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Tim
O'connor Tom Gattis Timmy
Meadows Billy Giddings
| TENSION:
Throughout
the early eighties DEUCE played a slew of live shows, opening for many
of the big name national acts. They
had constructed an elaborate stage show with various props, staircases,
pyro, etc. DEUCE
established a solid name in the underground, and extensive gigging had
given them a brutal live show where often bodies lay exhausted in the
parking lot, even when the headliner was on.
They
also recorded 5 or 6 demos that found their way to the tape trading
market in modest numbers. In
1984, DEUCE went into the studio to record a demo of the songs
“Wrecking Crew, Metal Paranoia, and Reach for Your Sword”.
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The demo was a huge step forward, and the tape started to get
allot of circulation in the metal underground, and fueled the appetite
of metalheads who were already following DEUCE from reading various
articles in Dutch mags. A
small label in New York called Torrid picked up on the demo and DEUCE
became, along with the mighty EXODUS, a Torrid record act.
Just before signing the contract, Mike Francis quit as DEUCE’S
bass player, and Tim O’connor entered.
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The
band flew to LA to record their debut album, “Breaking Point” at
Capitol Records. During
their recording, it was announced that the name DEUCE was taken, so the
band switched names to TENSION. The
band knew something was amiss with the record company when the album
took a whole year to come out! When
it finally did, a flood of critical acclaim followed, and TENSION got
killer articles in the large mags of the day like KERRANG, AARDSCHOK and
others. Despite incredible
reviews, the label refused any support, and the band never toured or
gigged off the strength of the album.
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By
that point it was clear that local gigging could not achieve the goals
TENSION had for themselves, and there was no outside help coming.
Timmy Meadows, the guitarist, and Billy Giddings, the drummer,
were becoming more and more immersed in their own business pursuits. In
1987, Tom gave the band an ultimatum: move to an area where metal was
more popular like New York, LA, or even Europe, or disband.
When the band fell back into the same rut of local gigs and
outside distractions, Tom left, and TENSION was over.
Tom later went on to co-form the band WARDOG, and unfortunately,
re-step the same problems that plagued TENSION.
In
the years that followed, TENSION grew as a premier thrash metal
act. History would show that indeed there was a future for the
band if they had wanted it bad enough.
In
1997, TENSION'S best works, along with liner notes and loads of photos,
was released on a cd called EPITAPH (see menu below). The cd
received worldwide acclaim as the product that TENSION should have done
from the beginning.
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