The story of VR getting signed to Atlantic Records Bob Zemsky was a sort of quirky odd playboy type character from New York who had the financial means to travel around at his leisure in the US and overseas. He had just parted ways with Savatage (who he had been co-managing) and he was looking for a new band to work with. Luck would have it that one night when we were playing a concert at the Omni in Oakland, Bob happened to be there! He was very impressed with us and he introduced himself to the band. He told us he had contacts with Atlantic Records (Savatage's Label) and his good friend Jason Flom (Atlantic VP in the rock/metal dept.) Bob is a very funny, and strange guy, not the business suit type you normally associate with management. I think we were a bit taken back by his interest and his approach. I'm not sure that we believed him or took him to serious at first. 1989 wore on, we had been unable to get a new deal with any labels. Every major label in the US had turned us down (some of them several times) Atlantic had not even been interested. This was not looking good for us. Mike Varney did not even offer us a new deal with Shrapnel once we completed our obligation to him with the Digital Dictator album. The only interest we had was from our European Shrapnel affiliate (Roadrunner). It seems that in 1989, we were not heavy enough to attract the attention of labels that were signing thrash-metal bands at the rate of 10 a day, nor were we pop and commercial enough to