Oil-Len was formed in 1993 in Belfort by Lionel Flétier aka \"Lion Hell\" who gave his name to his own band.
At the beginning, the band used to play a mixture of progressive rock, heavy metal and other musical genres who influenced Lionel and his bandmates.
They began with Lionel and Christophe Bishoff on guitars, Stephane Flétier on bass and a drum machine, in 1994 they will be joined by drummer & vocalist named Jean-Luc Ronot and later that same year Christophe left the band and Keybordist Christophe Burghard joined the combo.
In 1994 the bane begins the recording of its first album and Jean-Luc left during the recording session, he will appear on 3 tracks and Fabrice Bony (ex-Ange) will record 3 other tracks.
Later, Vincent Peirera will become the new official Drummer of Oil-Len and Vince Fenson (Big Band) will take the mic to record the songs with vocals.
The album was engineered and produced mostly by Robert \"Robby\" Defer, (ex-Ange, Ex-Auroch, ex-Hybride and so many other bands) and will be released in 1995 through Brennus, that same year the band played at the Eurockéennes de Belfort but Vince Fenson was had to left because of professional reasons and went to china, at this moment Lionel took on the vocal duties in addition to the guitars and the band did a lot of gigs.
The band enters the studio in 1996 to record a second album \"Qui Cherche Groove\" which is more progressive metal oriented and more technical but unfortunately it will never be released.
In 1997, Christophe and Vincent left and in 1998 Wolfgang \"Def\" Deliste came on drums and the band continued as a power trio.
For 3 years, the band will keep on playing gigs and record an EP called \"214\" thanks to their victory at a contest in Danjoutin un 2001 but later that year, Lionel and Stéphane's dad dies of lung cancer and the brothers are devasted by this, there father was really supported them since the beginning, the band split up.
The year after, Lionel had two back operations and later joined a funk rock band called Split, in 2004 he will form a new hard rock band called Veuve Y which will release an album with Cyril Filipp on drums, who will become the drummer of Oil-Len when the band will reform in 2007 but this time they are relocated in Alsace.
The new lineup in addition of Lionel on guitars and vocals and Cyril on drums consist of Olivier Springer on bass and the return of Christophe Burghard on keyboards, this lineup will record \"Rock'n'Roll Religion\", a more rock CD sang in french with some guest such as Pat'o May and Screamin'B'Harp.
It will be released in 2010 through Brennus Records.
In 2013, Lionel can't sing due to a car accident so Mark Schickler left his band Pression X to sing in Oil-Len and they will record Fastback 70s, at this time the band plays a more stoner/hard rock style.
In 2014, Mark is replaced by Fabrice Rouillon (ex Powerage) but in 2015 the band split up again.
Lionel recorded some songs in 2016 that will be released on his SoundCloud and in 2017 Oil-Len reformed one more time this time with Stéphane Flétier back on Bass and with Johnny Boffa on drums, the band recorded an album called \"Charter\" in 2019, this is at this period that I met Lionel and Johnny at a private tribute to Robert Defer who passed away on 7th April 2019, we jammed together and we talked about music, he told me about Oil-Len.
Later, Johnny left and was replaced by Nicolas Wohlgemuth and they released a single in 2020.
Oil-len let it's own trace in Belfort's musical scene but unfortunately didn't had the success it deserved.
Today, the band is at his best and as I saw them live, I van tell you that they freaking rock, the 3 of them forms a amazing band !
Plus they share and diffuse a very good ambiance, they're all nice and talented guys, so if you can see them, go see them live !
A huge thanks to Lionel for his kindness for taking of his time to tell me more about his band and for giving me the 3 CD officialy released by Oil-Len, they are great !
The band recently put all of its music on the internet, you can listen to it on Spotify :
