Merciless Death

Started by Andy Torres and Dan Holder in early march 2003, a couple of songs were written for Guitar and Vocals. No band name was finalized as there wasn't a whole band yet, but the two possibilities were 'Merciless Onslaught' and 'Merciless Death', the latter being chosen. Then in September 2003, Cesar Torres joined on Drums along with Mike Griego on Rhythm/Lead guitars. More songs were written with practice being held every week, and still are to this day. The influences that are listed were there from the start, every song sounded like 80's Thrash/Speed Metal, if it didn't, then it wasn't used. On March 24, 2004, Merciless Death played its first show at the Chicago Bar in Santa Clarita, a few months later we played our second show there. At this point, we decided to record one of our rehearsals so as to become more familiar with our music and not wait until each weekend to practice them. The CD was recorded in Andy’s room using a home computer and a total of 8 tracks were laid down (4 of which are no longer played). What later became known as “The Shores of Hell” Demo was not meant to be released (but somehow found its way onto the internet a few years later.) It was decided at this point that we should consider recording a real demo and so we enlisted the aid of Dan’s acquaintance at school, Jason Kivi who had recording equipment at his house and offered to record us for Free. It was May ’04 and the band spent several weekends at Jason’s house recording and re-recording and spent a couple months waiting for him to hand over the results. Of course, like the old saying goes “You get what you paid for” and in this case, it was nothing. Sometime later Mike quit due to personal differences, and so we decided to become a 3-piece rather than sit around and look for another guitarist. Soon after, the "Annihilate the Masses" Demo was recorded at Command Audio in Santa Clarita on July ‘04. Following the demo recording, Merciless Death preceded to play clubs and spread their name all around Hollywood and LA. Places such as The Whisky, Roxy, The Knitting Factory were visited as well as several other local clubs and only 3 backyard shows were ever played. By this time in 2005, the 1st pressing of the “Annihilate the Masses” Demos had sold out and thus the band proceeded to make a 2nd pressing with a new Cover and Band picture. Dan took the next step by sending out several copies of the Demo to various record labels in hopes of one of them finding interest in the band and signing them. Unfortunately, only Metal Blade had the courtesy to send a letter to the band with their response stating that Merciless Death’s music wasn’t the style they were looking for at the time. With more shows being played, more recognition was earned to the bands name and with the increased interest from the underground scene in LA, Merciless Death decided to hit the studio in December 2005. Rather than wait for a record company to sign the band, "Evil in the Night" was self-released on May 2006 at the “Thrasho De Mayo I” show held at the Whisky. The 1st pressing of the album were individually hand numbered and limited to 100. Those quickly sold out and another 300 were pressed without being numbered. It was around this time that Heavy Artillery Records approached the band and offered them a record deal. "Evil in the Night" was released in 2007 through the label and recieved positive reviews, also with support from the 5 week "Evil Curse Tour" across the u.s..As of now the 2nd album is waiting for release on may 20th 2008, entitled "Realm of Terror..."