Veteran Japanese metallers LOUDNESS will be rejoined by vocalist Mike Vescera (pictured below) for a special one-off performance on April 14 at the Live N' Louder festival in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Although Vescera will sing the entire set with LOUDNESS at the event, he has no plans to permanently replace the band's original frontman Minoru Niihara, who remains LOUDNESS' official vocalist after having rejoined the group in 2001.

Vescera joined LOUDNESS in 1988 following the firing of Niihara. In pursuit of greater commercial success with English-speaking audiences, Vescera and the rest of LOUDNESS recorded two albums, "Soldier Of Fortune" (1989) and "On The Prowl" (1991). However, the pairing did little to improve the band's status in America and also took its toll on LOUDNESS' Japanese fan base. Vescera exited LOUDNESS (and joined Yngwie J. Malmsteen in 1993) during the group's American tour in 1991 and was eventually replaced by EZO vocalist Masaki Yamada.

Vescera rose to metal popularity at the age of 18 years old as the legendary vocalist of the band OBSESSION. A classically trained pianist, Mike chose the path of a metal frontman instead of Julliard.

In recent years, Mike Vescera has gained a reputation in the business as being a masterful producer and engineer working from his studio The Toy Room, which was located in the hills of Connecticut just outside of New York. A few years ago the studio moved to Nashville, where Mike now makes his home. The studio is second to none, utilizing state-of-the-art software and technology to achieve unrivaled flexibility and dimension of sound. It holds both major-label and small-budget accounts serving all styles of music. It also holds major network voice-over accounts for several popular shows.

Mike continues to front OBSESSION and ANIMETAL USA, the American counterpart to ANIMETAL, the Japanese heavy metal band which specialized in metal covers of popular Japanese anime/tokusatsu theme songs.