Robert "Po" Dawson - Drums 2005 - 2007 (pic to be updated soon)
Influences
Old school metal like classic Metallica, Sabbath, early Maiden, Death etc.
Newer stuff like Carcass, At the Gates, All Shall Perish, Opeth, Strapping Young Lad/Devin Townsend, Mastodon, Arsis etc.
Plus classical influences, classic rock stuff, Ginsters spicy beef rolls, lager, doob, cathedral city cheddar, Mike's beard, Steven Seagals face, grime, anger, destruction, frustration, pot noodles, shagging.
Sounds Like
Varied vocal styles, blazing lead and dual guitar work, thrashy and epic riffery with death, doom, extreme and sometimes classical influences, pounding drums with superfast footwork, thunderous bass harmonies, blasting intros and big BIG outros. Now stop reading this and listen to us!!
In the bleak Sheffield winter of 2004 we first saw Opinicus rear its head to the world when mates Adam and Jesse decided as they both love metal and playing guitar that they wanted started a straight up, no nonsense metal band combining Adam's love for death metal, thrash and classic rock and Jesse's love of technical and death metal and appreciation for good songwriting and musicianship
A few weeks, riffs and calloused fingers later Po was recruited as drummer. At the first practice with Po he brought his mate Tom along who just so happened to have his guitar and amp in the back of his car, he then proceeded to wow Jesse and Adam with his super dextrous fast forward style of playing. Because of this and how he gelled with Adam. Jesse and Po he was soon asked to join and accepted.
After a few more weeks they had written a handful of songs and by the early summer of 2005 "Dirty" Mike Hibbard joined as chief vocalist and pretty soon they started gigging in Sheffield. They then went on to record a demo of 4 of our songs in November of '05 plus two more tracks (Bererker and Defiance) which showed an even more epic and adventurous side to the band in the summer of '06.
In early '07 Opinicus parted ways with their original drummer Po which then lead to a relatively brief drummerless period of time. After those few weeks they were hooked up with an old mate, James Magennis (who Adam, Tom and Jesse have played with separately in past bands/projects a number of years back) James was quicky on board and has now established himself as a important part of the band and the driving beats behind Opinicus.
In the summer of '07 Opinicus recorded their EP "From the Ashes" which displayed a more epic side to the bands style and that they had developed their style for these songs with more brutal riffs, a more melodic feel to also appeared in contrast and a flair for blazing guitar solos. More importantly Mike stepped up his game even further by introducing more varied vocal styles. This then led to more gigs around the UK and Opinicus' first music video for the title song which was self produced, directed and edited by Jesse along with the help of a highly skilled crew. The video has brought them further acclaim and notoriety in the UK underground metal scene and was featured as Rock World TV's top unsigned band video.
Tom parted ways with Opinicus in October '08 on very good terms and continues to be a close friend of the remaining members. They are now in the process of working on new material and making new plans for the future of the band.
the band is definately here to stay for as long as possible with a view to taking things as far as they can go and evolve their music and keep pushing their musical abilities but still aim to create well structured songs, record and keep putting on entertaining live shows.
Opinicus do what they do because they love doing it, simple as. If anyone else likes it well thats just a bonus, and a big thanks goes out from the band to the fans and the people that have supported them over the past 4 years and continue to do so.
Saturday 4th October 08 Sheffield Redhouse THEKEVORKIANSOLUTION (partygrind from sheff) HEY COLOSSUS (heavy from london) MOLOCH (ex army of flying robots play dark sludge) RACHMANITE (fka podge n tom)
Hello OPINICUS we had a few complaints last week that we were using a MySpace program to send out our messages. So believe this when we say that you OPINICUS are very important to us, just as important as the other 1000 people who are on my personal and the Exiles MySpace page. OPINICUS you may think that you aren’t special to us but OPINICUS Exiles (like Metallica) loves you.
So where OPINICUS are you going to get your fix of awesome music this week because Exiles Birmingham’s Genre Straddling Rock Behemoth is just itching to give you OPINICUS a dose of sticky Rock infection every Thursday leaving you OPINICUS feeling dirty and molested. Speaking of molested Marshall made a flyer, thankfully so did Tim Ki Kydd who is partly responsible for our awesome website. Check it out at exilesbirmingham. co. uk
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This Saturday I am stage managing at Project X and you have to look at some of the links below to believe how awesome this event is.
Brand new EP out right now for fans of Whitechapel, Suicide Silence and Despised Icon. Pre-order your copy now for just £3 by clicking the image above.
So OPINICUS we have a wonderful plan for this Thursday night.
You definitely should go and see The Mirimar Disaster, I am Colossus, Slab and Mothertrucker at the Asylum ........and then you should pootle on down to Exiles and get all drunk with all the aforementioned bands as they will be coming out to play and celebrate being awesome altogether.
If you turn up with a ticket stub from the gig we will let you in for £2 where you can boogie on down to Rock music not normally heard in Shiny Brummingham.
Check out our website and see what awesomeness we’ve been playing.
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