BIO

From the liner notes of the re-release of Live To Die - Relived

Hailing from the unlikely home of “Thrashville,” Tennessee, INTRUDER originally released Live To Die in 1987 on Azra/Ironworks.  There is a lot of history leading up to this great album.  Drummer/Lyricist John Pieroni was a founding member before INTRUDER even had a name.  It began as a trio, in 1984, with Dave Hackley on bass and Dave Louden on guitar and vocals.  This lineup was a basement band that played Black Sabbath covers and the like.  No gigs were performed and they didn’t really care to name the project. When the band was ready to get out of the basement and start playing live gigs, they used the name Avatar ‘for about 2 minutes. Too many other groups went by the same tag, so they dropped it.  Dave Louden wanted to concentrate on vocals, so he brought in his friend, Arthur Vinett, to play guitar.  With Arthur joining John, the true nucleus of INTRUDER was born. Soon thereafter, Louden was out completely and Ronny CLINE stepped in as vocalist.  This quartet played lots of shows and went by the name TRANSGRESSER (they spelled it with the “-er” suffix on purpose).  Playing a mix of originals and cover songs such as Twisted Sister’s “Under the Blade” and Savatage’s “I Believe” they soon attracted a loyal following. The rotating bass player slot started once Dave Hackley was out of the picture and replaced by Garry Todd.  This lineup continued to play numerous shows in the South.  Eventually, Jimmy Hamilton replaced Ronny CLINE and this lineup recorded two demos.  The first demo was recorded on an ½ inch 8 track machine and included early versions of Cover Up and Live to Die. The second demo, recorded in a “real” 24 track studio, was sent to Dave Richards, who immediately fell in love with the band and signed them to Azra/Iron Works.  After the demos were recorded, John Downey, a veteran of the Nashville Music scene, took over bass duties for a very short time.  Todd Nelson, who remained in the band for all four releases, quickly replaced him.  With the lineup finally secure and intact, the quartet began to record the Live To Die album. It was during the recordings that they finally chose the moniker INTRUDER. 

The Live To Die sessions took place over a long period of time.  It was recorded at TREASURE ISLE, a top-notch studio in Nashville, where major country music stars recorded their albums. It took so long to record because they could only get studio time late at night and on weekends.  The upside of this was that they were able to record on first-rate equipment.  In fact, Live To Die was one of the first all digital recordings in the Metal world.  Tom Harding was the perfect producer for the job and continued to work closely with the band on the next two releases.  When Live To Die came out, it largely went unnoticed.  The album sold some copies in the U.S., Europe and a fair amount in Japan, but nothing too major.  INTRUDER always received a fair amount of press in Europe but perhaps not being a part of the underground tape trading market of the time hurt the band.  The TRANSGRESSER demos were not circulated on trade lists, therefore, the LP was not as anticipated as it could have been.  The lack of sales and knowledge of the albums’ existence was certainly no fault of the label.  Azra put out more Live To Die promotional items than imaginable.  It’s truly unbelievable how many Live To Die collectibles there are.  Everything from stickers to pins to picture discs to a saw blade CD to many different shaped 7 inches: blob, star, heart, monster picture disc, square, octagon and the list goes on and on.  There’s even a rare split single with DARK ANGEL.  The song “Cover Up” was the subject of most of these releases.  Different test pressings exist as do alternate covers (no artwork).  The CD and saw blade CD package were not released until 1990, a year after the band had signed to Metal Blade and released the great Thrash CD, A Higher Form Of Killing.  While a fantastic idea to try and alert new fans of the bands’ debut now that they were on a more high profile record label, Live To Die remained buried underground.  Even today, many fans of the band thought the three releases on Metal Blade comprised the entire INTRUDER output. 

It should be noted that the Live To Die era INTRUDER was a different style than the Metal Blade era.  Live To Die leans more toward the Speed Metal vein and what was considered Power Metal back in the day, whereas they changed to a decidedly more Thrash style when they made the jump to Metal Blade.  A Higher Form Of Killing was Thrash with unbridled raw energy, whilst Psycho Savant, their swan song, was a tight, more progressive brand of Thrash.  Greg Messick was the second guitarist in INTRUDER throughout its entire Metal Blade period.  It is important to note that the EP, Escape From Pain, released in 1990 on Metal Blade, basically as an excuse to tour, included three songs from the Live To Die album.  They were: “Cold-Blooded Killer”, “Kiss of Death” and “T.M. (You Paid The Price).”  Those with a keen eye would have noticed that those three songs had a copyright year of 1987.  “Cold-Blooded Killer”, was the only song of the three to be re-recorded at this time as a quintet with a thrashier sound.   Also, INTRUDER published their songs under the title “TRANSGRESSER MUSIC.”  Still, more interest in Live To Die did not surface. 

INTRUDER reunites from time to time. They headlined the Classic Metal Fest in Ohio in 2002 and they just returned  from a headlining spot at the Headbangers Open Air in Germany.  Of course, to keep with tradition, a different bass player was recruited for the gigs!  Chris Veach, a Metal veteran on the Nashville scene, has taken over the low-end duties for Todd Nelson.  As long as people still want to hear incredibly tight, awesomely played, lyrically thought provoking music, Intruder will be glad to oblige.

Eric Sanders