his is how it all started...
On May 13, 2003, a new force in metal was created. George Rose, a mutual friend of Ian McCann and Will Bozarth, introduced the two. Ian, a drummer, and Will, a guitarist and vocalist, joined forces. Immediately after the meeting, they decided to create some music to see how it goes. Will was in a band prior to this, named Death County. Within its walls were Dan Lehman on drums, Mike Simoni on rhythm guitar, Bill Schroeder on bass, and Will on lead guitar and vocals. Will was slowly becoming restless with the slow progress of Death County, so he figured he'd front two bands. Will and Ian began writing a song which turned out to last over 7 minutes. The song was dubbed "Distorted Mind", seeing as though it was the first song the band wrote.
The duo of Ian and Will decided to stay together, but needed more members. Will suggested they try Mike and Bill in to the band. Bill showed up for his band 'audition', but Ian was away for an hour. Will taught him the riffs to Distorted Mind within a half hour, and the song was then completed. Ian came back, the song was jammed to, and success was felt.
The next two weeks involved more jamming with Will and Ian to get used to each other. Drowned Mental Destiny was born. The intro acoustic and distorted riff was the creation of Ian a few years before. He wanted to put it in a song, so Will decided to put it in DMD.
Mike was able to try out after a few weeks, and things seemed to go fine. Although, on June 1st, Mike decided to leave the band. He did not have enough time to practice with his work schedule and school. This left Distorted Mind as a three-piece. They decided to continue, despite no longer having a rhythm guitarist. They made their live appearance in front of the Gloucester County Institute of Technology Talent Show on June 3, 2003. The set consisted of Drowned Mental Destiny and For Whom the Bell Tolls. They were given four minutes to play. They played for nine.
Out of complete boredom, the band decided to write an intro track. The two-minute long track featured a heavy gallop riff and a cheesy wannabe siren made by Will's guitar pedal. The song was later named Sodomy with a Blowtorch. This "song" has long since vanished completely from the band's catalogue.
DM began work on a song that had an interesting structure. Will had wanted to write a song, then have the second half of the song be the first half played in reverse. They accomplished this, and Lost in the Tears of Reality was born. The song was five minutes long. Bill went to Maryland on vacation, and Will began plotting on how to improve the song and Bill's death at the same time. Will twisted the song around and put a riff repeating in between every other riff. This made the song 7 minutes long. Will was not finished. Ian and Will composed a giant middle section to finally put the song at a phwahping thirteen minutes long. Bill came home. He got angry. He wrote bass lines like a nice little bass player. The Mooing Hawaiian-Polka-Video-Game riff was born. All was right with the world.
The next song to be written was A Painting of Winter's Darkness. We won't go in to detail with how it sounds. You can listen to it for yourself. This is currently the band's most "angry" sounding track. The song is about holy wars, and how religion is the only thing that causes them.
The band began absorbing ideas for writing a ballad. Bill wrote some really cool bass lines a while before he joined Death County. He finally used them in a song they called The Endless Breath. Recently, the name of the song has been changed to Division of Past to fit lyrics that Bill has written. Will ran out of ideas on putting riffs under the bass lines, so he decided to play what would be known as "baby notes". They consisted of single-note volume swells! Definitely not the most technical thing Will has written, but it sure makes listening enjoyable.
Frozen Reflections was created while Will was on a Morbid Angel and My Dying Bride kick. Listen to the song, you'll be able to hear it. The lyrics were written about a person peering into the river, and seeing their reflection. The reflection they see is not of current time, but of the past. They see them self having fun, being happy, having no worries, enjoying life. They wish to freeze this reflection and take its shape once again, but it cannot be done.
The band released their first official demo, which was recorded live on March 18, 2004 in Gloucester City, New Jersey. It was dubbed A Demo of Winter's Darkness.
As time progressed, they decided to record an EP. They hit the studio on July 20, 21, and 22, 2004. It was titled 'Thin Air and Empty Shadows'. The track-listing is 'A Painting of Winter's Darkness', 'Frozen Reflections', and 'Division of Past'. While going through two different sound engineers over the course of eight months, the mix was completed.
On April 14, 2005, Distorted Mind parted ways with original bassist, Bill Schroeder. Dylan Jackson took his place, and quickly began learning material to prepare for upcoming live appearances.
On September 27, 2005, Chris Barrett joined the band as the group's 2nd guitarist. Chris was removed from the band on October 13, 2005 due to a lack of involvement and drive to learn the material.
On January 19, 2006, Mike Simoni rejoined the band as the 2nd guitarist. This is looking to be a permanent change within the band. Songs are being reworked for the inclusion of a second guitar. New music is being written for two guitars, as opposed to the previous 'single-guitar' musical direction.
On January 24, 2006, Bill Schroeder rejoined the band as the bassist, replacing Dylan Jackson. This has caused the band to enter a time warp, as this completes the original lineup from May of 2003.