In the year 2002 mainman Oliver Zuehlke and his mates Nightclaw and Dainsleif from Runesword influenced by a shitload of beer took their instruments and wrote a cheesy metal song with the intention to be obscure and cachy in about 5 minutes and recorded it in a plug and play session at the rehearsal room.
Put onto a tape and spread amongst some friends the joke became kind of cult, so Oliver - after leaving Ritual Steel - thought about how to continue writing songs in his favoured NWoBHM style with some influences of obscure Doom, Thrash and Punk in a band, so the idea to pick up this path and make it Savage Rites was born.
Songs have been written and Oliver Zuehlke remained vocalist of Savage Rites, but changed from guitar to bass, while the line-up was changed to Martin Zellmer (Ritual Steel) on drums and Michael Hahn (Incubator, Cold Embrace) on guitars to fit quality requirements of an upcomming 7".
Rumors about that new band were spread widely very quick, but due to lack of rehearsing time, Michael Hahn had to be replaced by another guitarrist, that was finally found in Rich Walker (Solstice, Isen Torr).
With an already delayed schedule, Savage Rites finally was put on hold after Zellmer was thrown out of the band because of heavy arguements about his depts he wasn't willing to pay and Oliver Zuehlke wanted to take some breath after lots of work and stress in various bands and projects over the last couple of years.
At the moment Savage Rites are searching for a new drummer to complete the line-up again and unleash the already planned 7" finally.