The Demos
Chicago based Aftermath, fronted by the Greek born Kyriakos "Charlie" Tsiolis, formed in October 1985 when Charlie and his schoolmate Steve Sacco (Guitar) got together. This early incarnation with Adam (Bass) and Ray Schmidt (Drums) issued their first demo called 'Sentenced To Death' in 1986 featuring 'Sentenced to Death', 'Revenge', 'Shotgun' and 'The Aftermath'.
In 1987, they unleashed their second demo entitled ‘Killing The Future’ featuring the tracks ‘When Will You Die’, ‘Going No Place’, ‘Chaos’, ‘Meltdown’ and ‘War For Freedom’. The band pursued a mind blowing speed and technical brand of Thrash that soon set them apart from the pack.
The tracks "War For Freedom" & "When Will You Die" were both featured on the British ‘Metal Forces’ magazine compilation LP ‘Demolition: Scream Your Brains Out’ in 1988 Metal Forces. The LP featured tracks from Leviathan (Chris Barnes (Six Feet Under) on Vocals), Hobbs' Angel Of Death, Anacrusis & Atrophy. The appearance on the Metal Forces' compilation further expanded the band's international appeal.
By 1988, the musical direction was changing and Adam's raw and simple bass lines would soon be replaced with complex and technical bass parts handled at first by John Lovette. Ironically, John never played bass on any Aftermath recording and wasn't even a bass player. However, he wanted to join the band so badly, he came to the audition with a friend's bass he had just started to play. The speed and complex playing he displayed was something none of the members had ever seen before on bass. He landed the gig that day. When the band decided it was time to add a second guitarist, Lovette told his band mates of his desire to switch to guitar and for the first time he came clean, he was a guitar player pretending to be a bass player all along. His bass playing was surpassed by his guitar skills, the band found its second guitar player, but unfortunately, the search for a bass player was back on. Luckily, the search (for the time being, anyway) ended with Danny Vega. His warm and precise playing was the perfect complement to the guitar playing of Lovette and Sacco and worked amazingly well with Schmidt's powerful drumming. With Lovette handling most of the song writing duties, Aftermath was about to make an unbelievable musical change.
By 1989, that change brought on by Lovette's writing and the band's musical tastes and stylings had slowed and matured as evidenced by the release of the underground classic demo ‘Words That Echo Fear’.
Read more about this topic: Aftermath (American Band)