Fatal

With a shared passion of thrash and heavy metal, we set out to create traditional thrash metal sound but keeping it our own. Influenced heavily from Slayer, Testament, Metallica, and Exodus but pulling from stoner and death metal we have come up with a sound we are proud of.

FATAL came together with its founding members Luke James (guitar/vocals), Stephen Stanton (lead guitar), Nick Moerch (drums) back in 05 after all being in a previous death metal band. After line-up changes and no progress we dropped what we were doing to focus on a new sound. We all shared an interest in Exodus, Testament, Metallica, Slayer, and just straight heavy metal in general. We started to use these bands as a guide to follow on how we wanted to sound. For the next few months we sat in Steve’s garage and just jammed until we found out how to recreate such a righteous sound. It was a long process learning how to blend all the grooves, riffs, and changes that are associated with traditional thrash metal. After a few months we finally got how it worked. So we started working on our set and practicing daily, but we still could not find a bass player. Not really caring at the moment and just wanting to play we got our first gig at Gasoline Alley. It went as well as any first show would and we had minimal crowd response and the usual drunk old dude saying “ YOU RULE!” from behind a mug of Budweiser. Then the security dudes came up and were talking with us about how it was good to hear some more traditional thrash, but with a slight new twist on it. Luke met Shane Handal at school a few weeks later and asked him if he knew how to play bass. Shane took it as the usual starting a band line and did not think much of it and put it off until Luke asked him to come to a gig to check it out. At the next gig Shane came out and had no idea what to expect, and since he was one of the only kids in the crowd he did not think too much of it. Fatal took the stage and it didn’t take long for him to see that we were dead serious and hell bent on making straight forward in your face heavy metal. After the set he came up to us and said he was in. Since then we have been jamming constantly and turning out the best music we are capable of making. The next step after playing shows with each other and getting closer and tighter as a band was to record. Not having much money or knowledge of recording we were looking for the cheapest deal we could find. This led us to Echo-Lab studios. We recorded the 5 songs we had at the time and called it “Run For Cover.” The quality was not great, but the message was clear on the direction we were taking. Handing this out to everyone and not really worrying about making any money on it paid off in producing more show opportunities and word of mouth through the local metal scene. It gave us the opportunity to share the stage with bands like Municipal Waste (Earache Records), The Absence (Metal Blade Records), and S.W.A.T.T.S. (Nuclear Blast Records) More and more local shows kept coming in as well and before we knew it there were people besides our parents in the crowd. Since more people started coming out we wanted to stand out that much more than all the bands playing by having the tightest most intense set we possibly could. Getting this down and winning people over live was much easier than getting people to get into our demo we recorded. This led us to record a second time with Brian at Mana Studios. Having heard his recordings coming from other better-known bands we knew he would help us get the sound we wanted. We went in with three new songs and the determination to put out the most in your face demo we possibly could. Thanks to his help we achieved our goal that we set out to do since we started in Steve’s garage. That was to put out a recording we could be proud of. Now releasing the “Born 2 Thrash” EP we are ready for anything that might come of it and are looking forward to continue jamming, playing, and meeting as many righteous metal heads as possible. If you have not heard us yet, crack a Natty and check it out. Fatal is now endorsed by DDrum, Madison Amps, and Drum Boot Shoes (DB).