Initially Angel Dust was founded in the mid -eighties. The Band recorded two Albums ("Into the Dark Past" and "To Dust You Will Decay") with quite a different line-up than today. Roman Keymer played the guitar and did the vocals, Andreas Lohrum played the guitar, while our well known friends Frank Banx and Dirk Assmuth rounded up the lineup on the debut album. But like many other bands before, there were line -up problems and so the line-up changed, and only the rythm section remained with Assy and Banx. S.L. Coe was the chosen vocalist, accompanied by Vinnie Lynn and Stefan K. Neuer, both on the guitar. In this line-up, the band recorded their second Album. However, in spite of best criticism, it never was as successful as the first record. Nevertheless, the band did various smaller tours and performances with Blind Guardian, Tankard, Paradox, Sodom and Destruction. After their sold out tour with Running Wild in January 1989, which was another climax in the career of the band, there came a sudden end in autumn of the same year: Angel Dust broke up due to in - and external problems.

During the nineties, there was more than one attempt to revive the band. New singers were tried, new guitarists sometime else. Then, finally, in 1997 it actually happend: a Promo CD was recorded. Of the original members, again, only Dirk Assmuth and Frank Banx were left. The line-up was completed by Frank's brother Steven (synthesizers), Bernd Aufermann (guitars) and Dirk Thurisch (vocals - guitar).

Then everything went very quick actually. Because Angel Dust resides in Dortmund just like the Rock Hard Magazine, Dirk Assmuth dropped a copy of the CD in the Rock Hard office. He wanted to know what Götz Kühnemund thought of the disc, who obviously had nothing better to do than play the disc to somebody at Century Media, as Century Media also resides in Dortmund. Actually, Century Media wanted to take the band under contract immediately, but first "Border Of Reality" appeared on the Rock -Hard-Sampler "Unerhört" which was equipped exclusively with bands not being under contract. After this sampler was released, there were multiple offers from several labels to sign records deals with Angel Dust, but Century Media did the best of those offerings, so the band signed the deal with CM.
The band went on and after "Border Of Reality", the band released two more surpreme albums so far, "Bleed" and "Enlighten the Darkness", both with unchanged line-up for the first time and also at Century Media.

In October 2000, things started to become a little confusing for me. Dirk Assmuth decided to leave the band and therefore was replaced on the drums by Michael Sticken for a shot while. Then, in Summer 2001 the band had the opportunity to tour the US for the first time, because "Children of Bodom" canceled their tour. So Century Media asked Angel Dust, if they wanted to tour instead. It was a very shothanded decision for the band, that put the members under great stress. So it happened, that guitarist Bernd Auferman didn't join the tour. The band took Ritchie Wilkinson as a drop-in guitarist for the tour. In the meanwhile, roumors spreaded, that Bernd left the band. After returning from the tour, the band had talks with bernd, and afterwards stated on June 13th 2001, that:

"the personal differences with Bernd could be solved in a detailed conversation. Most of them rendered from misunderstandings. Nevertheless, the split from Bernd exists further on. Therefore Assy (Dirk Assmuth) rejoined us, and is official member again from now on. This may sound very chaotic, we know, but we had to decide in which direction the band should develop furtheron. We thank Bernd and Michael for the common time. The new AD Line-Up is: Dirk Thurisch, Ritchie Wilkison, Steven Banx, Dirk Assmuth and Frank Banx." (translated from german)

So Ritchie took in Bernd's place as guitarist and Dirk Assmuth rejoined Angel Dust, replacing Michael again. After this chaotic period, the line-up seems to be stable again, and Angel Dust just finished recordings for their new album "Of Human Bondage", which turned out to be another brilliant album.