Band Biography

Danse Macabre

Band Members:

• Damien Thorn – Lead Singer
• Az Defila – Lead Guitar
• Lucy Feier – Bass Guitar
• Madison Baylock – Keyboard
• Adrian Shift – Drums

Damien Thorn and Lucy Feier created the band that became Danse Macabre in 2001. The two had become friends at Lincoln University in the late nineties, having discovered their shared loved of metal and gothic music. Feier had learnt acoustic guitar as a child and had begun to learn to play electric and bass guitar during university. Her main goal was to eventually form a metal band and Thorn seemed like the perfect person to join her, having heard him singing with his first grunge band, Hitter. The two became best friends and began to search local metal venues and record stores for other band members. Eventually they discovered Az Defila, a teenage guitarist playing small venues as a solo artist. He was doing covers of famous guitar tracks like Smoke on the Water, for a few quid a night. The two took him under their wing and turned their attention to drummers.

Adrian Shift was playing in a Metallica tribute band, Metallican at the time and Thorn saw him playing at one of the university’s music nights. He immediately approached Shift and by the next day, he was part of the band. By 1999, the four piece were playing small shows under the name, Exploit & Destroy. They were playing as a more traditional thrash metal band at the time and were gaining little success. All that changed in the late 2000s, when Damien Thorn’s girlfriend Alicia committed suicide. Thorn was thrown into extreme depression and wound up surviving through music. He became a big fan of the band Marilyn Manson and decided that his band had to take a new darker route if they hoped to find any success.

And so, Danse Macabre was created from the ashes of Exploit & Destroy. Their new style of industrial and doom metal required a hint of electronic music and so they found female keyboard player, Madison Baylock in 2002. She had been playing as part of another smaller industrial metal band at the time and decided to leave and tensions in the band became violent. Over the next few years, Danse Macabre began to take over the metal world, releasing several critically acclaimed albums such as, The Rat Race and Personification of Death. Az Defila left the band for a few years from 2004-2007 and was replaced by Nat Skin, but returned after Thorn ran into him again and decided to offer him his place back, having recieved much criticism for their change of guitarist.

The band is the embodiment of controversy and has caused an uproar of Christian churches all across the world. Their so-called satanic themes and anti-establishment messages have won them many enemies, but also many fans. Over their 11 year career they have managed to become one of the most feared and loved bands in the world; hated by parents, idolised by teens.

It has become clear over the years that the band has become less and less Danse Macabre and more and more Damien Thorn. The lead singer has become the band's entire image and has begun to overshadow the other members. Maybe it's just the way most shock metal bands go, but the frontman has become the embodiement of the band.