Biography

I started playing guitar in around September/October 1994 and I merely messed around on the keyboard. Thus is the reason there were a lot of instrumental keyboard tracks on the "Blodsverd" release. The reason for the lyrics being in Norwegian is because a lot of the bands I was listening to were coming out of Norway, and I have pretty good learning curve for languages and I thought that Norwegian was merely the language most of these bands would want to sing in. Unfortunately I couldn't find any musicians who were interested in doing the same style of music as me, which seemed to be a problem in the early to mid-90's. I had a friend who owned a four track so I borrowed that from him and in December I did the original recordings for "Blodsverd." They came out pretty bad in my opinion, but that's merely how I feel as I look back at my early material. There was only a tape made that sat on a shelf for many years that only a few of my friends had heard but it was never widely produced or available. At this time the band wasn't even known as I.S.o.S. and the name I.S.o.S. wouldn't be set until around the year 1999/2000. At this time I merely called the project Annihilation Conquest. After that I started working on a new album and I didn't want to do something Black Metal.

The new album was to be called "Arcane Sorcery" and there are two versions of this album. While I saw many Black Metal bands using standard tuning guitars except for the likes of Marduk, I also desired to do something a little different. So I set my sights on a seven string guitar and recorded "Arcane Sorcery" in "B" tuning to give it a thicker much heavier feel. The end result was a more Death Metal styled album than anything else. I suppose you could say it was more of a Black/Death Metal album than anything else because my inherent Black Metal roots showed through on many songs. However, I used more of the standard Death Metal vocal approaches rather than the usual high end Black Metal approach to vocal arrangements. Now there are two versions of this release, because when I got to high school I met a drummer named Robert Hanlon and we started working on music together. We released a tape demo under the band name Heimology, but the tape was also called "Arcane Sorcery." It has all the same art as the original I.S.o.S. "Arcane Sorcery" just completely different songs. At this point I wanted a darker; more evil sounding name for the band and I chose the name "Realms of the Wicked." this was around the year 1996 because in '95 when "Arcane Sorcery" was done I was still using the name Annihilation Conquest. The drummer and I frequently jammed on material, but it was rarely stuff I would ever use in I.S.o.S. and we realized we had very different ideas of what we wanted to do musically, so we worked with each other on other projects.

At this time around ‘96/’97 I was still actively looking for members to perform for my main project. Alas I found no one to work with so I started working on the next album and I dropped the name Realms of the Wicked as a band name and moved it over to the name of the next release. When I actually finished the album “Realms of the Wicked” I never even had a band name and I never released the album. At the times these albums were being written I never release any of them, and I felt I could not compare to the European scene. I had no idea there was an US Black Metal scene out there thriving on material similar to my own. So through lack of confidence that my material would want to be heard I never officially released anything. It was merely stuff for me to work on and progress as a musician. While I did not feel “Realms of the Wicked” honestly had any good potential I put the material on a shelf and let it sit, I had no intention of ever releasing it and to this day I still feel it is the weakest material I have ever written.

The year 1998 hit and I realized I wanted to increase the complexity of my music ten fold and I was still taking guitar lessons at this time so my abilities were increasing quite a bit. I started learning how to play the drums a little on my old drummers drum set. I bought a bass guitar of my own instead of borrowing my friend’s every time I wanted to record. So I started increasing the complexity of my songs more and more and I even started using a lot more melodic aspects and writing second guitar parts for the songs. I believe this is the turning point for I.S.o.S. because I previously never had such a full sound and I even started working on writing lead guitar parts for all the songs, which up to this time I had never really done before. So I started the recording process for “Krigmesteren” and I didn’t feel it would ever be able to reach its full potential. I needed more advanced recording technology and I just didn’t have that at my fingertips. Towards the end of the year I got my first computer and I started messing around with some sound recording programs on there seeing if I could get a better sound than a four track. At this time I had no access to such advanced technology and could not afford a studio. Needless to say I finished the material sometime in the year 1999, but I felt it would never sound good enough for me to want to actual to a real release.

In the year 2000 I went to the university and am still there as I write this and I took a year off from music all together. I didn’t feel my music was going anywhere and at this time I finally got access to the Internet. I learned how to transfer my four track recordings to the computer and made CD-R copies of my music, I even sent some songs out in mp3 format to friends I spoke with online. To my surprise I actually got fairly good feed-back concerning my music. This is also the time I discovered the current US Black Metal scene, and I was gravely disappointed in its current state. Not one album or band I heard seemed to be the least bit creative. As I looked back on my early material I realized I was on the same road and I had resolved at this point to do something different, something fresh that could get everyone’s attention. At this time I changed the band name to Shadowlord and created a web page on mp3.com where people could download some of my music. I actually purchased my own drum set and started practicing that instrument a lot more and attempting to get it to the level of my guitar playing. So the year 2000 was a major turning point on what I.S.o.S. would become in the future. I met a lot of people online and managed to start working with a new guitarist at this time. He did the keyboard work on the intro to the “Infernal Masters Elite” split with Corpus Domini. The concept of that album was my last time composing fairly raw Black Metal because from that point on I would be working on much more complicated arrangements. Sadly to say that the guitarist lived to far away for me to work with consistently and we parted as friends. At this time I began receiving e-mails from the Shadowlord page on mp3.com about how there was already a band named Shadowlord and it turns out there were around three of them including myself. So I resolved to find a suitable name for my music and I began to re-evaluate what I wanted to do conceptually. While I was sitting in a class at the university called “Exploring the Universe” I came up with a name that suited the concepts I wished to touch upon and I.S.o.S. would forever be the name for my band.

Around 2002 I got an e-mail from a band in Athol, MA called Ceremonial Castings who had material already written and wanted to know if I wanted to come play drums for them since I was just a one man band. They wrote extremely good music so I was more than happy to try out for them. The keyboardist Old Nick in fact had his only label/distro called Dark Forest Productions and he was interested in releasing some of my stuff. He really is the main reason why my material is more available today because he drove me to want to release it. He even insisted that I release everything even the original “Blodsverd” recordings because he believed they were very good. This is also around the time I started working on material for “The Second Antichrist” and “Desolation Destructors.” This is possibly the worst move I have ever made as a musician. The move to working on two albums at once was a terrible idea. I liked the material for “Desolation Destructors” so much more that I rushed it and used material written for “The Second Antichrist” just to move it up to a full length. DFP released the original “Desolation Destructors” which is no longer available, I believe ten of them got out of my hands that are somewhere in the country. I have no idea where they ended up, but they are not what I wanted to use for the concept of that album. Ceremonial Castings moved back to the state of Washington and they went back to being a two piece band, but I still remain on DFP right now and work with Old Nick on releasing I.S.o.S. and as I get albums done he will be releasing them. Also at this time was the infamous Thygor incident. I met this individual online and talked to him over the phone a few times and he even played guitar over the phone for me. While I believed him a good enough rhythm guitar player to handle I.S.o.S. it turned out to be another bad move. In my rush to record “Desolation Destructors” and his insistence that he would move to MA to play for me, I made the decision to add his name as a performer on the CD. I thought this might be a smart business move, as it appeared his coming to MA was a sure thing, and I figured bigger labels would be more inclined to sign a band that had more than just one member since more than one member would imply the possibility to play shows. When this never happened I realized the mistake I had made and I knew the name of Thygor would somehow show-up somewhere. But the truth is I wrote all the material and performed all the material on “Desolation Destructors” by myself. As it stands I am still actively looking for musicians to participate in I.S.o.S.

In 2003 I reorganized the biggest musical mistake I made. I moved the tracks from “Desolation Destructors” that were supposed to be on “The Second Antichrist” and put the album out as it was intended. I went back to the drawing board with “Desolation Destructors” and will release the album in full in the year 2004. I gave a little taster of what to expect from the new “Desolation Destructors” with the release of “Solving the Earth’s Little Problems One 5.56mm Bullet at a Time.” It boasted two tracks from the upcoming “Desolation Destructors,” one track re-recorded from 1998, a track re-recorded from 1995, and two brand new songs that will only ever be found on this release. The new “Desolation Destructors” is the most powerful and intricate material I have ever released. As of now I have decided to only work on concept albums and I have the next seven I.S.o.S. albums planned out and I am attempting things that have never been done before musically.