Edward Pursino. As stated in the Virgin Steele's website "we never actually asked Edward to join the band, he just came down one day and never left".) After a lawsuit won by Starr over the name Virgin Steele, he sold it to DeFeis. Noble Savage and Age of Consent Supported by Pursino, whose style better fit DeFeis' songwriting than Starr's had, Virgin Steele new lineup recorded Noble Savage, which melds classic and epic music. Today, this album is still considered one of the most important manifests of heavy and epic metal worldwide. Between 1985 and 1986, some members of Virgin Steele strongly contributed to an album published under the name Exorcist called Nightmare Theatre and to an album published under the name Piledriver called Stay Ugly. David DeFeis only produced and helped these albums even if some rumors said that he and Pursino were behind these bands. Finally, the band managed to go to Europe, supporting Manowar on tour and gaining great approval from all quarters because of their live performances. When things started to come together, though, some inexplicable laws seemed to apply and the following album, Age of Consent, got a very narrow distribution and ended up a complete commercial failure. At this point, Virgin Steele were in their darkest period: their label shut down and Joe O'Reilly decided to leave, forcing the band to stop playing for a while. During this break, David DeFeis graduated in piano and composition and played live with a semi-improvised band called "Smoke Stark Lightning", featuring some famous musicians like his old mate Jack Starr and drummer Bobby Rondinelli. The comeback In 1993, Rob De Martino was chosen as the new bass player and Virgin Steele came back with Life Among the Ruins, an album of Whitesnake-influenced hard rock with a strong bluesy vein. The song "Last rose of Summer" is the highlight of the cd. Featuring none of the trademark epic and mythology-based elements of the band, Life Among the Ruins is probably the most atypical release in the Virgin Steele discography and disliked by many die-hard classic metal fans. Quite interesting is the fact the American version has got a different cover and a bonus-track called "Snakeskin Voodoo Man" (published as a stand-alone single too) while many video-clips, taken from this album, were included into the home-video "Tale Of The Snakeskin Voodoo Man". The Marriage of Heaven and Hell One