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Alestorm - Biography


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2011-

2007-2009

2004-2007
As Battleheart.

Biography

The day is the seventh of June, 1692. The place: Port Royal, Jamaica. A fearsome earthquake demolishes most of the surroundings and causes the drowning of almost 2/3 of the city and the death of close to half of the people in it. The locals that survived reffered to the disaster as an "Act of God" because of the city's sinful reputation. The locals did not know that the real cause of that earthquake was just a couple of miles into the Caribbean sea, in the form of four scotish pirates - A guitarist, a bassist, a drummer and a vocalist with a keytar, jamming on a ship named "The Alestorm" - had just struck that fatal pinch harmonic.

Originally starting out as a two piece metal band, unsatisfied with anything they had head locally at the time, Gavin Harper and Christopher Bowes decided to form what was to become the joy of many pub landlords around!

After recording and releasing an independant EP in Gavin's home studio in early 2006, a following quickly developed and requests were made to form a complete band and take this on the road. After some pot luck and blind hiring of musicians neither of them had met or heard play at the time, bassist Dani Evans and drummer Doug Swierczek were recruited and five days after everyone first met each other, a filled to the brim gig in Dundee.

The band then set it's sights on writing and recording a second EP after popular request. This time, performing as a full band, a whole new dynamic kicked in and as a result, the second EP was received even more positively than the first and as such, drew the band to even higher heights and as such, got a personal invitation to appear on Metal Hammer's Battle Metal V cd with other such bands as Týr, Firewind, Hammerfall and Blind Guardian.

By now, word was spreading around the UK and beyond. The band's forum quickly became one of the most active and largest on UltimateMetal.com and the Myspace was receiving daily shiploads of friend-adds as well as radio airplay over Europe and North America

In early 2007, the band suffered a minor setback as drummer Doug Swierczek left the crew. He was swiftly replaced by band friend and talented drummer Ian Wilson. With a fresh new outlook and much more freedom to create the style of music the band longed to create, they began writing the material to Captain Morgan´s Revenge. The album was recorded in LSD Studio by Lasse Lammert, the infamous Ingo Römling (Leaves' Eyes, Týr) took care of the artwork, and Steve Brown (Nile, Lacuna Coil, Turisas) came on board as Alestorm's photographer. Captain Morgan's Revenge was released worldwide in January 2008, on Napalm Records. Join the crew and let the raid begin!