The band's original lineup consisted vocalist and rhythm guitarist Kelly Shaefer, lead guitarist Rand Burkey, bassist Roger Patterson and drummer Steve Flynn.[3] The band is known for its highly technical playing style, and its 1991 album Unquestionable Presence is regarded as a landmark of the technical death metal genre.[4] The band gained a following largely within its own genre.[5] After disbanding in 1994, the group reformed in 2006 and has since released one studio album and a live DVD.[6]
History
Atheist in 2006
Atheist was originally formed in 1984 in Sarasota, Florida, firstly under the name Oblivion and later as R.A.V.A.G.E. (which stands for "Raging Atheists Vowing A Gory End").[7]
Frontman Kelly Shaefer stated that on two occasions early in the band's career, the police were called on the band by the management of the clubs they were performing at, leading them to be "drag[ged] out" of the venues. Shaefer recalled the incidents: "There weren't that many clubs to play in so when we booked in regular rock and roll clubs that were used to booking bands like Mötley Crüe, we'd play and they were like, "what the fuck?!' [...] They actually put our stuff out in the alley, and we weren't allowed to be in the club. We didn't do anything other than play music that sounded crazy. They just didn't know how to take it. I remember the guy giving us the cutting of the neck sign like "Stop, stop." We thought it was great. It was a notch in our belt to be kicked out and have police carting our cabinets out the door."[8]
Shortly before entering the studio to record their second album, Roger Patterson died on February 12, 1991, in a van accident at the age of 22.[10] The band was on tour with Candlemass. Although the band travelled by bus on this tour, they traveled home by van at the end of the tour to avoid paying an extra day of rental fees. The band's guitar tech, who was driving, attempted to pass a semi, "miscalculated his approach back into a lane, and went off the road," according to Shaefer. When the guitar tech attempted to pull the van back onto the highway, he lost control of the vehicle, resulting in Patterson's ejection from the vehicle. Patterson attempted to get himself back up off the ground, but was unable to, and went into shock. The crash occurred in rural Louisiana, and 48 minutes passed before emergency services began to arrive. Patterson died en route to the hospital, and Shaefer recalled that he was "coldly" informed of Patterson's death by a nurse while he was receiving stitches for his injuries in the accident. The band received an outpouring of support and condolences from fans in response to Patterson's death. Shaefer recalled Patterson's memorial service: "It was an odd sight to see all of these kids at the funeral in their Atheist shirts. The preacher was sweating bullets. I guarantee he had never seen a service like this before."[11]
Atheist disbanded for the first time in 1992, then reunited in 1993 to record a third album, Elements,[3] fulfilling their contractual requirements, before disbanding for a second time in early 1994.
Relapse Records reissued the band's three albums in late 2005, as well as a vinyl box set containing the three albums plus the R.A.V.A.G.E. demo "On They Slay".[12][13] In January 2006, Atheist announced they were regrouping to perform live during the summer and autumn. The line-up was Shaefer, Burkey, Choy and Flynn. Shaefer only provided vocals due to long battles with tendinitis and carpal tunnel syndrome.[14] The Gnostic guitarist Sonny Carson played all of Shaefer's guitar parts, while Burkey was later replaced by Chris Baker of Gnostic.
On July 12, 2008, Shaefer issued a statement indicating that he and Flynn were working on new material.[15] A month later, Shaefer announced that they had commenced the recording of a new studio album, which would be their first in over 15 years. The band toured Europe and the US in 2009 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the release of Piece of Time. A live DVD filmed at the Wacken Open Air Festival appeared towards the end of the year.[16]
On July 11, 2010, Atheist revealed that their fourth studio album would be called Jupiter and was set for a November release.[17] They signed a deal with Season of Mist and Jupiter was released on November 8, 2010.[18][19]
On August 3, 2010, Shaefer and Flynn announced on behalf of the band that Tony Choy would not be appearing on Jupiter but was still likely to appear in live performances with the band due to his own musical aspirations.[20] The band announced in 2014 that it was working on a fifth studio album, which was planned to be released in 2015.[21] In February 2018, Atheist signed with Agonia Records,[22] while they continued to tour.[23]
Musical style and legacy
Atheist is considered one of the pioneers of technical death metal. Mike DaRonco of Allmusic said Atheist are "arguably the ultimate progressive metal band of their day".[24] Atheist have also been noted for elements of thrash metal, jazz and progressive rock present in their music.[25] According to Langdon Hickman of Invisible Oranges, "Like almost every metal band of the 1980s, Atheist also did not go untouched by progressive metal. Progressive rock mostly filtered into heavy metal through those 1970s hard rock and heavy metal bands that laid [the] foundational roots for the metal of the 1980s."[26] Vocalist Kelly Shaefer said, "One of the main reasons Atheist ended up being such a strange band was we were trying so hard not to sound like anybody else that we went way overboard. We were outsiders within an outsider's scene so we made it doubly hard for ourselves."[27]
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
