Manowar
American heavy metal band
Manowar is an American heavy metal band from Auburn, New York. Formed in 1980, the group is known for lyrics based on fantasy fiction (particularly sword and sorcery) and mythology (particularly Norse and Greco-Roman mythology) as well as numerous songs celebrating the genre and its core audience. The band is also known for a loud and emphatic sound. In an interview for MTV in February 2007, bassist Joey DeMaio lamented that "these days, there's a real lack of big, epic metal that is drenched with crushing guitars and choirs and orchestras... so it's nice to be one of the few bands that's actually doing that". In 1984, Manowar was included in the Guinness Book of World Records for delivering the loudest performance, a record that they have since broken on two occasions. They also hold the world record for the longest heavy metal concert after playing for five hours and one minute in Bulgaria (at Kavarna Rock Fest) in 2008. They are known for their slogan "death to false metal".
History
Origins (1980–1981)
Manowar's history began in 1980, when bassist Joey DeMaio met guitarist Ross "the Boss" Friedman while working as a bass tech and fireworks manager for Black Sabbath on the Heaven & Hell Tour. Ross the Boss, a former member of the punk rock band the Dictators, was the guitar player in one of Black Sabbath's support bands, Shakin' Street.
“Manowar” enters the record as american heavy metal band. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Manowar, American and heavy can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q156049. VIAF identifies the subject as 25145970324932252497. The Library of Congress control number is n91037289. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1980, 2007, 1984 and 2008.
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This entry incorporates text from “Manowar” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.