Mark Boals

Mark Robert Boals (born December 5, 1958) is an American heavy metal vocalist and occasional bassist, best known for his vocals with Yngwie Malmsteen.

He is currently a member of the band Foundry.

In 1982, Boals joined Savoy Brown and toured around Canada and the U.S. through 1983.

Although several songs were written for a proposed new album, the record never materialized due to mainman Kim Simmonds running into legal problems at the time.

During these years Boals also performed with his band Lazer.

While with Savoy Brown, Boals met Ted Nugent and joined his band as bassist in 1984 touring throughout the U.S. and opening up for Judas Priest in Europe.

Deciding to focus on singing and being a frontman, Boals moved to California in 1985.

He joined Yngwie Malmsteen's Rising Force and performed on the Trilogy album.

Boals' first show with Malmsteen was at Day on the Green in San Francisco, CA in front of 80,000 fans.

Boals' first album with Malmsteen, 1986's Trilogy, achieved platinum status in the US and sold several million copies worldwide.

As a young child, he learned to play the piano and bass guitar.

Although Boals has never had any vocal lessons or training, as a teenager he gained experience as a vocalist in local groups.

Boals is the founder and vocalist for the band Ring of Fire, and had a brief stint as the bassist for Dokken.

After leaving Yngwie in 1986, he gave up music for a time, trying to find himself in cinematography and working for Warner Brothers.

In this period he recorded, with Mike Slamer, a soundtrack for the film White Water Summer (1987); he also appeared on Maestro Alex Gregory's "Paganini's Last Stand" (Priority Records) in 1992.

Boals' next venture was Billionaires Boys Club, a short lived supergroup featuring former Accept guitarist Jörg Fischer, future HammerFall bassist Magnus Rosén, and former Yngwie Malmsteen bandmate, drummer Anders Johansson.

The group's sole album, Something Wicked Comes, was released on Polydor Records in 1993.

Then in 1996, Yngwie Malmsteen called Boals and asked if he wanted to perform on several songs on the cover album Inspiration.

Boals accepted, and resumed his role as vocalist with Yngwie Malmsteen for the album Alchemy.

The band subsequently went on tour.

In March 2000, Boals won the No.1 Vocalist Prize in the Japanese music magazines Burrn! and Young Guitar.

At the end of that year, on the same day, his second solo CD, entitled Ring Of Fire and Yngwie Malmsteen's War To End All Wars, with Boals on vocals, were released.

However, after many years of musical magic and friendship, the team of Malmsteen and Boals had decided to move in different directions, and Boals formed a new band, Ring of Fire, named after his solo album.

At the beginning of this year, Ring of Fire recorded their subsequent debut The Oracle album at the George Bellas Studios in Chicago.

Alongside Boals were George Bellas, Vitalij Kuprij, Virgil Donati and Philip Bynoe.

In addition Boals has participated in two exciting projects of Lion Music in Finland.

He appears on the Jason Becker tribute "Warmth in the Wilderness", singing a version of David Lee Roth's "Hammerhead Shark" with Lars Eric Mattsson.

Also Boals is featured on vocals on two songs, "Into The Light" and "I Will Always Be There", for the Empire CD Hypnotica (2001).

Another cool project where Boals took part in, was "Genius Rock Opera" Trilogy by Daniele Liverani.

There he was recording as the main character (Genius) on Episode 1: A human into dreams' world (2002) and Episode 2: In search of the little prince (2004).

But he refused to sing on the last Episode because of personal reasons and was replaced by D. C. Cooper.

In 2004 Boals recorded two songs for young Japanese guitarist named Takayoshi Ohmura.

Ohmura's debut album, entitled "Nowhere To Go", features additional guest appearances by Doogie White (Yngwie Malmsteen, Cornerstone, ex-Rainbow) and Richie Kotzen (ex-Mr. Big, Poison).

Commented Boals:

After I was asked by the representatives of Ohmura, I listened to his demo.

I thought his music was good and he has a talent to play guitar, and I thought it'd be great to support this young Japanese musician.

I also thought it would be great to share the vocals with the other singers, Richie Kotzen and Doogie White, so I recorded two songs here in L.A. and sent them to Japan.

Boals has also performed with Lana Lane, Indigo Dying, Empire and Chris Brooks.

Speaking about Mattsson, in 2005 he also recorded an album War with Boals lead singing on track "Deep In The Shadows".

As Malmsteen urgently needed a singer for his current tour, Boals has toured again with him in Europe, but only as guest vocalist.