DEVASTATION (cro)

Bio:

The idea of forming a speed-metal band came out in 1985, but it took a serious shape just around January 1986,when me-ALEX(vocals,from Kronos), my brother CHRISS(drums,from Sumrak Ideja) and MARKO(guitar) met and wanted to play what we listened most at that time.There were just few bands in Yugoslavia that played something close to speed-metal, but not a band which will represent real pure speed-metal from Yugoslavia.So we decided to form such band, under a temporary name of TSM (Their Satanic Majesty).Until October 1986, everything remained on a wish, because of many personal reasons.Then we three met again, and had our first rehearsal, on which the first riffs came out and the thing started to roll.Very soon, FRITZ(bass) and DAVID(guitar, from Horus) entered the band, and the first line-up was completed.The first public appearance was the 11.04.1987. at a new-bands contest in Rijeka.We and the few metalheads in there (we played very early in the afternoon) were very satisfied with our first show, and two months later we played a headlining gig with a local rock band (Ulicni Dzuboks).Practicly everything that day went wrong, it was an incredibly weird day, and looking back in time, a strange kind of weirdness follows that first line-up until the end.That day, it was the 26th of June 1987, first the police caught the guys who were bringing the PA to the place where the gig should be held, then during our soundcheck, a guy in the building near us suffered a heart attack(later we heard that finally he was ok-not dead, of course ;-) ), I totally lost my voice before the show..but when the show started, except for the major sound fuck-ups, everything just blows us away; the place was packed by m.f..ing maniacs who had the first time opportunity to be at a speed-metal gig, there were guys screaming their brains out, a close friend of ours broke his hand, there were guys constantly flying off the stage..a totally insane show.And concerning us, we played like we never did before, and even after.In August we went into the rehearsal place of local punk gods Kud Idijoti, to record our first live demo.As we were broke, we wanted to do something cheap and fast, but,as the weirdness continues, it went wrong.We were there 5 days, and except for the first day, where we had an eternal sound checking, we were there(and I forgot to mention, the Kud Idijoti..s rehearsal room was in an abandoned madhouse in the woods..scary.) four more days trying to record songs we rehearsed for months, and there were no chance to bring any song to an end.Finally, we recorded all tracks the last day, all tracks in one take, and we decided to leave all the small mistakes in, because we wanted the tracks to sound fully authentic.The first demo was called "The upcoming mayhem", contained an intro, 5 tracks and a cover of S.O.D..s "United forces".After the demo, we hoped that the things will go better but obviously that line-up wasn..t "built to last" we had a gig where a lots of things went wrong (even if we played in front of 1500 people!!), and in December of 1987, a week before our obviously last gig (we changed that last gig the name into DEVASTATOR, because of the many Devastation-bands around the world, firstly the US one), David left the band.The rest of us squeezed out that last gig, and then decided to split, because of pretty opposite characters inside the band.On January 1988, Alex and Chriss decided to go on with the band as DEVASTATION again, so they found Wutrich and Pita on guitars and Erwin on bass.That line up lasted a year, and at the end of 1988 Pita and Erwin were replaced by Igor on guitar and Dean on bass.That line up recorded the second demo entitled by a song by Discharge "The possibility of life..s destruction", recorded in April 1989 by just 3 members(Alex on vocals, Chriss on drums and Wutrich on all guitars).The demo was well accepted by fans and some fanzines all over Europe, and the band played several gigs, among them a contest of best local band (of course, won by the band) and as support to the best Yugoslav band of all the times, Disciplina Kicme.But after that gig (January 21 1990.)the band splits again, but this time the break was definitive, and Alex and Chriss decided that the DEVASTATION story was absolutely over, and after a long break, they reformed the band again, but this time as HATROSS(by Voivod..s album "Dimension Hatross").The follow up of this story can be seen at myspace.com/hatross ... ...... In 2007. Alex was asked to do an interview for the documentary about the underground scene in Pula in the 80s, and at the shooting of this interview the idea of reforming the band came out by Mladen (Distor), the director of that movie, himself also a long term fan of the band and thereafter the new guitarist.And it worked; in 2008 the band was reformed in its first form, with Hrvoje as a new second guitarist, Karlo as bass player and the original member Chriss on drums. After few rehearsals held in Zagreb (the band was now formed from guys living in 5 different cities all around Croatia) and practically 2 years of rehearsing, Hrvoje, Chriss and finally Mladen left the band, and Alex and Karlo remained alone.At the end of 2009, the line-up was completely transferred to Varazdin and Devastation became a band from Varazdin.The new guys that filled the line-up were X on drums and Y (names not mentioned Intentionally) and Ivor on guitars. At the beginning of 2010, the chinese label Area Death Production released a retrospective compilation CD "Devastation Complete 1987-1989" containing both demos and some rare tracks, all remastered with great cover and packaging. The band finally started to rehearse hard and the first live show is played as headliners of a Metal minifest on August 7th, in a serbian small town Šid.The show was amazing and successful, and just a week later the band played a slot in the bands native town Pula, at the Viva La Pola festival, again playing it very professionally and succesful. Unfortunately, Pula was the last show played by Karlo who had to left the band starting studying in Rijeka.

After the show at the Viva La Pola festival, the personnel change made a dramatic change of relations within the band. It all went downhill, and instead of building, part of the band started to destroy the band. The band played six more shows, and split during the last show in Zagreb on April 2nd 2011. After that split, the rest of the band was forced to cancel shows in Belgrade, Novi Sad and Ljubljana.

Two members that remained after the last split are willing to come back and to continue with the band, so the line-up is filling with new members. Very soon the update with the names of the new members. Plans are new material and more gigs, some of them already there, just missing the date ! ..

Member Since:

November 29, 2005

Members:

ALEX BIJAZIC - Vocals

IVOR BARIC - Guitar




Former members:
Chriss (Kristijan) Bijazic (ex-Hatross; Leukkemiaa) - drums (1986-1990; 2008)
Marko Pusic - guitar (1986-1987)
David Lorusso - guitar (1986-1987)
Walter Udovicic (Fritz) - bass (1986-1987)
Sergej Mudrovcic (Wutrich) - guitar (1988-1989)
Elizabeta Petric (Pita) - guitar (1988)
Erwin Barbaro - bass (1988)
Dean Bozac (Peca) - bass (1988-1989)
Igor Luksic (Lux) - guitar (1989)
Hrvoje Vogrinc (Hrc) - guitar (2008-2009)
Mladen Medic (Distor) - guitar (2007-2010)
Karlo Kögl - bass (2007-2010)

Influences:

Mid-80s German Speed-Metal in general (early Destruction,Living Death,early Kreator,early Sodom,early Vectom) in the first phase,very raw Speed-Thrash Hardcore Metal in the second phase(Slayer,Possessed,etc),and generally for both phases whatever we liked. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Sounds Like:

The first phase of the band (86-87) is pure German Speed Metal,mostly influenced by early Destruction and Living Death,the second phase is more Hardcore Thrashy,but still 100% metal. With 2007,Devastation started again,and the plan is to sound as much "old german speed-metal school" as we can.In otherwords,back to the beginning. And it sounds roughly as this:

Record Label:

Area Death Productions