“London’s Dungeon is a band born out of disillusionment and frustration, but one that comes with a message of hope and positivity: most importantly they have the music to back it all up. Lyrically imaginative and musically muscular London’s Dungeon sounds fresh and new, marrying heavy riffs with great melodies to produce truly memorable songs. This is a band of talented musicians who all bring something unique to the table, and a band YOU WILL be hearing much more from. Anyone who loves great rock music should check out these guys. Personally I can’t wait to hear the album.” The Rockpit
“London’s Dungeon” began as a concept when frontman/vocalist, London, started composing his darker music during a time in his life that was filled with betrayal and deception of the ultimate kind.Dissatisfied with the perception of organized religion already, the final “Judas kiss” was when long-time childhood friend, a “man of the cloth”, committed the act of infidelity with his beloved. The self-proclaimed pastor, his minions, and former partner made way for “London’s Dungeon” to become a reality instead of the own personal hell that he was cast into. Pulling himself out of the darkness was only possible by expressing his feelings lyrically. Once the songs were composed, the healing began. Moving forward, finding the light again, and new personal beginnings, London decided that there are many people in the world that have been thrown into the dungeon of their own minds due to similar circumstances. Hoping that the words inspire those afflicted with the sickness of hate, pain, and anger may find peace thru his music.
Being a musician, and heavily involved with many bands and entertainers, London still felt something was missing in his life. This project was his final stand to confront those demons, and make them serve him, instead of haunting him. London was finally ready to put the words to melody. Choosing the right band mates & production of the album “413”, was a long time in the making. Trying several times to choose the right members, the current line-up was a long process.
The band & management team interviewed several drummers to add to the line up. Finally a decision was made when they had just one practice with drummer Roy Pellerin. Roy can pound the skins, and twirl sticks to make your head spin. His amazing talent shines, and was the missing link to make this band what it is today. Roy Pellerin, who is an exceptionally talented and experienced musician, is no stranger to rock n roll or touring the open road. Roy has been playing drums since his youth, and has been in several bands throughout the years. He’s utilized this to enhance his musicianship, and passion for performing, to bring a ROCK solid foundation to their music. As with the rest of this brotherhood, Roy has gone through similar circumstances & experienced resurrection, only making him stronger. Now the union is complete.
Being involved with several bands & individuals, London was compelled to re-connect with long time friend, bassist, Pierce VR. Pierce has been involved in the music industry for several years. Coming from a long line of heavy metal from Deep South Mississippi, at age 14, Pierce joined his first band. Pierce played in several bands through the years, but nothing was satisfying him. Pierce decided to join the military where he served 9 years. His most recent endeavor, before joining London’s Dungeon, was playing with “Wicked Attraction” that featured reality TV personality & American Idol contestant, Nikki McKibben. Wanting to write and play more original material, Pierce moved on to look for another band. Less than 24 hours into the search, he was in the dungeon, & has brought the style, personality, & creativity they were looking for. Pierce brings hard, heart-thumping bass playing & stage presence to the show that is not soon forgotten.
Following Pierce’s entrance to LD, along came a young, British guitar player. Troy Knight. Born in London, England in’87, Troy comes from a long line of entertainers and musicians. Heavily inspired by his father (Tyrone Knight) to pick up the guitar Troy made many attempts to pursue a musical career in England, & later moved to the US in 2006 to form bands “Adeline Drive”, “Rehab for Heroes” and later joining “Under a Spell”. Troy had a chance meeting with London while performing with “Under a Spell” & talked for hours about London’s desire to start London’s Dungeon & the music industry. Troy left the music scene, shortly after that show, to pursue starting a family and furthering his career in the automotive field.
Troy left the music industry for 2 years. After a 5 year long relationship Troy’s heart along with his plans for a family, were broken. Within 24 hours of the break up, Troy answered a mysterious and vague ad to join a rock band. Low and behold, it was London’s Dungeon. With London rejuvenating Troy’s true love for music and dreams of a career in music, Troy soon became one of the many driving forces behind the band, never missing a practice and even playing with a broken hand. Troy has brought new life to the band with enthusiasm, good work ethic, loads of new material and songs from heavier riffs to softer melodies and branching out into other influences from blues, classical and electronic. The British have come and he’s here to stay!!!
The “London’s Dungeon” concept is already widely known by many, they are eagerly anticipating the release of “413” & “Welcome To Our Playground”. This brotherhood of musicians are ready to tour the world bringing their own style of mayhem.
This talented group has been practicing hard, and has a set list of originals and covers that is sure to leave you wanting them to play more. London’s Dungeon has been a long time coming, and we are convinced that good things are worth waiting for…
Mark: So, tell us a little bit about London’s Dungeon, and how you first started.
London: I was going through a break up at the time, and basically tried to turn a bad experience in to a good one, and I am very fortunate to have the team players that I have with Pierce, Troy and Roy. I thought it would be something that a lot of people could relate to.
Mark: Has it been a long time in the making?
London: It’s been a good five, six, years, yeah! It’s been a while and we’ve all been doing other projects as well, and we’ve been through different line ups too. But, I think we’ve finally found the collaboration, between the four of us, and I think we’ve got a good thing going. I approached Pierce about two years ago, and he said he was with two other projects, but within minutes he’d left those and I was like tell him to call me now!!
It’s interesting how we all got together.
Troy: I actually met London when I was playing in another band, I was with like a opera/metal band at the time, and London walked in, and I was who the hell is this guy, I have to talk to him! We talked for hours, and I was doing my last gig in the music scene and at that point I wasn’t that happy with the band I was in. This band is all perfectionists, and I aim to be there one day!
London: He was self doubting, but on a more positive note Troy has come in to the Dungeon and brought new creativity, as well as Pierce, because honestly Roy and I were sat around for a good two or three months deciding how we were going to work this out, and what’s our next move. But then, boom! The thing with Pierce happened, and Troy answered the ad.
Troy: That was two years after we spoke. With all of us in the band it was somewhat based on the end of a relationship, and this band is a symbol of our new start. I answered the ad, and it’s London’s Dungeon, and I’d been searching through all these bands to try and find something, and then I wanted to start my own band, and as you know it’s hard to make your own concept in to a band, and I have now walked in to a concept that is my band!
Roy: We’ve all kind of built this on failure in some ways. The best thing that happened to me was joining London’s Dungeon; it’s amazing that this happened to all of us at the same time, we were all in relationships that failed!
Pierce: I did my first show when I was fourteen years old, and so to come in to this from the things that I was doing, I was real sceptical at first. I’ve known London for years and I just thought lets play some music and see what happens. Then Troy came in and we meshed so well, I never thought I’d find that, and then I thought this is all I ever wanted.
London: We work very hard; we have moved a lot of stones in a short amount of time.
Roy: We literally come in and between all four of us; we can get two songs every single time we are together!
London: We are still in that honeymoon period, but we are having a good time, and the focus is hard work. Each one of these guys has worked their asses off! We are a team, and I haven’t found that in other bands I’ve been in. So, for me I am super excited to have these guys on board, this is not my band, this is our band!
Mark: Musically, how would you describe yourselves?
London: People ask us that, and my answer is, there are two types of music, good and bad! Whatever the masses deem us to be then that’s us!
Troy: It actually depends on how we feel when we write a song!
London: I don’t think all our songs sound the same; I think each one has its own definition.
Troy: We go from being really heavy to really light, with all of us and it kind of meets in the middle! I’d like to think that we’d make at least one song which would appeal to every single genre out there.
London: We’ve had a really good response from people who have been to our shows and seen us, and we’ve had great support from people who haven’t been to the shows but have known us through the years, which is very cool.
Mark: So, for people who want to check you out, where’s the best place, Facebook?
London: Yeah, our Facebook page. Our plans are to do the EP, and then open up the website to the public, and now. It’s billed, it’s ready and waiting. Thanks to our manager, Angee of Bleach & Bones Entertainment, and to everyone that has helped us out and stuck behind us.
Mark: Your plans then for this year are to go and finish recording the demo?
London: That’s a definite; we have a three song demo out. It’s what is currently being played on a few stations, & what we have to promote with. It’s raw and not mixed or mastered completely, but it was good enough, and we thought if they don’t like us raw, they’re not going to like us at all!
Mark: Where did you record that?
Troy: We actually recorded it at a local studio in Hurst, Texas named “Session Works Studios”. The producer, Scott, has been amazing to us. He is super experienced, & won’t allow us to put out anything but our best.
Roy: Our goal is to go in to the studio and be able to finish the full length album “413”. We also have already written & performed new material off our second album, “Welcome to Our Playground”, which is the title track off the album & getting the most attention right now.
Mark: There are so many bands out there that go to the studio, put twelve guitars on a track.
London: We don’t want to over do it! I’ve been in those technical bands, and I think sometimes less is more, because people can relate to that.
Mark: You have said that you are a great live band. What’s the scene like, here in Dallas?
Roy: I think there’s a pretty good scene, actually. We are very fortunate to have The Rail Club, they gave us our first shot, we come back from Rocklahoma and that’s our first show back in Texas. I like it because there’s a lot of cool stuff there, and we are different and they accept us!
Mark: There seem to be a lot of bands here that want to be the next Pantera!!
Troy: We support every band that wants to go for their dream!
London: It’s a sense of accomplishment for us, just to have the opportunities that are being laid before us. Whatever we do we will do as a group, and decide what the best is for us, and that’s a thing that a lot of bands don’t do, as some have one or two people that want to control the whole situation. We are a brotherhood of four people.
Troy: It’s not necessarily a democracy, but we all have the same ideas. Whatever decision is made we all agree on it, and if we disagree it’s an easy discussion, there has never been an argument.
Troy: We want to make this our career, we enjoy it and we enjoy the response from it.
Mark: The hardest thing for new bands these days is getting your name out there, there are so many bands and unless you have a lot of money behind you, it’s tough. How are you going to do that?
London: We work as a team. We work together, we live together most of the time. We treat this band as our business. At Rocklahoma we worked our asses off! We were working the crowd; we did crazy stuff, and not be afraid to get crazy!!
We try to interview as much as possible, we promote ourselves, we have a great team of people that help organize our stuff. It hard work, but manage to do it right so far. We’ve had some great shows, & more on the way, as well as, some great opportunities being offered. Just like the endorsement from Kona Guitars. We have people behind us that believe in us, & that makes it worth it.
Pierce: All our stuff is based around our influences. For example, the eighties, hair metal, glam rock, it’s all coming back. But also some blues, some punk, & a little metal. Back then all you had to do was go to a record company and say, look, here’s our demo, what do you think? Now, it’s not like that, so we have to take it to a whole new level.
Troy: We work really hard, we all have day jobs. I work twelve hours a day, and then spend the rest of the time here in the Dungeon with the band, there’s no going home. The Dungeon is home.
Pierce: We are all family men; my life revolves around my daughter, and we put in all the time we possibly can in to this.
London: I have been removed from the scene for the past fourteen years. I knew from the time that I was in first grade that I wanted to be a singer; I didn’t care what I was singing, and for many years I had lost that opportunity because of life in general. But, when everything broke down and went to shit in my personal life, I thought, hey, I’m gonna do this, and I’m having a great time. My life is headed in the right direction again, personal & professional.
Mark: You all seem to have that dedication, which is a big part of it. One thing that we ask everyone who we interview, is, if you could have been involved in the creation of one piece of music, at any point in the history of rock, what would it be and why?
Pearce: For me, I can’t focus on one piece, but for me it was my first show when I was fourteen years old and back then it was new metal, like Korn, and that’s where I came from, apart from Troy, I’m one of the youngest in the band. That was the genre I came from.
London: The eighties was a fun time, it was all about one big party. We are basically taking something that everybody feels, everybody can relate to, and we are putting it in to our music. A more modern sound of the music we grew up on. And then some, we don’t limit ourselves to one style or genre of music.
Roy: For me, they were larger than life; I wish I’d been part of Kiss, and of U2, they could hardly play an instrument when they started, but they wanted to be rock stars.
London: Even though I like to rock out, I do like classical music as well. Any type of symphony type stuff, my uncle is a retired French horn player from the Dallas Symphony, and did a lot of freelance work, so he played with a lot of the greats, and got to travel the world. I thought it was really cool, growing up, being able to watch him.
Troy: Like London, I am heavily inspired by classical music, Johan Sebastian Bach, Mozart and Beethoven. But I think Joseph Haydn was an awesome composer, he didn’t have other composers and much music around him, to be inspired by, and so his music is very unique. So, to be part of that would be amazing. Also, my dad is a guitarist, and I would have loved to be around and watch him in his day, back in the 70’s and 80’s.
Mark: So, how many songs have you got together at the moment?
Troy: We’ve probably got about fifteen, that we can put together, and we have a ridiculous amount of ideas that just keep coming! We have enough to finish producing our first album, & working on the second at the same time!
London: We try and stay away from the covers, but people like to hear them, so we do that but on a small scale.
Mark Thanks very much for talking to us, and we’d love to hear the new stuff when it comes out.
London: We’ll definitely make sure we send one over to you.