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I've got one less bass than you, not even a bass player - up your game fella xx

Nick (scholey) was our drummer, jamesy the orginal guitarist/formed the band. Nah, there was no real internal drama so don’t mind sharing what happened...put simply we never went full time because I refused to. In 2007/08 when things were going pretty well, the band discussed going full time. However I said no because; a) I was just married, b) had just bought our first flat (so had a mortgage), and c) was a year or so into a career job (that I really enjoyed) after spending 5 years in uni... I would undoubtedly have lost all 3 of those going full time, and I really wasn't prepared to. The other guys weren't in serious relationships, didn't have jobs that they were bothered about, and either rented or lived with their folks - so taking a couple of years out of their lives to tour wouldn't have had such a big impact or been such a risk. I'm still happily married and have the same job 12 years later, so in hindsight it was 101% the correct decision - which is one of the many reasons it doesn't bother me thinking 'what might have been' if we actually went for it. As far as other guys leaving the band - Alex, our original bass player (and still one of my best friends today) quit the band shortly after the above as I think to him the band had run it's course if we weren't going to make more of it... touring/playing live was always of more interest to him than writing/recording etc. We had another couple of guitarists (Niall and Mark) who were with the band for a year or two each, but there's no interesting stories or drama as to why we parted ways. Despite what might externally have seemed like a revolving cast over the years, we were actually extremely stable with all line-ups, and got on really well. No bad blood or grudges held or whatever. Plus the core of the band was the same as it was me, ben, nick and alex who played on 99% of the recordings and gigs we did. Sorry for derailing this thread - didn't mean to turn the clocks back to 2004 and make the site all about MMW! (or mmW or MMw, or whatever stupid abbreviation someone-that-wasn't-me came up with...)

I bought a Synth. I've never had one before. So I got one.

Welcome to the forum. If you're not looking for excitement, you've came to the right place.

Hey man, thanks (I think!?) for all that - not quite sure if it was questions or statements, but I'll do my best to clear up as much as I can - and hopefully in a manner that is constructive to this thread rather than just banging on about myself. And yes, Dan G/Dan Weapon/Dan Atom are all one and the same...although I'm sure the even older residents of this board will more fondly remember me as Dan Loaded (my first band)! And Cloud I presume? And yes, I still reside in Aberdeen many years later. I'll give you the horse's mouth abridged history of the band throughout my reply if you were interested (or even if you weren't haha). Firstly, thanks man, and in hindsight I'm super glad we did those videos - a fantastic keepsake as much as anything! I'm also not hugely embarrassed by them, which is nice 10 years later. Also the Kokura video was shown on MTV2's headbanger's ball which although means nothing in the scheme of things was awesome for me and Ben on a personal level as we'd grown up with that show. I slightly disagree in that no one gives a fuck about music videos though...whilst that's true as far as TV channels, streaming on youtube (and spotify etc) is valuable these days. Anyone can knock up lyric videos, but I'd always far rather watch a professional performance/concept video. Streaming wasn't a consideration back in 2008 when we did our videos though - we just wanted to look as pro as we could, get our music out there in a different medium, and do what bands we respected were doing! Hahaha "Discourse and indecision", but yes it did sounds like 'Tescos' . Not sure which guitarist you were referring to, but assuming you meant Jamesy? He sort of left on mutual terms, but in fairness was more ‘persuaded to leave’ rather than decided to leave himself. Jamesy started the band and was absolutely the driving force behind MMW in the early days - he got us so many quality support slots, tours and was generally the fire behind it. I never had any intentions of ‘making it’ and all that – I just liked playing guitar and hanging around with mates – but Jamesy had real drive and point to prove. However he’d be the first to admit he wasn’t the most gifted/technical guitarist. He also wasn’t that into metal and his initial vision was more of an emo/screamo/punk band, but Nick and I were far more into progressive metal, which is what it eventually became musically. By 2005 Jamesy was far more interested with his work at Moshulu putting on gigs (he entirely stopped playing guitar in that Summer) and we realised we weren’t going to get any better if this continued, so parted ways. He often wound people up (both inside and outside the band!) but I believe his heart was always in the right place, and he had ambitions far beyond what anyone else in the Aberdeen music scene had. Or at least he tried harder to make them come to fruition. Ben leaving was an entirely different matter. It’s unfair to air it in full in public, but essentially he quit after having a minor disagreement with Nick that was completely unrelated to the band. They made up a couple of days later, but I think Ben was too proud to ask to rejoin, and we figured this was our opportunity to replace him with someone better. I remained good friends with him at the time, but like you say our biggest criticism was the vocals so we saw it as the opportunity to improve with our second album. At this stage Scott Bowden was playing bass, and we were the tightest we’d been...me, Nick and Scott had some real chemistry. I was writing some really tech prog-thrash at the time and believe we could have done a killer second album if we found the right singer. That was not to be however, as we couldn’t find (or didn’t try hard enough) to find a replacement, and I was taking way too long to write new material. If Ben had never quit, I reckon we’d have continued the band for another 5-10 years, though I doubt we’d have gone on to ‘achieve’ that much more than we did. Ah, good old Ben - AKA Ben Quik, Bladeola, Highroller, Wolf.biker and a few other guest accounts after his various bans. Ben was never the best singer/screamer in the world, but I think at the same time he got the most amount of abuse on accounts of his online antics. And to be fair he really was an arse on here – but goddamn it was hilarious. I’ve re-read so many of his 12-15 year old, uh, ‘discussions’ and every facet and flaw of his personality is laid bare on this site in some form. You don’t need a degree in psychology to see that he just needs to be loved; he’s got a very fragile ego, insecurity issues that rear their head as arrogance, he struggles with criticism and has a startling lack of self-awareness. The latter was especially transparent when he’d come on here using an anonymous account pretending not to be Ben and getting busted by everyone 2 posts in. He was a good friend though. He did so much for the band, and was a hard worker… he bought his own mic(s), drove the band everywhere, put in a shift loading gear, was great at helping out and getting on with other bands – and in reality/on tour/offstage he almost never displayed any of the prima donna bullshit that singers often do. Given his on-stage and online persona, I’m sure people who never met him imagined him to be an absolute twunt, but that wasn’t the case at all. My view on the whole Scorge/Jake arguments is this: I've never really been one to attack other people unless provoked or attacked myself. Ben used to wind up Scorge/Jake and vice versa, which would lead to those two slagging off MMW and therefore me - so I'd jump in and take the piss/argue back (although I only went for personal insults... I don't think I ever ripped on Spike Pile Driver as a band even once, as for one I always liked Hog). Essentially they constantly called the music I'd written fake, image-based rinky dink pop music, with no credibility or integrity etc. I took that pretty personally given anybody that knows me is aware that a) I've spent 1000s of hours of my life practicing the guitar/writing songs, and b) I never had any desire to achieve anything in music beyond having fun. It just so happened that the music I wrote for MMW ('Metalcore' if reduced to its simplest form) became popular, and as such we got lumped in with a trend. But I'd been writing In Flames and Killswitch style modern metal stuff in Loaded circa 2001-2002 before it became the fashionable thing, and many years later the music I write and listen to is much as it was during the height of metalcore's popularity. One of the reasons I'm still proud of our album is because ten years on I don't think the majority of it has dated badly... sure there are metalcore breakdowns, but there are also loads of proggy time signature/key/tempo changes, guitar solos, synths, pre-djent meshuggah style grooves etc. Not just drop-C open riffs with a floppy fringe bollocks. Regardless of whether it was good or shit, it was a real honest bunch of songs that featured all our influences chucked in a blender! John Browne you mean? I know him well-ish... we toured with Fell Silent (his pre-monuments band) circa 2008 as both bands were signed to Basick records and had just put out an album. He spent most of the tour in our van, and stayed at my folk's house with us rather than the rest of his band. Funny-ish story - we gave him a bit of a metal schooling by playing Dream Theater's 'Metropolis pt 2' and Pantera's 'Far Beyond Driven'. He'd never really heard DT, and in tour van chat he said he didn't think Pantera were good... naturally we told him how incorrect he was, and got him to rescind his comment playing him 5 minutes Alone, I'm Broken etc. I'm pretty sure these days you'd hear him say how Petrucci and Dimebag are legends/big influences haha. Incredible rhythm guitarist these days to be fair. If I said it like that, then I regret it if I was mocking him... I can't really remember it but I totally stand by it! In fact I bought my first 7-string a year or 2 back. It's currently got the normal 6 string tuned down 3 semitiones to C# standard, with the 7th string tuned to F# (so it's like a drop-D relationship between bottom 2 strings). That's as low as an 8 string, but without the hassle of an extra string and hardly sacrificing any high end. You could get far better value for money on 7s rather than 8s back then, so unless you were a total virtuoso I reckon 8 strings are highligh unnecessary. Can't remember that Meshuggah quote but I've always really liked the band - especially Destroy Erase Improve and Chaosphere (I was ripping off that album for my own band Loaded back in 1999! Albeit artistically rather than musically...). If I was making a point about them, I imagine it was more that their riffs aren't necessarily finger gymnastics but complex in other ways. If you are genuinely interested I can tell you more about exactly why we didn't go full time and why there were further line-up changes... I've already gone on for so long though so will only continue if requested to do so! I honestly don't think I was ever really one to run my mouth or be an arrogant twat about the band (happy to be disproven with evidence if anyone cares enough) apart from the aforementioned flamewars with various members of Spike Pile Driver and Ascension. Funnily enough that mostly all stopped once we did that charity show for Hog and certain people were found to only be able to talk the talk, but not walk the walk... but let's not go there And don't worry - wondering what might have been really doesn't torture me at all! I picked up a guitar purely to play my favourite bands riffs, and I joined bands to hang out with my friends. I never, ever set out to do anything more than that.... but even by achieving very little (by other people's standards) MMW achieved things on a personal level that I could never have dreamed of! We had a vid shown on MTV, played the SECC twice, supported numerous of my all time favourite bands, were signed to a great label and released an album that you could buy from any shop... to name just a few. But far more importantly, had an amazing time with good friends, plus making so many more good friends/memories.

Oh, hi. With Carson Wells, supporting Rod Jones from Idlewild's band The Birthday Suit at The Woodend Barn in Banchory. Beautiful venue but a bit bleak when 6 people show up (two of which were my Mum and Dad, on one of the only times they saw us). Sound was gash. The house bass amp that Huw was, for some reason, asked to use, kept cutting out, so he kept turning round to it mid-song. Given he was our lead singer at the time, all those 6 lucky individuals really witnessed was scratchy guitar and booming drums (due to the large, empty venue). This was also from our earlier years where our music was pretty rubbish/horrible anyway. It was just a noisy, hot mess that we've since agreed never to talk about that. And I said 'thanks to Rod Gilbert' whose someone else entirely.