In Malice's Wake has existed more or less existed since late 2001. It began with Shaun (Guitars/Vocals by default)
and Mark (Drums). Shaun had been playing guitar for 3 years and had played in a few high school bands. Mark began playing drums with the formation of In Malice's Wake and was still a beginner.
In the beginning, Mark and Shaun experimented with Metallica/Pantera/etc. covers, became accustomed to playing as a unit and developed their skills. At this early stage, they began experimenting with song writing.
Months down the track, they roughly recorded their first original track track demo
titled "Pains of the Conceited" - a very rough effort but a worthy starting point for the band in its primitive state. Shaun and Mark continued to write songs - working on a setlist that could be played live. After four
songs had been written, they decided to begin looking for a bass player.
They put ads up everywhere, and got a number of responses, but one afternoon whilst
in Smoke Dreams they took down the email address of bassist Ben Wither's ad who
seemed to share similar influences.
A Solid Lineup
They got in touch with him (Ben) and got together for a rehearsal. Expecting a 19 year old, Shaun and Mark were suprised to find Ben - heavily bearded and looking 30+ - waiting for them.
Things worked out well, and Ben became the official full time bassist. Shortly after Ben joined, the name of the band was suggested by Shaun - Mark and Ben were happy with it so In Malice's Wake became a reality. (For the record, the name is a reference to a trail of destruction left behind by evil and malice!)
The first shows came and went - humble battle of the bands shows & weeknight Barleycorn gigs to 20 people. As our gigs progressed the band
decided that they would benefit greatly with the addition of a second guitarist. Shaun met Dave Lowes (dressed as a vampire) at a bar, and Dave came in for a few jams after he had seen one of the shows and liked what Malice were doing.
After a short time, it seemed as if Dave had been in the band all along,
he added his own leads, personal touches and added another dimension to the music.
Dave played his first gig a day after he had very roughly learnt the songs,
and did bloody well considering!
The First Recording
Shortly after the addition of Dave to the lineup, the band recorded a 5
track self titled demo. Not surprisingly, due to inexperience the result was very rough and sounded terrible (Anyone who has a copy will agree - the vocals were especially woeful!!). The band thought it sounded great and despite it's roughness, the demo attained In Malice's Wake increasingly desirable shows - including support slots for bands such as Psycroptic, Bowel Mouth, Abrasion, Befallen and Legion. Slowly but surely the band's fan base was beginning to grow. Shaun had to manually burn an increased number of demos and photocopy more covers of the highly professional first release...
Blackened Skies - Old Dave/New Dave
In Late '04, In Malice's Wake played a handful shows with guitarist Steve Stergiadis (Ex Anarion & Envenomed) filling in for Dave, as Dave's second band (The Catwalk Syndrome) were gaining momentum extremely quickly.
Just before the recording of the band's second release - the Blackened Skies EP - they regretfully had to part ways with Dave, as it was becoming increasingly impossible for him
to manage time between his two bands and In Malice's Wake was beginning to suffer. Dave went on to record the EP with In Malice's Wake, as well as play some great final farewell
sets.
So the band now had the task of finding a new guitarist. During the earlier shows, the guys had been very impressed by the performance of Dave Graham while he had been playing in Legion (now defunct). In addition to trying several other guitarists, Shaun got in touch with Dave and told him In Malice's Wake were now looking for another guitarist. Dave was was very interested in joining the band and Shaun was extremely impressed with Dave's abilities - he had finally found another guitar obsessed nut to bang heads with. Dave learnt the songs extremely
quickly; adding his own touches and re-writing lead sections. The band played their first gigs with Dave and he worked out perfectly.
Increased Momentum - the debut album in the works..?
From this point on In Malice's Wake played a great number of shows with many great bands (Including Mortal Sin, Black Majesty, Befallen, Anarion, Dark Earth and Transcending Mortality), travelled to Sydney for their first insterstate show and featured on Channel 31's Asylum TV. The fan base grew and people began to anticipate the bands first full length album. In December '06, preproduction meetings took place and the album planning was underway.
Things did not go as smoothly as planned...
Album Recording Nightmares
(The following is a modified extract from the Eternal Nightfall booklet)
The creation of In Malice's Wake's first full length album 'Eternal Nightfall' was one hell of a journey that tested our patience, committment and sanity - and anything that could have possibly gone wrong did. Here is an insight into how 'Eternal Nightfall' came to be (eventually)...
Pre-production began in December '06. This involved revising the ten proposed songs, booking studio time, organising time off work, organising engineers and having a range of pre-production meetings (and beers). The album was planned to be completed by mid March (2007!!). After a heap of decision making we finally entered Sing Sing South's studio in mid
February to record the drum tracks over 5 days. Things progressed relatively well (in fact I started a album diary during these sessions and looking back - I was still feeling bloody optimistic) and we emerged after the sessions with some solid drum tracks. We then took these tracks along with an massive arsenal of gear (both our own and what we had borrowed from good friends and fellow bands - see credits!) to an unnamed project studio. And this is where things went horribly wrong...
In the smouldering heat of the '07 summer, we set out quad-tracking our album's guitars. After spending the first half of the day dialling in sounds we begun tracking. Shortly after beginning we realised that we had booked a very short ammount of studio time for what we wanted to achieve, so we decided to start early (when the studio's assistant keep didn't arrive an hour and a half late!) and finish as late as possible. This meant we were tracking rhythm guitars for 12 hours each day, stopping only to eat. We also discovered that this project studio had people living in the rooms upstairs, who didn't appreciate 100watt guitar amps cranking Malice riffs at all hours...Cheers to you guys who only complained once! We made progress slowly but surely, but became frustrated with guitar intonation and tuning issues, hard drive crashes etc. Add to this the claustrophic heat and things became an uphill slug - we went home exhausted at the end of each day, but our obession with having the album complete kept us coming back early the next morning. On our 5th day of tracking things took a turn for the worse...according to our engineers the console malfunctioned and our guitar sounds became erratic and constantly changed, causing major issues. After wrestling with an unstable sytem for hours the engineers decided it would be best to cut our losses and re-start the process at another studio - rendering our weeks worth of intense tracking absolutely useless!!!
I was completely devastated. Lugging all the gear out of the studio that night meant that we had wasted a week's worth of gruelling work; and that our struggling and organisiation of gear/time/engineers was all for nothing.
Not to mention that there was now no way that our album tracking would be complete any time in the near future. So, besides having our drum tracks (and some photos, video footage and stories to tell), we were back to square one.
Over the following weeks we spoke with our engineer Ermin about our options. He suggested exploring the re-amping process - allowing us to track guitars at his home and then run these tracks through an amp in a studio
at a later time. We agreed and took this route - starting guitars from scratch. This was a very slow process that took months - as we needed to work around people's busy schedules. It was awful having to retrack songs that we
had completely finished, but with each day's work we came a little closer to the end. This continued for a long, drawn-out and draining series of months but eventually the guitar tracks were complete!
As Ermin had not signed up to do the bass tracking, we turned to Steve (who also worked with us at the project studio) and he allowed us to use his facilities to track Ben's bass. As he would not be present the whole time I needed to track bass during some of these sessions personally. During the bass tracking we experienced further difficulties.
At last (and with huge relief) the bass and guitar tracking was complete. We booked sessions at a professional studio (Pony music) over September '07 and brought with us a huge host of gear. Here we were to re-amp all of
our guitar work, and start the vocal tracking. It was strange to be back in a studio and brought back memories from the previous year. Strangely...things went well...the guitar tracks sounded fantastic and the re-amping
process was completed. During this session we had a little time to begin vocals, but did not get very far due to a bad cold I experienced at the time.
Due to hectic work schedules and other difficulties, we were unavailable to book any more studio time until January 2008, where we booked a series of days (again at Pony Music) in which we were to complete the vocals,
group vocals and acoustic guitar tracks. Slowly but surely, the vocal tracks were knocked over one by one. The acoustic guitars and group vocals were also completed...and then - one night - at the end of a monster 10 hour vocal
session...finally, at over a year after our initial tracking had begun - the last vocal line had been sung!!! At this point i think i was delirous with relief and ran screaming down the street...unable to believe it was over.
Shortly afterwards I came back - backed up the album on an portable hard drive (we had two drives, but fittingly, one stopped working) - checked it 5 times - drove it home like it were the detonator to a nuclear warhead -
and copied the back up files in a million different places (I think I had a right to be paranoid at this stage!). Our album recording was finally complete!!!!
As I write this, the album cover has been finished, and I am awaiting the final mixes. I hope you enjoy this album a lot more than we enjoyed recording it. I feel it very truly and very
honestly reflects the hard work, dedication, blood and sweat that went into making it a reality.
The backups still exist .......... just in case...
Written by Shaun Farrugia - In Malice's Wake (6th April 2008)
A Second Line-Up Change
In the August of 2008, after a series of heavy discussions, In Malice's Wake decided to part ways with Ben. This would prove to be one of the hardest decisions the band has faced so far, especially given Ben's position as a long standing member of the band and his friendship with the guys. In the end the band felt that Ben was experiencing difficulties with the newer material and that it was time to make the hard decision to move forward without him. Fortunately Ben and the band have retained their close ties and friendship, not surprising after 7 years of rocking out and kicking arse. In Malice's Wake remain very grateful for the hard work and dedication that Ben has contributed over the years, and he has played a major role in making the band what it is today.
Jamie Joins the Ranks
In Ben's absence, In Malice's Wake approached Jamie - Eye of the Enemy, and asked if he would be willing to play bass for the band as a hired gun while they searched for a new bass player. The band played a show together and there was a great chemistry present. Shortly afterward it was decided that Jamie would be great for the position and became a permanent member of In Malice's Wake. Jamie played 2 great shows with In Malice's Wake (including the album launch).
Jamie Leaves the Ranks - the search for a bassist continues...
In the period of Jan/Feb of '09, In Malice's Wake began to experience frustration in Jamie's unavailability to rehearse on a
regular basis. Due to the fact that Jamie had many committments outside of the band and the fact that 2009 was to be a very
important year for In Malice's Wake - the band decided that it was time to find a replacement who was availabe for the time required.
Whilst the search was conducted, In Malice's Wake employed Davin (Demolition, Amirala) to take over the bass duties for a show. Davin learned the
material with astonishing quickness and was great to work with.
Luke Joins In Malice's Wake
While the search for a bassist continued, Dave approached Luke (who he used to play with in Legion) and asked him if he would be interested in playing bass
for In Malice's Wake. Luke worked with Dave on the material and decided that he enjoyed what the band were doing. After a few rehearsals it was obvious that Luke was the bass player that the band had been searching for. Having known each other for many years and the fact that Luke is great bass
player meant that Luke fit in seamlessly. He played a first show with the band and is currently involved in the writing of new material.
