To understand how Throne of Mortality formed, we must go back a year before, around October 2004, at the end of the Scapegoat phase. While attending a New Jersey high school, J.P. Stevens, I met Howard Change (Sabbat) by coincidence, as I was wearing a Mr. Bungle t-shirt or hoodie (I had both). That autumn we discussed some music related subjects, but things were halted when I was hospitalized from early November of 2004 to March of 2005.
Circa May 2005, wearing the Mr. Bungle hoodie
Upon returning in spring of 2005, Howie introduced to me a variety of black and death metal bands. I asked him if he knew of any “hardcore black metal” bands, upon which he introduced me to Naglfar. We decided we could try having a hardcore black metal band of our own. During the summer of 2005 Howie introduced me to one Dan Maimone, an ex-J.P. Stevens High School drop-out who was living with his mom in the most ghetto area of North Edison, an area known as Potters. Potters was well-known as the semi-detached apartment housing for welfare families and drug dealers. We created a metalcore influenced band with myself (as Virkelig Død) on guitar, Howie (as Sabbat, and he later changed it to Sabatic) on vocals and Dan on drums. I was mostly influenced by metalcore, as black and death metal was still new to me, Howie was influenced by black and death metal and Dan was influenced by punk rock and emo. Dan and I started jamming multiple times a week and occasionally Howie would join us when we had a song completed. I can’t recall if we had more than two songs written, or even what covers we possibly did. Dan also wanted to start a side band with two lesbian girls who were playing guitar and drums, in which Dan played guitar and they needed a bassist. I tried out for bass at one of their rehearsal but they didn’t have any songs completed so I had no room to play anything and told them to let me know once they had something together.
During this time I also came to talk online with a black/mulatto girl who had a 5-string transparent bass, which really impressed me. I was also playing in Drop B at this time, so a 5-string bass would have matched nicely. I had sent her some of the songs I had recorded at home, and she also sent me some of her own demos through AIM. This may have happened earlier, but I think it was during the summer of 2005. Nothing came of it. When Dan and I jammed so often, we started becoming very close. It was then that I started to realise that Dan was mentally disturbed. He would often have crying fits out of nowhere and would runaway and hide in his bedroom during practice. The rehearsal space in his basement where we jammed smelled like cat piss. And once during a jam, Dan decided to hit my guitar with his drum stick which chipped off a part of the paint and wood. Over time he became more and more secretive but I soon found out why and what he was doing behind our backs.
I was going out with Brandi at the time and we argued quite a bit. On his end, he had a digital girlfriend who lived in Georgia with her relatives and apparently they never allowed her to use internet or phones, so Dan was constantly shortening our jams and refusing to go out afterwards to stay home and stare at his computer screen in case she signed on minute. Every time Brandi and I argued, I would call Dan to comfort me. But behind my back, Dan and Brandi had become friends through Myspace and started hanging out on their own time. One day in June or July of 2005, after our jam, Dan said he had to stay home and do something for his mom, so Howie and I left. When I go home, I received a message on AIM from Dan’s best friend telling me that he and Brandi were hanging out and starting a new band together. I was furious and asked my dad to drive me back to Dan’s place. He wasn’t there but his mom told me that he was jamming at another friends house. I put two and two together and realized that he had brought her to the lesbian girl’s house for the band. After driving there and sneaking in by telling the mother that I was here to play bass in the band (I asked asked after all), I opened the door to the basement to find Brandi sitting there listening to the band that Dan had asked me to join only two weeks prior. I asked him what the fuck she was doing there and he said she was their new vocalist. She never sang a day in her life. Anyway I told Dan right there and then that he was out of the band and to get the fuck outside and back to his place so I could get my equipment.
After all this turmoil, Howie and I began focusing on a serious black metal approach, fading out the death metal and metalcore influences (mainly Hypocrisy and Necrophobic). We would start jamming with Mike Obregon as a new drummer and a revolving line of bassists. The first bassist we played with was a girl named Blair Gerold that went to high school with us. A first jam with her was planned for a Saturday afternoon and I let her know that we were to meet in Mikey’s basement, but that I would be late because I had a shrink appointment. When I got to the jam space, I found out that Blair had brought along one of her own friends to play guitar in hope to start a band of their own with the drummer and vocalist from my band! The second time we jammed with a bassist was a couple of weeks later with Mikey’s brother Chris Obregon. But after this one jam, he told Howie and Mikey that I should be kicked out and have another guitarist replace me. The next week when I came up with the band name, Throne of Mortality, I called up Mikey to tell him the news but he announced to me that he didn’t want to stay in the band anymore and wanted to focus only on his other band, Hammerhead.
Throne of Mortality “Demo 2005” artwork, created in 2013. The original tape had no artwork.
At this time, Howie started playing bass and would write some material on his own, in addition to lyrics. On my side, I would demo the first recorded Throne of Mortality material as guitar only demo on the “Summer ’05 Demos“. Those songs were released on the newly created Throne of Mortality Myspace page. In early September 2005, right before Howie went off to live on the campus of Rutgers University and put a dent in the band, we would record our first official demo during a rehearsal. “Demo 2005” would have parodies and shit talking of local bands in between two takes of “You Will Fucking Die“. The following two pictures were taken either the day of the “Demo 2005” or shortly after.
I continued to record guitar demos of the new songs and released them again on Myspace as the “Fall ’05 Demos” and “Winter ’05 Demos“, and started writing lyrics, hoping that Sabbat would return during the vacation to continue the band. However when Sabbat joined Funeral Junkie (which eventually became Black Albatross) the feelings of despair overcame the situation and I decided to take over vocals. In December of 2005 I submitted a Throne of Mortality page on Wikipedia, but it was deleted a few days later.
Throne of Mortality “Monumental Dedication Demos” cover
During the next eight months, guitar and vocal demos were recorded for a planned EP entitled “Monumental Dedication”, ideally based on various subjects of love for female vanity and obsession on the macabre. From late-March to mid-May of 2006, I was in Scugog, Ontario visiting Dylan Seymour, which brought more influences. During the summer of 2006, five songs were demoed and would be given to close friends as “Monumental Dedication Demos“, through the early, untitled, Mortification Records. I even recorded a Mütiilation tribute song entitled “Mutilated”.
Photo by Dylan Seymour. At the “Past Resort”, Scugog, Ontario, April 2006
By late July of 2006, I had now moved back to Montreal for school and was forced to stop practicing growling as I was living with my grandmother. Though the first EP was never professionally recorded due to lack of band members, I continued to write new material, now being very influenced by Mütiilation, for a second ep due to be titled “Morbid Depression”. I believe it was also this time that I deleted the Throne of Mortality Myspace page because I was convinced that it was quickly becoming a non-metal website to be on. I could have also transformed it into the Mortification Records Myspace but chances are that I only re-created one later for the label.
I would record guitar demos of three songs, and had demoed ideas for two more, but after this, the sound quickly started to shift towards a more atmospheric black metal genre. This atmospheric black metal material would become my next band, Vision Lunar, which co-existed simultaneously with Throne of Mortality during the fall and winter of 2006. I September of 2006 I re-created a Throne of Mortality page on Wikipedia, but it too was deleted after a couple of days. After moving back to New Jersey in December of 2006, the writings of Throne of Mortality songs had completely stopped, but I continued to practice them. I attempted to rehearse my vocals again, but it wasn’t as serious to me anymore. On January 10th 2007 I announced through the Triskalyon Myspace and website that Throne of Mortality was on indefinite hiatus. I announced a plan to still release the “Morbid Depression Demos” digitally as soon as possible. But on February 8th and 9th of 2007 I recorded a video rehearsal, maybe to document some of the songs. By the spring of 2007, I was no longer playing any Throne of Mortality songs.
The bass part in the rehearsal actually contained pieces that would be used for Gallia Fornax’s “Gloria Regnum“. This was just when I was starting to create those ideas. As mentioned above, my vocals on this video aren’t very good. I had lost a great deal of my skills in the six months of not practicing.
In August of 2010 I was interested in re-learning the Throne of Mortality songs all over again. I didn’t have a roommate and lived in a concrete building on Henri-Bourassa. I started practicing my growling again and re-recorded “Le Roi de la Mort” using a 4-track tape recorder that Darklink (Phil Altobelli) had recently given me. On August 15th I recorded Le Roi de la Mort and altered the lyrics slightly. I’m pretty sure I had plans to record other songs but cannot be sure. This was the last time any Throne of Mortality material was played.