Periphery - Biography
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Biography
Periphery was formed by guitarist Misha Mansoor in 2005, who slowly gained a reputation on the Internet via a regularly-updated Soundclick account, the Meshuggah and John Petrucci forums, and the sevenstring.org message boards. Before and during Periphery's tenure in the metal scene, Mansoor developed a reputation for doing his own audio production, the majority of which was performed with a home computer and a Pod XT. Mansoor has continued to update his personal project, Bulb, often transferring songs between the two projects. Mansoor also continues to be involved in a number of other musical projects, including Haunted Shores, Four Seconds Ago, and Of Man Not Of Machine.
Periphery went through a number of lineup changes during its early history. Originally, Misha played drums in the band for live performances, but switched to guitar after recruiting Travis Orbin. The band also originally only had two guitar players (Misha and Alex Bois) until they hired Jake Bowen in 2007, feeling that they needed another guitarists to accurately replicate their songs live. Between 2005 and 2009, Periphery worked with vocalists Jake Veredika, Casey Sabol and Chris Barretto, gradually moving from a Meshuggah-influenced sound to a more ambient, melodic sound, with a focus on innovative production.
Periphery has toured extensively since 2008, supporting artists including DevilDriver, The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza, Veil Of Maya, Animals As Leaders, God Forbid, Darkest Hour, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Fear Factory, Between The Buried And Me, and Fair To Midland.
In 2009, the band replaced Travis Orbin with drummer Matt Halpern, who like Mansoor grew up in Baltimore and who is known as the co-founder of the online music lesson website BandHappy. In January 2010, Sumerian and Periphery announced April 20 as the release date of the band's self-titled debut album, to be distributed by Sumerian Records in the United States, Distort Records in Canada and Roadrunner Records in Australia and the rest of the world. On January 20, 2010, amid speculation that they had changed vocalists again, Periphery uploaded an album sampler featuring vocals by Spencer Sotelo, a San Diego native who was later announced to be Periphery's new vocalist. On April 8, 2010, Periphery posted a new track, "Insomnia", on their MySpace page and announced a tour of Australia in support of The Dillinger Escape Plan.
Periphery released their self-titled debut album, Periphery, through Sumerian Records on April 20, 2010. It debuted at #128 on the Billboard Top 200, as well as #2 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart.
After the release of the album, Periphery played multiple tours around the US and Canada; a short tour of Australia along with The Dillinger Escape Plan, and a headlining tour of the UK and mainland Europe in February 2011. The band's first headlining tour, "League Of Extraordinary Djentlemen Tour", featured support from TesseracT and Monuments in the UK, while their mainland European shows included Monuments and The Safety Fire. The band ran into multiple health issues during the tour, of which Spencer Sotelo had a case of Bronchitis and was regularly unable to perform the entire set. Jake Bowen also fell, breaking one of his fingers, in the first week of the UK tour and was unable to play for the rest of their headlining tour. He recovered and joined the band during the last couple of shows on their tour with Fair to Midland and Scale the Summit right before they dropped out of the tour.
On March 22, Periphery released a cover of Metallica's song "One", which was recorded for the Homefront video game soundtrack. The song was released as a free download on the Homefront main website, as were other covers by The Dillinger Escape Plan, As I Lay Dying, Veil Of Maya, and many others.
On January 19, 2011 the music video for "Jetpacks Was Yes!" was posted exclusively on NME. The video features a re-recorded and re-structured version of the song, which was released on the Icarus EP. Periphery's first single, from their Icarus EP titled "Frak The Gods", was released on March 24. The song, production quality, and Spencer's improved vocal abilities received acclaim from both fans and music critics alike.
On July 6, 2011, Periphery announced via a MySpace blog post that the band had parted ways with guitarist Alex Bois. However, they did not change touring schedules, hiring Mark Holcomb and Adam "Nolly" Getgood to play Alex's parts during live shows until they found a permanent replacement.
On 7 September 2011, they were announced as the opening act for Dream Theater on their European leg of "A Dramatic Turn Of Events Tour" starting in January 2012. On October 18, 2011, the band announced that Mark Holcomb (of Haunted Shores) was now the band's full-time guitarist.
On November 16, 2011, bassist Tom Murphy decided to leave the band.
At the time, Getgood had no plans to leave his group Red Seas Fire, which suggested his role in Periphery was only temporary. The band also hired Mark Holcomb's brother Jeff to play bass on their 2012 US tour with Protest The Hero, Jeff Loomis, The Safety Fire and Today I Caught The Plague.
On February 21, 2012 the band re-released their debut album with a new single on iTunes entitled "Passenger". This was a partially re-recorded version of an old Haunted Shores song. The release date of the new album, currently untitled then, was revealed in an advertisement in the May/June 2012 edition of Revolver Magazine. It is to be released on July 3rd. In addition, the new album features guest solos by John Petrucci, Guthrie Govan, and Wes Hauch, guitarist for [band]The Faceless[band].
Periphery then entered the studio to work on their next two full-length releases. The band stated via their Facebook page that they would be releasing two full length albums. They would contain a mixture of reworked "Bulb" demos as well as completely new material written by the full band (in contrast to their debut album, where Misha had most of the creative input). The upcoming releases would also be the first to feature the use of string arrangements and orchestral elements. The album would be produced by Misha and Adam "Nolly" Getgood (of British progressive metal band Red Seas Fire) and would be engineered and mixed by Taylor Larson (Sky Eats Airplane, Of Legends, Life On Repeat). The title of the first album was revealed to be Periphery II: This Time It's Personal. Like its predecessor, Periphery II will not follow a conceptual theme. The second of the two which will be entitled Juggernaut will be a concept album.
During their set at the Sonisphere festival in Knebworth, UK, the band played a brand new song entitled "Face Palm Mute", When Tom Murphy and Matt Halpern were interviewed before Periphery's set they stated that the band "have enough material to write 3 new albums".
In July 2011, Mansoor elaborated on the forthcoming albums in Australian magazine Mixdown. He confirmed that there would be two albums recorded, and that one would be a concept album. Mansoor has had interest in a concept album for quite some time, stating that "[he] wanted to to get this concept album out there. It's been an idea for years and years." Mansoor also revealed that the band would release the albums separately, saying "[they]'ll probably do a staggered release, three to six months apart" and that "[he] really want[s] them to be these separate bodies of work, because they will sound different, and be completely different approaches, too."
Even though it was announced before, the official name of the album was confirmed through a Facebook post by the band stating: "just to be clear to all our Peripherals, the album is officially called Periphery II: This Time It's Personal. We decided to keep the cover title free, but in the booklet that is the official name. The forces that be felt that it would be iffy marketing it as that, so press releases and such won't reflect that..."
Periphery II was officially available for streaming on YouTube on June 28, 2012. Hours later, the band announced that Adam "Nolly" Getgood was officially joining the band as its full-time bassist. According to Mansoor, "We love him dearly as a friend and found that we have excellent chemistry both on stage and in the studio... hiring him as our full-time bassist was the logical solution." While the band's other touring bassist Jeff Holcomb will be performing with them until October, Getgood will be taking his permanent spot in the live line-up for their European tour with Between The Buried And Me and The Safety Fire.
Periphery went through a number of lineup changes during its early history. Originally, Misha played drums in the band for live performances, but switched to guitar after recruiting Travis Orbin. The band also originally only had two guitar players (Misha and Alex Bois) until they hired Jake Bowen in 2007, feeling that they needed another guitarists to accurately replicate their songs live. Between 2005 and 2009, Periphery worked with vocalists Jake Veredika, Casey Sabol and Chris Barretto, gradually moving from a Meshuggah-influenced sound to a more ambient, melodic sound, with a focus on innovative production.
Periphery has toured extensively since 2008, supporting artists including DevilDriver, The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza, Veil Of Maya, Animals As Leaders, God Forbid, Darkest Hour, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Fear Factory, Between The Buried And Me, and Fair To Midland.
In 2009, the band replaced Travis Orbin with drummer Matt Halpern, who like Mansoor grew up in Baltimore and who is known as the co-founder of the online music lesson website BandHappy. In January 2010, Sumerian and Periphery announced April 20 as the release date of the band's self-titled debut album, to be distributed by Sumerian Records in the United States, Distort Records in Canada and Roadrunner Records in Australia and the rest of the world. On January 20, 2010, amid speculation that they had changed vocalists again, Periphery uploaded an album sampler featuring vocals by Spencer Sotelo, a San Diego native who was later announced to be Periphery's new vocalist. On April 8, 2010, Periphery posted a new track, "Insomnia", on their MySpace page and announced a tour of Australia in support of The Dillinger Escape Plan.
Periphery released their self-titled debut album, Periphery, through Sumerian Records on April 20, 2010. It debuted at #128 on the Billboard Top 200, as well as #2 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart.
After the release of the album, Periphery played multiple tours around the US and Canada; a short tour of Australia along with The Dillinger Escape Plan, and a headlining tour of the UK and mainland Europe in February 2011. The band's first headlining tour, "League Of Extraordinary Djentlemen Tour", featured support from TesseracT and Monuments in the UK, while their mainland European shows included Monuments and The Safety Fire. The band ran into multiple health issues during the tour, of which Spencer Sotelo had a case of Bronchitis and was regularly unable to perform the entire set. Jake Bowen also fell, breaking one of his fingers, in the first week of the UK tour and was unable to play for the rest of their headlining tour. He recovered and joined the band during the last couple of shows on their tour with Fair to Midland and Scale the Summit right before they dropped out of the tour.
On March 22, Periphery released a cover of Metallica's song "One", which was recorded for the Homefront video game soundtrack. The song was released as a free download on the Homefront main website, as were other covers by The Dillinger Escape Plan, As I Lay Dying, Veil Of Maya, and many others.
On January 19, 2011 the music video for "Jetpacks Was Yes!" was posted exclusively on NME. The video features a re-recorded and re-structured version of the song, which was released on the Icarus EP. Periphery's first single, from their Icarus EP titled "Frak The Gods", was released on March 24. The song, production quality, and Spencer's improved vocal abilities received acclaim from both fans and music critics alike.
On July 6, 2011, Periphery announced via a MySpace blog post that the band had parted ways with guitarist Alex Bois. However, they did not change touring schedules, hiring Mark Holcomb and Adam "Nolly" Getgood to play Alex's parts during live shows until they found a permanent replacement.
On 7 September 2011, they were announced as the opening act for Dream Theater on their European leg of "A Dramatic Turn Of Events Tour" starting in January 2012. On October 18, 2011, the band announced that Mark Holcomb (of Haunted Shores) was now the band's full-time guitarist.
On November 16, 2011, bassist Tom Murphy decided to leave the band.
At the time, Getgood had no plans to leave his group Red Seas Fire, which suggested his role in Periphery was only temporary. The band also hired Mark Holcomb's brother Jeff to play bass on their 2012 US tour with Protest The Hero, Jeff Loomis, The Safety Fire and Today I Caught The Plague.
On February 21, 2012 the band re-released their debut album with a new single on iTunes entitled "Passenger". This was a partially re-recorded version of an old Haunted Shores song. The release date of the new album, currently untitled then, was revealed in an advertisement in the May/June 2012 edition of Revolver Magazine. It is to be released on July 3rd. In addition, the new album features guest solos by John Petrucci, Guthrie Govan, and Wes Hauch, guitarist for [band]The Faceless[band].
Periphery then entered the studio to work on their next two full-length releases. The band stated via their Facebook page that they would be releasing two full length albums. They would contain a mixture of reworked "Bulb" demos as well as completely new material written by the full band (in contrast to their debut album, where Misha had most of the creative input). The upcoming releases would also be the first to feature the use of string arrangements and orchestral elements. The album would be produced by Misha and Adam "Nolly" Getgood (of British progressive metal band Red Seas Fire) and would be engineered and mixed by Taylor Larson (Sky Eats Airplane, Of Legends, Life On Repeat). The title of the first album was revealed to be Periphery II: This Time It's Personal. Like its predecessor, Periphery II will not follow a conceptual theme. The second of the two which will be entitled Juggernaut will be a concept album.
During their set at the Sonisphere festival in Knebworth, UK, the band played a brand new song entitled "Face Palm Mute", When Tom Murphy and Matt Halpern were interviewed before Periphery's set they stated that the band "have enough material to write 3 new albums".
In July 2011, Mansoor elaborated on the forthcoming albums in Australian magazine Mixdown. He confirmed that there would be two albums recorded, and that one would be a concept album. Mansoor has had interest in a concept album for quite some time, stating that "[he] wanted to to get this concept album out there. It's been an idea for years and years." Mansoor also revealed that the band would release the albums separately, saying "[they]'ll probably do a staggered release, three to six months apart" and that "[he] really want[s] them to be these separate bodies of work, because they will sound different, and be completely different approaches, too."
Even though it was announced before, the official name of the album was confirmed through a Facebook post by the band stating: "just to be clear to all our Peripherals, the album is officially called Periphery II: This Time It's Personal. We decided to keep the cover title free, but in the booklet that is the official name. The forces that be felt that it would be iffy marketing it as that, so press releases and such won't reflect that..."
Periphery II was officially available for streaming on YouTube on June 28, 2012. Hours later, the band announced that Adam "Nolly" Getgood was officially joining the band as its full-time bassist. According to Mansoor, "We love him dearly as a friend and found that we have excellent chemistry both on stage and in the studio... hiring him as our full-time bassist was the logical solution." While the band's other touring bassist Jeff Holcomb will be performing with them until October, Getgood will be taking his permanent spot in the live line-up for their European tour with Between The Buried And Me and The Safety Fire.