Isurus  -  The Early Years Part 2

By 2005, we had moved to London and were attending music college full time. We were living in a flat in Brentford, West London but did not have a full time rehearsal studio. We were using the practice rooms in our music colleges to rehearse and were playing our instruments for around 10 hours per day on average. 

In early 2006 we changed our Band name to 'Hume' which was named after the philosopher David Hume. 

We had still not found either a bass player or vocalist that fit the project and were networking in the colleges and at local venues trying to fill these positions. At this time our focus was on writing music and practicing our technique on our instruments. Looking back, 2005 to 2007 served as a time of very intensive study of our respective instruments and music in general.

Despite actively seeking to fill the empty roles in the band, we had not achieved this by the end of our courses in the music colleges. It was a very big shock to us that there did not seem to be anyone in either music college that had the same attitude and taste in music. In all honesty, the music colleges were mostly (if not completely) made up of people that were either fully intent on working as session players or who's life ambition was to be on stage playing to a backing track for the next Britney Spears VMA show. In truth, it was also the general focus of the music colleges as in 2 years of studying Contemporary Music Performance, not a single day was dedicated to actually writing or producing music. 

In April 2008 we changed our name to Isurus which we knew would be the final name change.

In early 2008 we had to move out of our flat. I moved to Ealing and started working in Watkins, an Esoteric Bookshop and Dave moved to Stockwell. I had purchased a Roland electronic drum kit and as such, Dave's flat became our new rehearsal studio for the next year, running up to the beginning of 2009. 

Throughout 2008, we worked very hard on filing the empty bassist and vocalist roles but despite dozens of auditions, we STILL could not find the right people for the job. We were certainly looking for unique (and possibly a bit crazy) people indeed. 2008 > 2009 was also spent writing tracks that would eventually be included in our Debut album 'Telos'.

Having not had a permanent rehearsal space in which to rehearse using my acoustic drum kit, we had also been actively seeking a full time studio. In Early 2009 we finally found a space to play / write and set up our equipment permanently. Our new studio (Atomic Studios) was based in Bermondsey, South London and by this point, we had a 24:8 Mackie mixing desk, Delta 10.10 Sound Cards, various mics, a large number of guitars and a huge drum kit.

Our luck also changed slightly on the band line up front in May 2009 when we had a response to one of our adverts for a bass player. The bassist that came to the audition was clearly different to anyone that we had auditioned in the past few years. His name is Martin Szomszor. 

Martin was a great fit immediately. He was professional, an excellent player, very creative and Dave and I both agreed that he was the man for the job. He wrote some outstanding bass lines for our tracks and attended rehearsals regularly. 

We spent the following 12 months (mid 2009 > mid 2010) writing what would eventually become Telos as well as very actively seeking the right vocalist. Our search for a vocalist had been going on for nearly 10 years by this point but despite the frustration, we continued to post adds anywhere and everywhere that we could. 

Despite a number of small successes in 2010, such as being offered a free day of recording in Livingston Studios, being contacted by a number of small record labels and launching a very successful Youtube Channel, the year was one of frustration and very hard work. We completed all of the tracks for our Debut album in 2010 but at the beginning of November, Martin announced that he was going to leave the band citing his inability to dedicate the necessary time to the project as the main reason. This was a very hard knock to us and although Martin had written some amazing bass lines for Telos, he never ended up recording them which I still feel is real shame.

Ironically, in late November 2010, we received a reply to one of our adverts in which we were seeking a vocalist. It said simply 'I am your vocalist. I'm in Rome but will be moving to London in January. Wait for me'. It was from Braun Amore. We sent him a demo version of the track Dark Matter and thought nothing more of it until January. 

We then received an e-mail in January 2011 from Braun Amore stating that he was in London and ready to meet up. We arranged a meeting and got Braun in the studio to see if he was all he'd said he would be. Well, it was quite obvious that HE WAS!! We were both blown away by the rough vocal tracks for Dark Matter that we recorded on that first meeting. We knew right away that we had found our singer. Our 11 year search for our vocalist was finally over. WHAT A RELIEF!!!   Braun was clearly a member of Isurus, having the same outlook, passion for music and obsessive drive for success that we had. He fit right in from day 1 and it's now not possible to imagine an Isurus without Braun as he's become just as much the core of the band as Dave and I.

This was possibly the biggest break through that we had made as a band in the 11 years since it was first formed and this began a new phase in the band and in many ways, this was the real birth of Isurus.