This page is dedicated to the Living Sacrifice years in which D.J was in the band. The years that they were signed to R.E.X music. The era where they did Thrash and Death Metal. This page is run by Austin and Jason with help from DJ. (photos,info,ect.).It was started when Austin contacted DJ and asked if he would help with a page dedicated to the R.E.X years of LS. The reason we have this page up is because, the other myspace profiles that are of Living Sacrifice, mostly have the Metalcore stuff they did after D.J had left the band. This page is still fairly new though.
So if anyone has some LS photos, flyers, or tatts pics. that they want to share that would be cool.
Now for the history of this band.Living Sacrifice started in the fall of 1989, with founder Darren Johnson (D.J), and Bruce Fitzhugh, and Lance Garvin. Then in high school, Jason Truby was added to complete Living Sacrifice. This all started in Little Rock Arkansas.
All four of the members were heavily into thrash metal. Bands that had influenced them were bands like, Believer, the crucified, Deliverance, and Bloodgood. Other bands that were secular that influenced them were acts like, Metallica, Anthrax, Slayer, and Testament. You can really see that in the first album. The band members wanted something really heavy, so they decided to start up a band of their own.
"We were kinda strange back then," said Bruce Fitzhugh, "metal kids who didn't drink or do drugs, like so many of our peers who were partying metalheads. Our Church leaders, and our peers didn't know what to think of our love for metal music, our love for God, or the way we chose to look."
D.J used to be subscribed to Heavens Metal magazine. He would order demos from there and most of it sucked. Once in a while he would get something that was good.
He got the demo from Believer , and each band member was so kind as to leave their personal adress and home telaphone number. For D.J to have Kurt from Believer's home phone number, was priceless!!! He ended up calling him and having a few conversations with him. Kurt suggested a demo, and Living Sacrifice recorded "...not yielding to the ungodly." Soon Living Sacrifice was signed to R.E.X Records.
In 1991 they went to record their first full length album which was self titled. At the time the band members were about 18 years old. They had cut classes in may to record, and Kurt from Believer was there producing them.
The album turned out well. It was considered a Christian Thrash metal Classic. When listening to the album, the first band to come to mind, are Slayer, Testament, and Metallica. In other words, Living Sacrifices debut album smokes!!!
1992 Coming of the succcess of their debut album, which included 56 weeks in the top ten metal albums on the PURE ROCK REPORT, three top ten CCM metal singles, a very impressive cornstone'92 showing and a twenty-city tour,
Living Sacrifice returned to the studio to record NONEXISTENT. This time the experience was less rushed,they had two weeks and not just 6 days like the first album, to record.The recording was done with an engineer who had never worked with heavy bands before.(Though he had done Amy Grants Chirstmas album. lol)
The sound of the Florida death metal scene had a profound effect on these songs. The songs were heavier and faster, with blast-beats and all. There were heavy melodic parts as well. There were also many parts with acoustic guitar, that took a break from the brutallity. The vocals on this album were not the typical Chris Barnes styled growls.
No, D.J made it more unique, and did slurred growly shouts, and another thing different from the last album is the downtuned guitars. After the album was recorded and released, the tour came.
The band also during this time released a remix album with Scott Albert
(now CELLDWELLER frontman Clayton Scot) of Circle of Dust. This was the brainchild of after show talks with Scott on the "ANOREXIA SPITIRUAL" tour. The album has three remixes with LIVING SACRIFICE songs and one previously unreleased song from the band called " DESOLATE. "
1993-1994
On Christmas day Living Sacrifice drove their van with all their equipment to a tiny town outside of Hershey PA. In spring of 1994 INHABIT was released. This third recording for REX Records turned out to be the heaviest and most technical record to date. The album was more downtuned death metal D.J tried a new style of vocals, which were deep, clear and forcful. The album had more blast-beats, and of course beautiful yet haunting acoustic guitars. This album was different from non-existent. The only similarity was that very very dark atmosphere to the sound. Unfortunatly the only touring that Living Sacrifice did for Inhabit was only a couple weeks with Death Metal's great Maleavolent Creation.
1995
REX Records were in financial difficulty and Living Sacrifice took the opportunity to leave the label with all of their masters for all three records. This would prove a smart move later on.
Unfortunatly, the founding member D.J did not want to continue with the band. No one ever said why he left the band. He was just done with music for a time. After he left, they all cut their hair, and went into metalcore. Many fans were bummed, but then they got new fans with this change into metalcore, and Bruce stepping up to the vocal post.
The question is, would Living Sacrifice still have gone metalcore if D.J never left? "Living Sacrifice's first song released was entiled "PROGRESSIVE CHASNGE, " D.J says. " That seems fitting, because the band always progressed. How the band progressed from the demo to In Memoriam was a blessed path." But, we will never know. Luckily the first 3 albums were re-issued by solidstate records in 1999. It would suck if the first 3 albums were extinct from the earth. Thank God we have it to listen to forever. Unfortunatly eights years later the band broke up. The band did a good job throughout the 14 years.
The page is run by the following
Austin's Profile
Jason's Profile
and if your looking for DJ. (SACRIFICE) ~profile~
Got LS ink? Show it!
