WASTELAND 92

The Story of Wasteland

Wasteland started off as a sequence to A Split Second. After the A Split Second remix 1991 album, Chrismar Chayell wanted to continue in a new direction, engaging again in a challenge of making new music with new sounds and concepts, whereas A Split Second seemed to be stuck. By accident, he met with Alain Allaeys and asked him to start working together. Nicolas Mansy, who joined A Split Second on the last US-tour, stepped in too. A Split-Second's guitar player Fedjean Venvelt initially joined the new gang as wel, but only for a short period.

During the early days of 1992, Wasteland searched for the new sound, in which period tracks like 'This Time is Yours', 'Paint' and 'Strange' were made. Already soon, the compositions become more mature, more complex, more musically interesting, resulting in tracks like 'Dream Danger' and 'Humiliation'. At that time, Chrismar Chayell's USA-management became interested in the project, and encouraged Wasteland to continue. By the end of the year, powerful tracks like 'Ashes' and 'You Say' proved the potential top quality of this band.
Wasteland developed a musical style that is at the same time alternative rock, industrial and US-FM-Radio songs. A lot of guitars, a lot of vocals and melody, with strong lyrics, steady beat, harsh guitar and industrial sounds, but not used to the extreme : all sounds, however strange, are used in exactly the right spot within the composition. In those days, the Wasteland sound was very renewing - as Garbage would do several years later.

By the beginning of 1993 however, after a full year of building a strong set, The project started to lose the chance to break through, caused by a general malaise in the music industry. Although striking tracks like 'Network', 'Miss Milly' and 'Shy Like Moon' were still produced, the gang decided it was time to start thinking of again new projects - keeping open the possibility for Wasteland to continue. They each had invested all their time and money for a full year in Wasteland, and it was time for something else.

Alain Allaeys started a new project, at first assisted with Nicolas Mansy, which resulted in the band Mad Dog Loose, which released 1 album and 2 mini-albums on CD during 1994-95 and enjoyed a lot of well earned success.
Nicolas Mansy engaged again in several projects and went on tour with Hugo Race of whom’s band he became a full member. Nico currently lives in LA engaging in many musical projects.
Chrismar Chayell reduced his professional musical career to allow himself to focus on Twilight Ritual.

Musicians Wasteland are :
Alain Allaeys: vocals, lyrics, guitars, programming
Nico Mansy: guitars, keyboards, programming
Chrismar Chayell: keyboards, guitars, programming, engineering, backing vocals
Wasteland was assisted in the early days by : Fedjean Venvelt: guitars
Wasteland produced over 30 songs in a 1 year period, half of which have been made ready for release. A CD has been assembled that was only available through Micrart Group (MCD 9208 "Legacy").

New Releases

Alain, Nico, and Chrismar stayed in touch, and each thought that the tracks produced by Wasteland were among the best they ever did in their musical careers (up to now). All felt that we should find a way to release this material, as it simply deserves to be heard.

In 2020, Wasteland signed a deal with Starman Records to release the full album on digital media. “You Say” has been chosen as the first single. However, the Covid-19 pandemic forced us to pause the plans.

April 23rd, 2022. Alain dies.

Before having had the chance to release Wasteland again, Alain dies of heart failure at the age of only 59. Our friend will be dearly missed.