Total Kaos

KAOS emerged from St. John’s, Newfoundland in the mid-1980s as one of the province’s first serious independent hard rock and heavy metal bands. Led by guitarist, songwriter, producer and engineer Rainer “Rhino” Wiechmann and vocalist Sindi “Cindy” Wiechmann, the group built its reputation far from the usual Canadian music-industry centres, carving out a place for original Newfoundland metal at a time when local bands often struggled to be taken as seriously as mainland acts.

Rainer Wiechmann was born in Bad Windsheim, Bavaria, Germany, and moved to Canada as a child. After growing up in the north, including Labrador City, he found his musical direction through the guitar, drawing influence from players such as Michael Schenker, Tony Iommi and David Gilmour, as well as bassists including Geddy Lee and Chris Squire. Cindy Wiechmann came from Brookfield, Newfoundland, and had been drawn to singing and performing from an early age. Before KAOS, she sang with local bands including Vogue and Babe, and also worked as a session singer for CBC television.

KAOS took shape in St. John’s with a lineup that featured Sindi Wiechmann on lead vocals, Rainer Wiechmann on lead guitar, keyboards and backing vocals, Todd McLeod on lead and rhythm guitars, Darrin Bruce on bass guitar and Sandy Forbes on drums and backing vocals. The band gained early exposure through CBC’s The Fame Game, and soon became known for a polished, hard-driving sound that mixed melodic hard rock with heavier metal instincts.

Their breakthrough release was Total Kaos, issued independently in 1985 on Mole Records. Recorded at Mr. Mole Studio in Kilbride, Newfoundland between June and August 1985, the mini-album was written, produced and engineered by Rainer Wiechmann, with additional keyboards by Paul Kinsman on “Undercover.” In a local scene where making an independent record was a major achievement, Total Kaos stood out immediately. Joe Riche, writing in The Muse in November 1985, praised it as a local success story and emphasized that the record was written, produced and recorded by Rainer, who was also using Mr. Mole Studio to support other Newfoundland acts.

The record’s signature moment was “March Of The Gremlins,” an instrumental that became the band’s best-known track. Built on a distinct, marching metal riff and introduced by the short sound piece “Gremlins,” the song gave KAOS an identity that later collectors and underground metal fans would continue to remember. Geoff Meeker, writing in The Newfoundland Herald in February 1986, called Total Kaos “superb” and described it as essential listening for hard rock fans, while noting that the band’s sound was powerful enough to invite heavy metal comparisons without being easy to pigeonhole.

KAOS also proved that a Newfoundland metal band could reach beyond the island. The strength of Total Kaos led to wider attention, including a management connection in Toronto and support dates with Helix during the band’s Long Way To Heaven era. That connection would become part of a larger Canadian hard rock story years later, when both Rainer and Cindy joined Helix themselves.

The band’s second release, TV Eye, followed in 1987 after Rainer and Cindy made the move from Newfoundland to Ontario. With a revised lineup that included guitarist Derek Joyce, bassist Mark Osmond and drummer Sandy Forbes, TV Eye showed KAOS entering a new phase, carrying forward the band’s melodic metal identity while aiming for broader opportunities. Its tracks included “Strong Hearts,” “Summer Love,” “TV Eye,” “Better Luck Next Time,” “Never Say Goodbye” and the instrumental “Caravan.” Despite that momentum, KAOS disbanded by the end of the decade, after the practical realities of relocation, touring and sustaining an independent heavy rock band proved difficult to overcome.

Rainer and Cindy continued to make music after KAOS. Based in London, Ontario, they remained active as performers and recording artists, eventually operating their own studio. Rainer became recognized as a producer and engineer, working with Canadian heavy acts including Kittie, Thine Eyes Bleed and Blood of Christ. The Wiechmanns later became members of Helix, and then carried the KAOS spirit forward through their own project NAIL, where Cindy’s unmistakable voice and Rainer’s heavy, melodic guitar writing remained at the centre of the sound.

KAOS have been featured at the Museum of Canadian Music / CitizenFreak since 2011, when Total Kaos and TV Eye were made available through the archive during the site’s early years. That long-running inclusion helped keep the band’s recordings visible during a period when the original releases were difficult to find and often circulated mainly among collectors and underground metal fans.

Decades after their original release, Total Kaos and TV Eye received renewed attention through reissues by Cult Metal Classics, bringing both records back into circulation for a new generation of Canadian metal listeners. The reissues confirm what Newfoundland rock fans already knew: KAOS were more than a local curiosity. They were a determined, self-made Canadian metal band who built their sound from the edge of the country, recorded it on their own terms, and left behind one of the most compelling underground hard rock stories in Atlantic Canadian music.

-Robert Williston