The line-up and the history of german band Mekong delta was to be the best kept secret in the world. At the end of '85 an idea was born to start a studio project with german metal musicians. It was suppost to outshine all independent releases musically. The thought that german musicians would not be accepted, made the people of the project decide to keep everything about the band a secret. The name Zardoz was rejected followed by the acceptance of the name "Mekong delta", named after a riverbed in Vietnam. The entire project was started by Ralph Hubert, sound-engineer of Warlock, Steeler and Living Death, and owner of the recordlabel "AAARRG". The first demo's are recorded with the following line-up:
Jochen Schröder (ex-Rage) on guitar
Peavy Wagner (Rage) on bass
Jörg Michael (ex-Rage and Paganini) on drums
Wolfgang Borgmann on vocals

Jochen Schröder did not fit in and was soon replaced by both 'Living Death' guitarists Reiner Kelch and Frank Fricke. When Peavy leaves the project, Ralph takes the bassguitar himself (on the albums he's better known as Björn Eklund, and by that name he does all the telephone interviews in the name of Mekong delta) Also he replaces the rest of the band, so the line-up looks like this:

Björn Eklund (Ralph Hubert) on Bass/Acoustic guitar
Gordon Perkins (Jörg Michael) on Drums/Percussion
Rolf Stein (Frank Fricke) on Guitar/Backing vocals
Vincent St. Johns (Reiner Kelch) on Guitar/Backing vocals
Keil (Wolfgang Borgmann) on Vocals/Stick

The Albums
These five men record the self-titled album 'Mekong delta', produced by Ralph Hubert himself. For the shortly thereafter following Picture Disc "The Gnome", Jörg Michael was replaced by Patrick Duval (Ulli Kusch) because he was touring with his current band. After a year of complete silence, Ralph and his men return to the studio around newyear '87/'88, and record the concept album 'The Music of Erich Zann', with the same line-up and again produced by Ralph. After finishing the album, Reiner Kelch leaves the group because of differences with the other members. Due to, or, because of the mystery (there are no pictures of the band at that time, everyone is using a false name, and there have been no live performances), the band's big breakthrough stays out. Many people think that "The Music of Erich Zann" could well be the last Mekong delta album ever made.
How wrong can those people be. Reiner was replaced by Mark Kaye (Uwe Baltrusch) and at the end of 1988, Mekong delta releases the 12" 'Toccata' and in the spring of 1989, "The Principle of Doubt" hits the stores. Frank Fricke then leaves the band to concentrate himself on other musical styles, and the band decided not to replace him as Uwe was able to play all guitars alone. Another long period of silence followed, and again people believed it was over with. This period was used to compose a "Rondo for Rockgroup" (now, better known as Dances of Death). While recording the album, Wolfgang (picture: second from the right) leaves the band because he couldn't identify himself with the material of this album. He was replaced by the american Doug Lee, former singer of Siren. Doug has known Ralph for several years and when Ralph asked him to join Mekong delta, Doug accepted. These men finished recording the album "Dances of death (and other walking shadows)". After recording this album, Jörg Michael leaves the band and was replaced by swiss drummer Peter Haas. They also started touring through europe, and on the 12th of October 1991 they played their first gig in holland. The CD 'Live at an Exhibition' was recorded a day later in Germany. The release of "Kaleidoscope"; could be seen as one of their best efforts to reach new fans. The band itself about this album:

Then came a silence of 2 years in which we heard nothing of Mekong delta. Not even a 12" or CD-Maxi was released. In januari 1997 the release of "Pictures at an Exhibition" was a fact. On this album Doug is not mentioned, and he's not even singing on this album (because it's completely instrumental). Later that year the group released their CD-ROM, containing a complete discography of the band as well as a biography about Modest Mussorgski (the original composer of 'Pictures at an Exhibition'). The CD-ROM also contains a virtual tour along different 'pictures' from different artists, which have been made for the group's cd-booklet of 'pictures...'. Finally, the CD-ROM also contains some never before published photo's from the band and some 'live'-clips (in .MOV format).

In november of 1997, Mekong delta had finished remixing and remastering the first of their albums. 'The Principle of Doubt' is now available in a new Re-mixed/Re-mastered version. Continuing through the first half of 1998, Ralph has been remixing all other Mekong delta albums so they would sound much better than the originals and they would be available again and much easier to find and to buy. 'Dances of death' was the second album to be remixed.

As I write this, it's the year 2000 and all Mekong delta albums should be remixed by now.

It's Januari 2001 and there has been no word from any of the musicians of Mekong delta. The last thing that's been known to turn up is that Ralf has fled to Turkey or Greece for reasons unknown at the time.

Biography written by Devoraz from the official Mekong delta website.