BiografieIt all began in Paris, France, in the mid-evil days of the 13th century. There was this gigantic church, or more likely a cathedral, where a disfigured bell-ringer was aq?? Oh, you mean the world (in-)famous, extraordinary super-group Notre Dame?! Well, there isn´t really much of a history to talk about, except that there is some story! It´s better to have Snowy telling hiStory! The following might, to the more skeptical visitors of this site sound like some spiced up fairy-tale, but I swear I´m telling the truth "so help me god", or whatever it is that the Christians say...

Paris, France 20th Of December 2000
"...Well, Christian the Painter a.k.a. Necrolord and I felt we had a lot in common in many areas and after I had shown him a few songs with a certain kind of freakish horror vibe attached to it, we began talking about what kind of band we´d like to see in the record stores and on stage ourselves. The both of us had always been the most attracted to bands with a strong image. An abundance of bands were brought up for discussion. Besides my personal all-time favorites Alice Cooper and Kiss we discussed Death SS, Venom, Wasp, Black Sabbath, Mercyful Fate and so on. We decided to form the band we always wanted to have, stuffed with candy for both ears and eyes, though we thought most bands either sounded great but looked awful or vice versa... After a little while it became painfully obvious that Necrolord wasn´t half as devoted as myself. Not that I was really surprised though it seems to be the story of my life! He spent most of his time painting album covers for other metalbands, which he in my opinion does extremely well, but I knew I had to look elsewhere for a companion. I went home and wrote even more material for the project I had by that time given the name Notre Dame, inspired by an old, yellowish, half-withered movie poster starring Lon Chaney as the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

On the streets of Gothicburg (my hometown Gothenburg, Sweden) I one day in the spring of ´97 bumped into an ex-girlfriend whom I hadn´t had the pleasure of laying my eyes upon for a couple of years due to her stay in Paris. We went to a nearby café where I began to tell her about my miserable, but for me so common, situation. I didn´t even get to finish my sentence before she said that she probably got exactly the kind of members I was looking for; in Paris she had had the (mis-)fortune of making the acquaintance with the strangest couple of brothers named Jean-Pierre and Mannequin. She went on telling one story weirder than the other about them, but she could just as well have stopped halfway and I would still have been convinced that they were the right ones - and it had absolutely nothing to do with their unique last name De Sade, not so much anyway *Snowy´s tongue is turning black as he speaks*! One pretty important question mark still had to be straightened out still: could they actually play!? I simply couldn´t take her word for it ´cause I knew she didn´t have a clue about that sort of things. After I had been talking to the better half (Mannequin) of De Sadistic bros. over the phone that evening, I sent them a tape with a couple of songs for them to figure out in advance before me and the ex-girlfriend, not yet re-baptized Vampirella, went to pay them a visit in Paris the next following weekend. Besides the little annoying fact that Mannequin couldn´t play any other instrument than the drums, everything worked surprisingly smoothly. And handing over the sticks to another drummer was just a small sacrifice I would easily overlook in order to breathe life into this new monster Notre Dame.

An intense period followed as we traveled back and forth between Paris and Gothicburg, rehearsing and recording songs from the bottomless treasure coffin of mine and basically getting to know each other, both personally and musically. The first "Introduxion La Publique" we ever did was a strange version of "Into The Coffin"... Eh, sorry, "Into The Coven" on the "Mercyful Fate Tribute". It included the original member Michael Denner on sologuitar. As a one time member of Mercyful Fate and King Diamond myself, it may seem weird that I contribute on a tribute record to a band I quit! But I see no wrong in hailing your teenage idols. The Norwegian underground label Head Not Found released our first little appetizer mini-CD "Coming Soon To A Théatre Near You" on Halloween 1998. Right before that we had just finished a smaller trip called "East-European Tour-Ture 1998" also by us subtitled "Live In Hell" as we drove around cramped up and with a crypt-like stench in "The Mystery Van" from one hell-hole to another. However, it contained a three-band package including us, Forgotten Silence and Vomiting Corpses. An exclusive 555 copies vinyl split-single has been released from that horrible tour with Forgotten Silence on one side and Notre Dame on the other, doing a special blood-dripping live version of "Abattoir, Abattoir Du Noir" with a superb guest star appearance by Andy La Rocque. If by chance you would stumble over it, fetch it and stuff it under your bed! It´s awesome and I bet my left testicle it will be a collector´s item in the future to come.

Our first full-length "Vol. 1: Le Théâtre Du Vampire" on French label Osmose was scheduled to be out in September, then postponed to the 31st of Octobre, because we intended to make that a Notre Dame tradition. The extravagant Halloween release party we prepared would this time be held in Paris at the very théatre that did inspire us for the title of the album. Everything was arranged, well organized and planned in the tiniest detail, other than the prop infested stage, complete with an impressive pipe organ a la phantom of the opera, the whole place would be set up like a gigantic indoor graveyard in the best Horrorwood style. We had four huge silver screens viewing old classic horror movies, freaks and other bizarre beings had been specially invited along with ordinary herd of transvestites and vampire-wannabees. Like I said - everything was set when someone dropped the bomb: Mannequin was hospitalized after have been drinking animal blood and getting a blood poisoning! We seem to be dogged with bad luck. Maybe it has something to do with the ominous number 13 I had tattooed on the side of my head after I got my new Nosferatu hair-do... But I´m not superstitious!

On the Halloween release 1998 nearly 70 youngsters died when a discothèque burnt to the ground. All entertainment such as concerts, theatres and cinemas etc in Sweden, and in particular Gothenburg, was shut down for days in order to pay respect to the victims. Most of the stuff we had done in advance for TV and radio and most of press wasn´t very appropriate or considered a high priority after the terrible accident. We decided not to cancel, though Mannequin avoided to breath fire as planned. That would have been a bit too tasteless and insensitive even for us. On the 13th of December 1999 "Nightmare Before Christmas - Le Nostradamus De Notre Epoqué Anno 1999" was released, based mainly on the theme Nostradamus - the watcher of doom. His freighting accurate predictions and prophecies about 1999 is something that concerns us all and can´t possibly be ignored. That in combination with x-mas and the new millennium makes the essence of these recordings. Ex King Diamond colleague Pete Blakk did a guest appearance on "Black Birthday", a different version than the original on "Vol. 1: Le Théâtre Du Vampire" that should have been out long before, but for some reason Osmose Productions decided to reschedule it´s release to 1 minute past midnight in the new year 2000! In other words - our album would be the very first album to be released on the new millennium! We thought that would be a fresh start and cool thing - as if someone would care!

And finally, if we for a change would choose to walk the beaten track that so many before us have done, we would say that the rest is history, but that´s not really the case here - it´s up to you to help us write that history. So grab your pen and don´t forget to bring your garlic necklace! Thank you all FanGorians for being so loyal - we know that we are NOTHING without you. We have some special treats for you on the upcoming album, make NO mistake about that /Snowy"

With 3 releases within a year Notre Dame quickly became well established as "the new breed" and magazines all around the world confirmed the mad genius of Snowy Shaw & co, even the hard flirted English Terrorizer Magazine reviewed Vol. 1: Le Théâtre Du Vampire as "THEE best metal album of the month". Notre Dame released the 3-track video Thrillogy 2001, proving both their musical and visual capabilities.
Quelle: http://www.notredame.just.nuDiscografieDemi Monde Bizarros 2004

Coming Soon To A Theatre Near You, The 2nd 2002

La Croix Rouge 2000

Le Theatre Du Vampire 1999

Nightmare Before Christmas 1999

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