About Me
The idea of forming a speed-metal band came out around January 1986,when ALEX(vocals,from Kronos),CHRISS(drums,from Sumrak Ideja) and MARKO(guitar) met and wanted to play what we listened most at that time.There were just few bands in Yugoslavia that played something close to speed-metal,but not a band which will represent real pure speed-metal from Yugoslavia.So we decided to form such band,under a temporary name of TSM (Their Satanic Majesty).Until October 1986,everything remained on a wish,because of many personal reasons.Then Alex,Chriss and Marko met again,and we had our first rehearsal,on which the first riffs came out and the thing started to roll.Very soon,FRITZ(bass) and DAVID(guitar,from Horus) entered the band,and the first line-up was completed.The first public appearance was the 11.04.1987. at a new-bands contest in Rijeka.We and the few metalheads in there (we played very early in the afternoon) were very satisfied with our first show,and two months later we played a headlining gig with a local rock band (Ulicni Dzuboks).Practicly everything that day went wrong,it was an incredibly weird day,and looking back in time,a strange kind of weirdness follows that first line-up until the end.That day,it was the 26th of June 1987,first the police caught the guys who were bringing the PA to the place where the gig should be held,then during our soundcheck,a guy in the building near us suffered a heart attack(later we heard that finally he was ok-not dead,of course ;-) ),Alex totally lost his voice before the show..but when the show started,except for the major sound problems,everything just blows us away;the place was packed by m.f..ing maniacs who had the first time opportunity to be at a speed-metal gig,there were guys screaming their brains out,a close friend of ours broke his hand,there were guys constantly flying off the stage..a totally insane show.And concerning us,we played like we never did before,and even after.In August we went into the rehearsal place of local punk gods Kud Idijoti,to record our first live demo.As were broke,we wanted to do something cheap and fast,but,as the weirdness continues,it went wrong.We were there 5 days,and except for the first day,where we had an eternal sound checking,we were there(and I forgot to mention,the Kud Idijoti..s rehearsal room was in an abandoned madhouse in the woods..scary.) four more days trying to record songs we rehearsed for months,and there were no chance to bring any song to an end.Finally,we recorded all tracks the last day,all tracks in one take,and we decided to leave all the small mistakes in,because we wanted the tracks to sound fully authentic.The first demo was called "The upcoming mayhem",contained an intro,5 tracks and a cover of S.O.D..s "United forces".After the demo,we hoped that the things will go better but obviously that line-up wasn..t "built to last" we had a gig where a lots of things went wrong (even if we played in front of 1500 people!!),and in December of 1987,a week before our obviously last gig (we changed that last gig the name into DEVASTATOR,because of the many Devastation-bands around the world,firstly the US one),David left the band.The rest of us squeezed out that last gig,and then decided to split,because of pretty opposite characters inside the band.On January 1988,Alex and Chriss decided to go on with the band as DEVASTATION again,so they found Wutrich and Pita on guitars and Erwin on bass.That line up lasted a year,and at the end of 1988 Pita and Erwin were replaced by Igor on guitar and Dean on bass.That line up recorded the second demo entitled by a song by Discharge "The possibility of life..s destruction",recorded in April 1989 by just 3 members(Alex on vocals,Chriss on drums and Wutrich on all guitars).The demo was well accepted by fans and some fanzines all over Europe,and the band played several gigs,among them a contest of best local band (of course,won by the band) and as support to the best Yugoslav band of all the times,Disciplina Kicme.But after that gig (January 21 1990.)the band splits again,but this time the break was definitive,and Alex and Chriss decided that the DEVASTATION story was absolutely over,and after a long break,they reformed the band again,but this time as HATROSS(by Voivod..s album "Dimension Hatross").The follow up of this story can be seen at myspace.com/hatross ...
