Demon Hunter

Something of a light in the darkness for its fans, Demon Hunter fills a vacuum in heavy metal for Christian listeners, bringing together melody and heavy rifts at a cut above others in the genre. They’ve been commercially successful, seeing #2 on Christian Albums twice. Their eighth album, Outlive, sold 19,000 copies in the first week. Since conception, they’ve toured all around the world with bands such as Red and Veridia, putting Christ at the forefront of their music and image. Formed in 2000 by brothers Ryan and Don Clark, they would soon produce their first self-titled album in 2002 with the help of Jesse Sprinkle on drums, actually choosing to conceal their identities until their first tour. Jesse would also join the Clark brothers for their next album in 2004, Summer of Darkness, with Jon Dunn playing bass and Kris McCaddon being chosen for lead guitar. This album would mark a change in their sound, as from then on all work was recorded in C chord as opposed to B. While touring, Jesse got replaced with Tim watts, and later during production of The Tryptic in 2005, Ethan Luck would succeed Kris McCaddon as lead guitarist. Almost two years later, with only one tour in the mean time, the band would see significant change after producing Storm the Gates of Hell, Don Clark leaving to pursue another career and family, as well as Ethan Luck being replaced by Patrick Judge. In 2008, they made a documentary, 45 days, and produced a live album Live in Nashville that next year, galvanizing their public image and doing their best to give their fans a look behind the scenes. It was during this time the band came out with a video professing that the band was in fact entirely composed of Christians, and that they would not be “riding the fence” anymore, garnering the respect of fellow artists Christian and atheist alike. With no time to spare they started work on The World is a Thorn, being released in 2010 as their fifth album. By this point, their sound had gotten progressively heavier, and when info about production was put up, Ryan Clark mentioned they were aiming to stay true to the original feel, but felt introducing new ideas would keep things exciting. Jeremiah Scott would be the final addition for True Defiance and Extremist in 2012 and 2014 respectively. As of 2017, the band has released Outlive through an incredibly successful fan-funded initiative on PledgeMusic. In December of 2018, Demon Hunter announced that there would be two new studio albums that would be released on March 1, 2019; War and Peace.

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

Get App

Host or Publisher MONICA PARNELL