PRAYING MANTIS BIOGRAPHY

PRAYING MANTIS
Biography

Overview

Praying Mantis are a British hard rock band started in London in 1974 by the brothers Tino Troy, on guitar and vocals, and Chris Troy, on bass and vocals. Along with Iron Maiden, Samson and Angel Witch, they are counted among the bands that came up out of London at the end of the 1970s and became the new wave of British heavy metal.

Their 1981 debut, Time Tells No Lies, has been read ever since as one of the most melodic records that movement produced. Two lead guitars playing harmony lines, and a thick bed of backing vocals sung by the whole band: those two things have survived every change of line-up in forty-five years.

And no account of this band works without Japan. After their career at home stopped, it was a Japanese concert that put them back in front of an audience in 1990, and for more than a decade afterwards their new albums came out in Japan first, on Pony Canyon. This site carries eighteen records: the sixteen the band's own site lists as albums, plus the two live albums released in Japan in 2026.

1974 to 1979 — when they were called Junction

The band began under the name Junction. In a recollection Chris Troy wrote for the official site, the first rehearsal room was the front room of a member's house in Beckenham, and they were thrown out of it soon enough. What they found next was Nathaniel Heckford School on Cable Street in London E1, around the corner from the London College of Furniture where Tino Troy was studying furniture design, and where a member's father was the schoolkeeper. They took over an old coal store with thick brick walls, hung black curtains around it, and had somewhere they could play as loud as they liked without bothering anyone. They built their own lighting rig out of catering-sized tins, built their own PA, and bought an old Bedford ambulance that kept breaking down.

The name changed by accident. They were overdubbing backing vocals behind their singer Stan, bouncing between two cassette recorders, and gesturing with their hands as they sang. Stan burst out laughing and said they looked like a load of praying mantises. Junction ended there. Chris Troy tells the story himself in the Troy Story section of the band's site.

Their first proper demo was cut at First Light, an eight-track studio in Beckenham: "Captured City", "Lovers to the Grave", "Johnny Cool" and "The Ripper". Handing that tape to Neal Kay, who ran the Heavy Metal Soundhouse in Kingsbury in north London, changed everything. Kay played it to the people who came to the club — the same room where Iron Maiden's and Samson's tapes were being played.

1980 to 1981 — at the centre of the new wave

In February 1980 EMI released Metal for Muthas, a compilation of bands from around the Soundhouse. Iron Maiden and Praying Mantis were both on it and toured the UK together behind it. It was around this point that Sounds gave the whole movement its name.

Chris Troy has left two stories from those months on the band's own site. In one, the fifty-seat coach carrying the band and Iron Maiden's crew — some twenty-five people — broke down in the middle of the Scottish moors in midwinter, and they sat for hours in a cooling cabin while the driver walked off to find a phone box. In the other, playing an eight-foot-high stage as Iron Maiden's support, he stepped backwards off the edge on the last note of the set's last song, "Captured City". The rest of the band had left by the other side and nobody noticed; Tino Troy counted the encore in, stopped the band and told the room, "Apologies, we seem to have lost our bassist."

A single called "Praying Mantis" came out on GEM in June 1980, followed by a cover of the Kinks' "All Day and All of the Night". The debut album, Time Tells No Lies, arrived on Arista on 3 April 1981, produced by Tim Friese-Greene at Battery Studios in London. The band on it were the Troy brothers with Steve Carroll on guitar and vocals and Dave Potts on drums, and Rodney Matthews painted the sleeve.

"Cheated" entered the UK singles chart dated 31 January 1981 and peaked at 69 across two weeks; the album entered on 11 April and peaked at 60, also for two weeks. Not large numbers. But the record itself has been named in every account of the new wave of British heavy metal written since.

1982 to 1989 — the gap

Contract and management trouble followed the debut. The band's own site puts it briefly: managerial problems and a couple of name changes, and then they stopped. By the middle of the 1980s the name Praying Mantis had gone. Steve Carroll, the guitarist, moved on to Little Bo Bitch.

1990 to 1996 — starting again in Japan

In April 1990 a concert was held at Nakano Sun Plaza in Tokyo to mark ten years of the new wave of British heavy metal. The Troy brothers played it with Paul Di'Anno, Iron Maiden's first singer, and Dennis Stratton, who had also been in Iron Maiden. The record of that night is Live at Last, and the title says where they were.

The concert brought the band back. In March 1991 Pony Canyon released Predator in Disguise, their first studio album in ten years, with Gary Barden of MSG singing and Dennis Stratton on guitar. From there, for more than a decade, their new records came out in Japan before anywhere else. Mark Thompson-Smith sang on A Cry for the New World in 1993, with Bruce Bisland on drums; Clive Burr, also formerly of Iron Maiden, passed through the band in these years too.

To the Power of Ten followed in August 1995, and in March 1996 the double live album Captured Alive in Tokyo City, recorded in Tokyo the previous November. A show at The Bottom Line in Nagoya on 24 November 1993 had been recorded as well, and came out in Japan thirty-three years later as The Bottom Line Nagoya Japan 1993.

1998 to 2013 — the long middle

Tony O'Hora took over the vocals from Forever in Time in June 1998, and stayed through Nowhere to Hide (2000) and The Journey Goes On (2003). Nowhere to Hide came out in an unusual shape even for this band: the Japanese CD appeared first, on 21 June, with nine songs, and the international edition followed on 21 November with "Naked" added for ten. The missing song was re-recorded in 2003 and closes The Journey Goes On.

In 2007 Dennis Stratton, who had played guitar here since the 1990 reunion, left, and Andy Burgess came in. Burgess has been the second lead guitar ever since and became one of the band's main writers at the same time. Sanctuary, released by Frontiers in June 2009, is the first record that line-up made.

In December 2011 King Records released Metalmorphosis, a Japan-only album on which the band re-recorded their early material for their thirtieth anniversary. It is also where "Captured City" — the set closer since the 1979 demo — and the 1980 single "Praying Mantis" finally became available as proper studio recordings.

2015 onwards — the present band

In 2013 two Dutch players joined: John 'Jaycee' Cuijpers on vocals and Hans in 't Zandt on drums, replacing Mike Freeland and Gary MacKenzie. Legacy, in August 2015, is the first album they made, and Gravity (2018), Katharsis (2022) and Defiance (2024) have followed. In September 2015 the band announced on their own site the death of Steve Carroll, who had played guitar on the debut, writing that his tasteful licks, melodic tones and fine voice had graced Time Tells No Lies.

Their set at Frontiers Rock Festival V in Milan on 28 April 2018 became the live album Keep It Alive! the following year. They kept returning to Japan as well — Harajuku Astro Hall on 3 November 2015, Umeda Club Quattro on 30 June 2017 and Toyosu PIT on 1 July, the latter shared with Lionheart.

Then, in June 2024, they came back for their fiftieth year: Shibuya Club Quattro on the 5th and Umeda Club Quattro on the 6th, billed as the Praying Mantis 50th Anniversary Farewell Japan Tour 2024. By the band's own announcement, those two nights were arranged as their last performances in Japan. A run of German and Italian dates in November and December 2026 has been announced, under a title the venues carry as the "45th Anniversary - Time Tells No Lies Tour 2026" — forty-five years, that is, from the first album.

Members (as of 2026)

Name	Role	Notes
Tino Troy	Lead guitar, vocals	Founder; in the band since 1974
Chris Troy	Bass, vocals	Founder; in the band since 1974
Andy Burgess	Lead guitar, vocals	Joined 2007, replacing Dennis Stratton
John 'Jaycee' Cuijpers	Vocals	Joined 2013; Dutch
Hans in 't Zandt	Drums, percussion, vocals	Joined 2013; Dutch

A note on sources

This article was written against the band's official site prayingmantis.rocks (its band profile, its album list and Chris Troy's own recollections in the Troy Story section) and the archive site it points to, praying-mantis.com (the band summary, the full discography and the official credits for Sanctuary and Metalmorphosis, and the announcement of Steve Carroll's death); the release data MusicBrainz holds for artist 4150ecb6-ec16-474e-8273-d4bdf577e931; TOWER RECORDS ONLINE's product pages for the Japanese editions (PCCY-01257, PCCY-01462, PCCY-01636, KICP-1372, KICP-1598, KICP-1738, KICP-1902, KIZC-586, MICP-11678, MICP-11858, MICP-30230, MICP-30235 and CANDY121OBI); the Apple Music Japan catalogue; the Official Charts Company's chart data; Tokyo Onkyo's page for the 2024 Japanese tour; Paunchy Cats' own Eventim Light page for the 2026 date; and Songkick's concert data. Release dates, labels and catalogue numbers are taken where the MusicBrainz original-pressing rows and TOWER RECORDS ONLINE agree. Every video was checked against the channel that uploaded it, and no fan re-upload is included.