Mike Starrs

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Mike Starrs is a vocalist of Scottish origin. Born November 10, 1947 in Edinburgh, he left Scotland in the Seventies to work with Rick Wakeman on various productions. He was signed by legendary producer Tony Atkins for Marquee Productions and released several singles. He joined Colosseum II in 1975 and featured on their first album, Strange New Flesh in 1976. Starrs' singing style, produced a powerful, distinctive, mid Atlantic delivery, which soared in and around the the frenetic guitar work of Gary Moore, the soaring keyboards of Don Airey and the thumping rhythm section of Neil Murray and Jon Hiseman. The end result was a British 'supergroup' in the making, with the potential to take the progressive rock world by storm, as evidenced on that first album.

The album was not a commercial success but the band were already working on the follow up, when Starrs was unceremoniously sacked, along with renowned bass player Neil Murray, by the group's then record label (Bronze Records). Colosseum II went on to produce two further, largely instrumental albums, with a different record label, which although acclaimed for the undoubted musicianship of the performers, also failed to achieve a commercial breakthrough.

Starrs toured Europe and USA with Colosseum II in 1975-76 and also had a spell with a version of The Animals. Then moving to Hamburg, he subsequently joined Lucifer's Friend, taking over from John Lawton, and featured on 2 of their albums, Good Time Warrior (1978) and Sneak Me In (1980), after which Lawton took over again. Starrs' vocal presence was again to the fore but the albums met with limited success and critical acclaim.

He was also involved in tours and albums with German bands, "Toneband" (incl. German chart-entry) and "Duesenberg". In 2002, he joined up with German Rock group 'Lake' reformed under Alex Conti, regularly touring and appearing on the 2005 album, 'The Blast of Silence', taking lead vocals and co writing one of the tracks. The band are still together and have been touring on and off since, mainly in Germany.

Starrs' distinctive vocal stylings surfaced again on the reissued and expanded Strange New Flesh (2005) which contained unreleased material from the original Colosseum II line up. This shows once more what might have been if Bronze has not been so hasty in disbanding the original line up.^{[citation needed]}