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Some
time around 1990 in and around the towns of Blairsville
and Indiana, Pennsylvania, two long-time friends who
had been getting into progressively heavier and more
extreme forms of music decided they should start a
death metal band. Jason Foust (drums) and Brad Heiple
(guitar/vocals) had already been playing for a year
or so, creating mostly early NAPALM DEATH and CARCASS
influenced music, calling themselves CREATIVE SICKNESS,
or C.S. for short. But a change was soon to come.
After
being weaned on thrash, speed metal, grindcore and
the like for the past couple years, Jason and Brad
finally heard bands like DEATH, OBITUARY, and other
popular bands of the time. But, more importantly,
a friend had suggested they pick up this new album
by a band called ENTOMBED. Once they heard this brutal
offering from Sweden it was not long before they opted
to totally change the style and approach of the band.
FUNERUS was born.
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From
left to right
Brad
Heiple, Kyle Severn, Jill McEntee, John McEntee
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| Musical
abilities still developing, FUNERUS tried to emulate
the sounds of their favorite bands-mainly those hailing
from SWEDEN. Brad would not stop until he achieved a
similar guitar tone as bands such as ENTOMBED, CARNAGE,
GRAVE, etc. as well as getting into state-side bands
like AUTOPSY, MORBID ANGEL and INCANTATION. However,
he did stumble across a local band who would end up
influencing them almost as equally: ROTTREVORE. Brad
ordered the demo from Mark Mastro,
and after hearing that and seeing them live, FUNERUS
and ROTTREVORE became friends. Mark pointed Brad in
the right direction in finding the guitar sound he wanted,
because he was also a fan of the sound coming from SWEDEN. |
Over
the course of a couple years, and still working on achieving
the most brutal sound, FUNERUS released two rehearsal demos,
still without a bass player. At the time, finding people
into totally brutal death metal was not an easy task. Luckily,
though, Jason and Brad stumbled upon the idea of asking
a friend of theirs if she would like to play with them.
When the two found out their acquaintance, Jill Daily, played
guitar a little bit, and was already into similar music,
they asked the big question: "Will you play bass for
us?" And, without a doubt, the sewage slinging tractor-bass
was a welcome addition to their already low-end heavy sound.
Finally,
with a worthy bass player in the lineup, FUNERUS recorded
a somewhat proper demo, albeit just another practice recording.
But this demo was worthy enough to send out to zines and
even get them a couple shows. Two shows were played in early
1994, with such bands as ROTTREVORE (who were, at the time,
sadly, not the same band), DECREPIT, BLOOD COVEN, and others.
Response at these shows were good, and FUNERUS was finally
doing what they wanted to do. However, after a hard-fought
decision, Brad abruptly announced his departure from the
band. For various reasons, he left Jason and Jill with some
pretty big shoes to fill. They continued attempts at keeping
the band going, with a couple different guitarist/vocalists,
but things just never quite worked out.
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