1970 was a very important year. Skip Holschbach and Joe Bernhart were born in Manitowoc, WI and Doug Frede was born ... somewhere else. Skip and Joe met while toddlers around 1973, and spent their time together shitting their diapers while listening to Sabbath and Hendrix, and drinking 40's of King Cobra while hanging out on the front porch in our bouncy seats, whistling at the girl toddlers going by in their strollers and telling them their asses look sweet in those Huggies! Kidding of course- that came later. We don't really remember back that far - we just know that we've always known each other. Following the typical path of metal heads of our generation, we started out on Kiss in the late 70's, and quickly moved on - first to AC/DC, and then to Maiden, Ozzy and Priest, and everything else we could get our hands on. In 1984, Joe picked up some obscure metal fanzine, and we saw a picture of this really obscure underground band called Slayer and knew we had to check it out. Skip ordered "Show No Mercy" from the local record store Dr. Freud's - who, the last time we checked, still carries a pretty decent metal supply (Hey Jim!). When it arrived, and we threw it on..holy shit! A new definition of heavy that we didn't previously know existed! Our collections quickly swelled with everything Slayer, Metallica, Venom, and Mercyful Fate could put out. This quickly flowed into the 80's thrash explosion we all know, and those of you as old as us probably lived a similar story.
Well, we couldn't just listen, we had to play. We delivered an insane number of newspapers at equally insane hours of the morning to buy the cheapest equipment we could find, and formed our first band, Eblis, with our friend Aaron Walters on guitar. Originally, Joe was just going to sing, but we couldn't find anyone else to play bass, so Joe ended up playing bass by default. We were not that great, but we had a lot of fun, and we managed to write a few songs (which still live today as horrible sounding boom box recordings.) We played a few shows, our last being in the summer of '88 to a pretty good sized group of our Manitowoc "friends". Skip left for school at UWM at the end of the '88 summer, and Eblis was done.
While chilling in the dorms during his first weekend in Milwaukee and listening to the brand new ...And Justice disc, Skip could hear someone jamming heavy stuff on guitar from a nearby suite. He walked right in, and there was Doug, doing a decent job playing along to his own Metallica collection. There appeared to be similar tastes in music and beer, so shortly after, the idea of Inner Fear came together (though the actual name came a bit later). As Joe was still in Manitowoc, we jammed infrequently over the next 1 1/2 years, goofing around and playing covers during semester breaks.
In the summer of 1990, we finally got our own place, with enough basement space to practice. At this time, we started getting more serious. Originally, Joe was just going to play bass, but we couldn't find a vocalist, so Joe did the vocals by default. We also wanted a second guitarist, but after trying a few people out, we never found the right chemistry. We gave up and decided to just be a Canadian Power Trio - except we're not Canadian, and we didn't want to play power prog rock (not that there's anything wrong with that.) We started concentrating our time on writing originals - using cover tunes just as fun filler and warm-ups. Eventually, we outgrew the basement, and got a proper rehearsal studio. (Besides, we had never asked the landlord or the people who lived on the second or third floor flats, or our neighbors for that matter. We lacked even this basic level of courtesy, but somehow managed to keep the peace.) With the freedom of the 24 hr access of the studio, we ramped up the practice frequency once again. In July of '91, we recorded our demo at Stalker Studios, with Acrophet guitarist Dave Pelino mixing the 8-track reels. You heard me right - 8 Tracks, Baby! We were livin' large! Back in those stone ages, distribution was tough and expensive, so unfortunately, we limited the availablity of the tapes to consignment sale at the local shops, word of mouth, and availability at shows, which we played when and where we could. Milwaukee was OK for metal at the time, but mostly on the south and west sides - Milwaukee's Upper East Side was not a metal hotbed. Still, it was all fun with lots of good times, and we had our small dedicated crowd of "fans".
It all came to a rather abrupt end late in '92. We were without practice space, were all nearing graduation, and were going in different directions geographically. Ironically, we played our final show at the Manitowoc County Fairgrounds - the same location for our final show with Eblis back in '88. Unfortunately, we've left at least a full demos worth of "new" songs unrecorded, though maybe some scratch copies of these may find their way here. Since that time, we've all dabbled in a few other musical projects, but none as good as Inner Fear.
Recently, Skip has moved back to the Milwaukee area, there is rumor that Joe might come back from Houston, and Doug has never left. There has been some very extremely preliminary talk recently - no promises made, and maybe just wishful thinking, but still just a hint at the notion of the kernel of an idea, really, that perhaps there might yet be another chapter to our story....