About Me
In 1993 the Cleveland OH based death metal band BLOOD OF CHRIST fell apart. After BOC broke up, Tom Rojack (guitar and vocals) joined Cleveland's local death metal act, DECREPIT. After a year or so of being inactive, I (Matt Sorg) decided to form a new band. I started this new band with BLOOD OF CHRIST drummer, Rob Newlin and an old friend of ours, Damon Conn on guitar. The three of us began working on material together but we didn't have a bassist or a vocalist. Around this same time (1994), Duane Morris (bassist for DECREPIT) was asked to join INCANTATION as new guitarist/vocalist and left DECREPIT to tour with them. Tom Rojack called and asked if I would play bass in DECREPIT and so I took Duane's place. I was glad to be back in a band with Tom and also excited to be in a band that was complete. Soon after joining DECREPIT, I thought of asking Jim Konya, a well known local metal freak, if he would be interested in singing in this new band of ours. He wasn't a frontman or a vocalist, really, but I thought he had the right personality to get up in front of people and I knew he wrote great lyrics. He came to a practice and heard the material and immediately agreed to give it a shot. He was very creative and came up with lyrics for five songs very quickly. At this same time, Tom Rojack came to practice with Jim several times and played bass with us but unfortunately, for whatever reason, that didn't last. We went into the studio without a bassist and recorded these tracks. I played bass on the recording. By this time Jim had named our band FROM THE DEPTHS. We loved the name because it was similar to swedish bands that we were really into like AT THE GATES. Jim, being a huge fan of KING DIAMOND, decided to create an alter ego for himself and named this persona Malcolm Judas Anthony. Each song that he wrote told it's own horror story.During the recording of the 1st demo we decided to add some keyboards which we had used in BOC. An old friend of mine named Brian Boston had recently bought a keyboard and was writing music for underground horror movies. I thought I would borrow his keyboard and Damon and I would play on the demo. We found out quick that we sucked at keyboards and we asked Brian to play on the recording. It worked really well and the next thing we knew, we had a keyboard player in the band. Damon Conn left the band after the recording of the demo to pursue a career in teaching music which he still does in high schools to this day. We replaced him with a local guitarist named Brian Bertram who brought along a bassist named Arnie Argenio. Finally we had a full lineup. Unfortunately, problems were already arising betwen the band and our vocalist. I wanted to add guitar solos and Jim wanted to fight me about it because it left him limited space to tell his horror stories. We had screaming matches at practice over this while writing the 2nd demo. We recorded the 2nd demo at Prime Time Studios (same place as the 1st). I had a tube blow on my amp which contributed to the bass heavy guitar sound on the 2nd demo. The songs were better this time but the recording wasn't great. Duane Morris had a label called Dismal Records and he decided to release a full length CD of the first 2 FTD demos.Arnie Argenio lost interest in the band and Duane Morris was willing to jump into tha bass slot. Around this same time DECREPIT was breaking up. We were having so much trouble with Jim that we decided to ask Rob Molzan (DECREPIT vocalist) to join FTD. He has a great death metal voice and writes great lyrics. We had to kick Jim out of the band. It wasn't fun but it had to be done. Rob decided to take Jim's slot in the band. We immediately started working on what would become the "Bereavement" EP. We recorded 4 songs and released them on CD in 1997. This is what I consider the peak of the band. The recording could have been better but the songs and the overall vibe of the band was great. We had interest from Candlelight records but it didn't end up happening and we recorded our next release "Elysium" with money that we earned from tribute albums on Dwell records. We did songs by artists that we loved. The bands we payed tribute to were Metallica (twice), Kiss, Venom, Twisted Sister, Kreator, Destruction, Iron Maiden, and Slayer. The leftover money from these recordings financed our "Elysium" CD. This effort was good but I don't think it was as good as the "Bereavement" EP. Molzan wasn't as involved and didn't put in the same amount of effort. The band's spirits weren't as high as the recording of "Bereavement". Boston (keyboards) had already left the band and returned only to record tracks for the CD. Overall, we knew the band was done and that this would be our farewell release. After some shows where Duane switched to guitar and took on vocal duties, we called it quits. I started DEAD OF NIGHT with Chris Dora (DECREPIT, RINGWORM, INTEGRITY, SOULLESS), Wayne Richards (SOULLESS), Randy Scott (BLOOD OF CHRIST), and Duane Morris (DECREPIT, INCANTATION, FTD) after the breakup of FTD. I then joined Dora in RINGWORM, and now still play with them as well as the band BEYOND FEAR with Tim "Ripper" Owens of JUDAS PRIEST fame. Jim Konya still makes great music with NUNSLAUGHTER and SCHNAUZER. Rob Molzan has a new band called LAST DAWN. Duane is still carrying on a new version of DECREPIT and Brian Bertram has a new band called ONENEMY.
