Seattle 80’s metal band revived by European popularity

The genius of some artists is never fully recognized until after their deaths. Van Gogh comes to mind.

Now imagine people think you’re a genius while you’re alive, but you don’t know it.

Meet Invader, an 80’s metal band from Seattle that’s been huge in Europe for years, and the band had no clue.

Invader was popular on the local metal scene when voices were high, hair was even higher, the spandex were tight, and the men wore more makeup than women.

But grunge started taking away their local audiences, and they didn’t want to change their music. So Invader called it quits in 1993. The lead singer became a fish monger. The bass player and drummer became builders. The guitar player went to the shipyards.

It turns out the band walked away just as it was taking off in Europe and they had no idea.

“They’d been looking for us for years,” lead singer Gary Cobb said. “I mean it’s crazy.”

Invader has been big in Germany for a long time, and the band was clueless. That ended last year when a German record producer reached out to bass player Dan Hulford through Facebook.

“He was blown away,” Hulford said. “He figured we probably had a long, lively career, and we were still huge.”

“We’re a collector’s item right now,” Cobb said. It turns out the demand for Invader’s first and only CD is large. “They’re buying our old material over there for like $300 Euros a CD,” Hulford said.

When Cobb found out kids in Europe were still head banging to his larynx-screeching high notes, he said he finally felt like a rock star, and he decided to do something about it. Last week, the band re-released its 20-year-old CD and started planning a tour.

“Unfinished business,” Cobb said. “We don’t want to be some antique chair sitting in a store waiting for someone to buy us.”