NOTE: This is an UNOFFICIAL Fan Page. Nuno Bettencourt or any other member of Mourning Widows do not have any affiliation with the page.
In 1998 the Schizophonic tour being well over, Nuno Bettencourt's focus was now to form his much-wanted after-Extreme band. To play with him, he kept his Schizo bass player, Donovan Bettencourt, and asked back his late-Extreme drummer, Mike Mangini. The idea was pretty simple, create a heavy-funk power trio.
With this lineup, this no-name-yet band only played the London Mad About Music Convention in late June 1998. Shortly after, Mike informed he wasn't staying as a permanent member because of scheduling conflicts. He was set to start playing with Steve Vai at the same time.
Now being drummerless, when Nuno was asked to play at the Expo 1998 in Portugal, he realized he didn't have any choice but to take his Schizo band back but just for that one time event. He didn't have the time to find a new drummer, rehearse and get ready in just over 1 month. So, the Expo 1998 saw the last of the Schizo band shows.
While in Portugal, one day, Nuno saw a painting of mourning widows dressed in black contrasting in front of a white church. The image stuck in his head, he liked the vibe of it and the name sounded dark/mysterious, just like his music... the Mourning Widows was born.
Time was now pressing, Polydor Japan who had signed Nuno as soon as his contract was over with A&M wanted a Christmas release. So, in October, Nuno & Donovan went in the recording studio to record the first Mourning Widows album with Nuno handling everything except the bass playing. Wanting to be now known as a "band" and not a Nuno solo project, Nuno decided to credit the drums to "Billy Vegas".
As planned, mid-December saw the release of that first album in Japan. It was very well received as it reached sales of 45.000 copies in just the first month. Only problem now, how can you tour to support an album without a drummer.
During that time, adverts were being posted in every music schools/stores in the Boston/NY area looking for that missing drummer would could play hard and funky. Demo tapes were received but no auditions were given until that one tape prompted Nuno to give his first audition. Jeffrey Consi had heard about the opening from a friend who saw an ad and rushed him to send his demo.
As soon as Jeff started to jam with them, Nuno knew he was the missing link to creating his power trio and so, in February 1999, Jeff was announced as the new Mourning Widows drummer.
In early May 1999, the band flew to Melbourne, Australia (where Jeff met his future wife) to begin rehearsals for the first MW tour in Japan. The June tour comprised of 6 sold-out dates and the setlist included the whole first MW album (except True Love In The Galaxy), and a few Schizophonic and Extreme songs. That tour also saw the beginnings of Donovan & Jeff as back vocalists. Overall, that first MW tour went well but Nuno felt the band needed more time rehearsing so for the rest of 1999, time was spent on shaping up and developing band chemistry before doing more live shows. They also used that time to start working on the first real Mourning Widows album.
After entering the new millennium, Mourning Widows were now preparing to release their second album. "Furnished Souls For Rent" was released on July 14th in Japan and Nuno promoted it by playing a secret gig with Joey Pessia in Tokyo on July 20th. The Japanese tour being planned only in November, the band played warm up gigs in the New England area, the first of these opening for Godsmack in Portland, ME in early August.
In 2001 a US version of Furnished Souls For Rent has been sold at the shows and through Amazon.com and other New England record stores like Newbury Comics. The new version has the same songlist as the Japanese with 2 remixes of the first album, "All Automatic" and "The Air That You Breathe". Both albums were re-released in the U.S. by Bruno Graffitti Records in 2004.
