FRANKIE’S PLAYGROUND is a German/South African Hard Rock band project founded by Frank Riester, ex co-founder, songwriter, manager and lead vocalist for German Hard Rock band DEADLOCK. After DEADLOCK had achieved great regional success through their opening slot for Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow and ZZ Top at the Balinger Open Air Festival in 1996 (today known as Bang Your Head Festival) as well as their legendary performance at the Daytona Europe Festival (where they opened directly for James Brown and shared festival stage with Manowar, Deep Purple, Spindoctors, Saxon and Scorpions), DEADLOCK split up and Frankie started his new project, FRANKIE'S PLAYGROUND.

FRANKIE'S PLAYGROUND was recorded and mixed at Area 51 Recording Studios in Hannover (Germany) during 1998 and was produced by Tommy Newton (Helloween, UFO, Seeed, Victory, Jason Bonham, Elegy and many others).

Former Conception and Ark guitarist Tøre Ostby joined the project as lead guitarist and also co-wrote a few tracks on the album. Tommy Newton additional played guitar on several tracks and bass player Otto Van Alphen (Headcrash, Junkie XL) and drummer Matthias Liebetruth (Victory, Running Wild) completed the line-up for the project.

FRANKIE’S PLAYGROUND was released in May 1999 on Riester International Records in South Africa with “Evening Sunshine” being the first single release. It has achieved respectable sales and airplay in South Africa and achieved ‘Album of The Week’ status as well as several Top 30 chart positions. Second single release “Low Life” reached a no.1 chart position for several weeks on Tuks Radio’s SA Top 10, which is one of South Africa’s leading campus radio stations.

FRANKIE’S PLAYGROUND” is featured in the hall of fame “Hard Rock Gem” in the South African Rock Digest.

Frank’s vocal influences primarily consist of Ronnie James Dio, Klaus Meine, David Coverdale and Chris Cornell.


Source : Frank Riester