Paradox - 1998 Demo

In the Mainstream Metal Shop, after a long night of fucking with Ryan from Night World, I happened to come across a singer wanted ad looking for someone who sounded like Hypocrisy / Carcass / Samael, which in 1997 was pretty unheard of. Samael and Hypocrisy were pretty outside the realm of the fatso death metal scene and I was interested in who these people were that would be looking to play music in that vein.

I called up the number and he invited me to come check out their band. I showed up and was surprised at how cohesive they were. I wanted in. They asked me what I thought and told them they sounded like this band called At The Gates, a band which they weren't familiar with. They were tuned to B, yet were playing melodic thrash metal which I'd find out was due to a heavy Megadeth influence. The only problem was that I was already supposed to be in a band with a friend named Adam Berg, who was playing guitar and keyboards. The band I was working on with Adam was pretty similar to Emperor and the first Covanent record, but we didn't have our shit together as much as these dudes did.

After they couldn't find anyone else, they finally called me back to be their vocalist since they'd signed on to play the Milwaukee Metal Fest and hadn't found someone yet. I went with them to Jack Koshick's apartment to pick up the tickets we had to sell and talked him into putting us on the Mortician show he was booking. We played that show with Night World and Cyanosis. I remember being excited for that show like it was my graduation from med school. After we played, I walked off the Rave bar stage and did a victory lap around the bar like a total jagoff 18 year old rockstar. For being a total loser 18 year old, it seemed like every ten feet I met a new girl. If I wasn't already, I was hooked on being in a band and how cool it made you feel afterwards. I lost my virginity because of that show.

We then opened up for Morbid Angel, where we invited two members of Night World, whom we'd been sharing a practice space with, on for a song which resulted in their band breaking up... then we played Metal Fest, which was pretty much the point of me joining in the first place. After Metal Fest, the bass player and I were kicked out and the remaining members started a band called Dead By Morning, whose demo I will upload and cover more thoroughly later.

Here's the 4-track demo recording we did in 1998, which was only released as a limited promo cassette for labels at Metal Fest.

[download]