by Holy Grail has placed White Wizzard on the defensive, as the band found the need to issue a press release warning of “White Wizzard immitators.” Says the press release:

The lineup featured on WHITE WIZZARD’s September 8th debut mini-album, HIGH SPEED GTO is much different from that of the current lineup whom will be recording a full length album set for release in 2010. Recently, several ex-members from the previous lineup have begun making headlines in a newly signed band who’s former name shared an eerily similar theme with that of WHITE WIZZARD’s. WHITE WIZZARD bassist, Jon Leon has written a statement to clear up any confusion about the band’s lineup changes and to serve notice that there is only one WHITE WIZZARD:

“WHITE WIZZARD has had a line up change since the recording of the WW mini album in 2007. I wrote some songs and formed the first incarnation of the band rather quickly and went into the studio. The mini album was a quickly thrown together ep of the first songs just to get WW started. It turned out well for how quickly it was done, and the seeds were sewn for the next phase.

Upon completion, the band played a few shows with the first line up. It was quickly obvious that the line up that was formed to do the first recordings was not going to work for the long term. The current line up of WHITE WIZZARD is preparing to record the full length album that will be out worldwide in early 2010.

Some of the ex members that were in WW for a brief time have a new band. This band is in no way associated with WW. WHITE WIZZARD has never split up. WHITE WIZZARD is stronger than ever and fully armed and operational. As for any ex members we wish them well, but we also want to stress that in the end, they were not right for WHITE WIZZARD and are trying to use their WW roots for extra publicity.”

The band Leon is referring to is, of course, Holy Grail. But as far as I’ve seen, Holy Grail haven’t made any claims of being White Wizzard, just that they’re made up of 3 former members from that band (truth). Furthermore, with Leon the only remaining original member of WW, wouldn’t that make Holy Grail more “authentic” WW? In Leon’s defense though, Holy Grail did recently change their name from Sorcerer which does share “an eerily similar theme” to White Wizzard’s name. No clarification for the reason behind the name change has been made public yet… but maybe that was the reason behind it. [UPDATE: Another band had a copyright to use "Sorcerer," hence the name change. -Ed.]

This is quickly shaping up to be an L.A. Guns situation, only neither band can really claim to have the more “famous” members since neither has really hit their stride yet. If you ask me, both bands are really fucking talented and I can’t wait to hear both debut full-lengths in the near future.

-VN