Nikolo Kotzev ( bg, Николо Коцев) (born 6 June 1961) is a
Bulgaria
Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedo ...
n guitarist, violinist, songwriter and producer, perhaps most famous for his 2001 rock opera ''
Nostradamus
Michel de Nostredame (December 1503 – July 1566), usually Latinised as Nostradamus, was a French astrologer, apothecary, physician, and reputed seer, who is best known for his book '' Les Prophéties'' (published in 1555), a collection ...
'' and his band
Brazen Abbot
Brazen Abbot is a Finnish rock band. Originally a studio project of Bulgarian guitarist, producer and song writer Nikolo Kotzev, who is a Finnish resident, the band has since made several live performances.
One of the defining aspects of Bra ...
.
Biography
Kotzev was born in
Pazardzhik
Pazardzhik ( bg, Пазарджик ) is a city situated along the banks of the Maritsa river, southern Bulgaria. It is the capital of Pazardzhik Province and centre for the homonymous Pazardzhik Municipality.
The Tatars founded Pazardzhik i ...
and started taking violin lessons at the age of five. While in his teens he took an interest to rock music, and started playing the guitar.
Nikolo worked as a session musician and played the guitar in a Bulgarian rock group
Impulse
Impulse or Impulsive may refer to:
Science
* Impulse (physics), in mechanics, the change of momentum of an object; the integral of a force with respect to time
* Impulse noise (disambiguation)
* Specific impulse, the change in momentum per uni ...
. While touring with the band in Europe in the late 80s, Nikolo met
Swedish
Swedish or ' may refer to:
Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically:
* Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland
** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
singer
Björn Lodin
Björn Lodin (born 1965 in Sundsvall, Sweden) is a Swedish singer, songwriter and producer, primarily famous for his work with his band Baltimoore.Mariehamn,
Åland
Åland ( fi, Ahvenanmaa: ; ; ) is an autonomous and demilitarised region of Finland since 1920 by a decision of the League of Nations. It is the smallest region of Finland by area and population, with a size of 1,580 km2, and a populat ...
,
Finland
Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...
in 1989, he joined Lodin's band
Baltimoore
Baltimoore is a Swedish rock band, led by Swedish singer Björn Lodin. Lodin was originally approached by Elektra Records in 1987 to record a solo album, but Lodin opted to use the moniker ''Baltimoore'' rather than his own name.
In 1992, Lodi ...
, with whom he recorded two albums: ''Double Density'' (1992) and ''Thought For Food'' (1994).
Creative differences led to Kotzev's departure in 1994, at which point Nikolo started working on a solo project under the Brazen Abbot moniker. The result was ''Live and Learn'' (1995), which featured singers
Göran Edman
Göran Edman (born 28 April 1956) is a Swedish vocalist.
Biography
Edman is notable for his session work with many artists through the years but mainly for his early work with guitarist Yngwie Malmsteen. He has also recorded with bands and arti ...
(ex-
Yngwie Malmsteen
Yngwie Johan Malmsteen ( ; born Lars Johan Yngve Lannerbäck, 30 June 1963) is a Swedish guitarist. He first became known in the 1980s for his neoclassical playing style in heavy metal, and has released 22 studio albums in a career spanning ov ...
Trapeze
A trapeze is a short horizontal bar hung by ropes or metal straps from a ceiling support. It is an aerial apparatus commonly found in circus performances. Trapeze acts may be static, spinning (rigged from a single point), swinging or flying, an ...
Mic Michaeli
Gunnar Mathias "Mic" Michaeli (born 11 November 1962) is a Swedish musician best known as the keyboardist for the rock band Europe. Like many of the other Europe members he grew up in Stockholm suburb Upplands Väsby. He joined the band for thei ...
(
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...
Ian Haugland
Jan-Håkan "Ian" Haugland (born 13 August 1964) is the drummer in the Swedish rock band Europe. When he was eight months old, he and his family moved to the Stockholm suburb of Märsta, Sweden. He joined Europe in the summer of 1984, replacing ...
(Europe). Kotzev played the guitar, produced, mixed and wrote all the songs for the album.
The follow-up album, ''Eye of the Storm'' (1996), featured mostly the same people, with
Joe Lynn Turner
Joe Lynn Turner (born Joseph Arthur Mark Linquito, August 2, 1951) is an American singer known for his work in the hard rock bands Rainbow, Yngwie J. Malmsteen and Deep Purple.
During his career, Turner fronted and played guitar with pop rock ...
(formerly of
Rainbow
A rainbow is a meteorological phenomenon that is caused by reflection, refraction and dispersion of light in water droplets resulting in a spectrum of light appearing in the sky. It takes the form of a multicoloured circular arc. Rainbows c ...
and Deep Purple) replacing Hughes and
John Levén
John Gunnar Levén (born 25 October 1963 in Stockholm, Sweden) is a Swedish bassist in the Swedish rock band Europe. Levén and vocalist Joey Tempest are the only band members who have performed on all of Europe's studio albums.
Career
When Lev ...
(Europe) replacing Henryson. The same line-up also released ''Bad Religion'' (1997).
Brazen Abbot was put on hiatus when Kotzev started working on a rock opera about
Nostradamus
Michel de Nostredame (December 1503 – July 1566), usually Latinised as Nostradamus, was a French astrologer, apothecary, physician, and reputed seer, who is best known for his book '' Les Prophéties'' (published in 1555), a collection ...
. Due to a string of setbacks, including scheduling conflicts and Kotzev's record company, USG Records, going bankrupt, the album wasn't completed until 2000 and was finally released as '' Nikolo Kotzev's Nostradamus'' in 2001 on
SPV Records
SPV GmbH (short for ''Schallplatten Produktion und Vertrieb GmbH'', "Vinyl Production and Distribution Company") is a German independent record label. Founded on 1 January 1984, it has slowly grown to be one of the largest independent distributor ...
. The album featured most Brazen Abbot members, in addition to singers
Jørn Lande
Jørn Marumsrud Lande (born May 31, 1968) is a Norwegian hard rock and heavy metal singer and songwriter. He is known for his work with the bands Ark, Beyond Twilight, Millenium, Vagabond, The Snakes, and most notably with power metal band Ma ...
Alannah Myles
Alannah Myles (née Byles; born December 25, 1958) is a Canadian singer-songwriter who has won both a Grammy and a Juno Award for the song " Black Velvet". The song was a top-ten hit in Canada; it was also a number one hit on the US ''Billboar ...
and
Sass Jordan
Sass Jordan (c. 1962) is a British-born Canadian rock singer from Montreal, Quebec. Her first single, "Tell Somebody," from her debut album of the same name won the Juno Award for Most Promising Female Vocalist in 1989. Since then, she has been ...
Nostradamus
Michel de Nostredame (December 1503 – July 1566), usually Latinised as Nostradamus, was a French astrologer, apothecary, physician, and reputed seer, who is best known for his book '' Les Prophéties'' (published in 1555), a collection ...
's death.
Kotzev resumed work with Brazen Abbot in 2002, releasing ''Guilty as Sin'' in 2003. The line-up was mostly the same as for ''Bad Religion'', with Lande replacing Vikström.
Michaeli, Levén and Haugland departed Brazen Abbot to rejoin Europe. Temporary replacements filled in during a short tour in Bulgaria, recordings of which were released on the live album ''A Decade of Brazen Abbot'' (2004).
''My Resurrection'' followed in 2005, and featured four singers: Edman, Turner and new members
Tony Harnell
Tony may refer to:
People and fictional characters
* Tony (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters
* Gregory Tony (born 1978), American law enforcement officer
* Motu Tony (born 1981), New Zealand international rugby leagu ...
(
TNT
Trinitrotoluene (), more commonly known as TNT, more specifically 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene, and by its preferred IUPAC name 2-methyl-1,3,5-trinitrobenzene, is a chemical compound with the formula C6H2(NO2)3CH3. TNT is occasionally used as a reagen ...
Sabbat
The Wheel of the Year is an annual cycle of seasonal festivals, observed by many modern pagans, consisting of the year's chief solar events (solstices and equinoxes) and the midpoints between them. While names for each festival vary among dive ...
, Blaze), organist Nelko Kolarov and drummer Mattias Knutas.
In addition to being a recording artist, Kotzev has also produced and mixed albums by other bands, such as Saxon,
Molly Hatchet
Molly Hatchet is an American rock band formed in 1971 by guitarist Dave Hlubek in Jacksonville, Florida. They were a popular band during the late 1970s and early-to-mid 1980s among the southern rock and hard rock communities. The band released ...
,
Rose Tattoo
Rose Tattoo are an Australian rock and roll band, now led by Angry Anderson, which formed in Sydney in 1976. Their sound is hard rock mixed with blues rock influences, with songs including "Bad Boy for Love", "Rock 'n' Roll Outlaw", "Nice Bo ...
and Messiah's Kiss.
In 2011 Kotzev started a band in Sofia, Bulgaria, named Kikimora ( bg, Кикимора), which plays hard rock with Bulgarian lyrics.
He received criticism from his former colleague Joe Lynn Turner in 2015 when he released a twentieth-anniversary compilation CD/DVD of ''Live And Learn'' material, which Turner condemned as a 'homemade bootleg.'
Nostradamus
Michel de Nostredame (December 1503 – July 1566), usually Latinised as Nostradamus, was a French astrologer, apothecary, physician, and reputed seer, who is best known for his book '' Les Prophéties'' (published in 1555), a collection ...
Bulgarian Rock Archives
Bulgarian Rock Archives (or Български рок архиви) is the first online encyclopedia dedicated to rock music in Bulgaria. Launched online on 2 August 2013 and includes more than 350 bands and performers from the mid-1960s. The artic ...