Biography

The New Breed came about last year as a fund-raiser for Johnny Lokke's friend and world's best drummer (who happens to play on Johnny Lokke releases), Scot Goacher. He had an accident and broke his hip, and when you are a full time musician, if you can't play, you don't get paid. Lokke called up some friends (Stefan Leibing from Primal Fear, Allan Atkins, original singer for Judas Priest, Mike Campese, acclaimed guitarist and Guitar World contributor) and talked them into playing on the cd with him, and they got together and banged it out over a weekend. Thus The New Breed was born.

This time Lokke brought in new players to give him some excellent help...Tim White (ex-Future's Child) on bass and Solomon DeWitt on drums. Also contributing four guitar solos to the project was Sweden's own Robban Olsson, who's playing has been described as a "bastardized mix" of Michael Schenker and John Petrucci. He flat out can play.

So while Scot was getting healed and doing his rehab, Lokke decided to do a new cd. Evolution was a great name, too. The guys came in and took what Lokke did on "Bound By the Thread" to a new level, and the music evolved along with it. This is some of the best material he has written, and it just has a flow to it that was missing a bit on the last release. Lokke hired renound cover design artist Harry O'Connor to do the artwork, and he kept the DNA theme running from the last cd, while incorporating a fresh approach.

Evolution is as close to a live album as it gets. It has good and bad notes, it has missed beats and places where everyone was perfectly in sync, but mostly it has ENERGY. No life-saving goals, no big agendas...this time it was for the fans and for the music.