Born out of Desire to create harsh and heavy music... Locotus was born in late 1998 when Barry Koch, Chris Fowler starting jamming on old Metallica and Megadeath covers. After months of loud jam sessions, a drummer was found in the form of David Patteson who shared the same love for heavy music. After about 6 months of jamming the guys from the now fledgling band discovered a bass player by the name of Marianne Rapley playing for another band. After some short negotiations, she decided that Locotus was the go an joined the band. Once a front-man was found the format of the band settled as a 5 piece. After playing gigs and rehearsing with two different singers in 1999 and 2000 the band recorded their fist EP name the The First Assault. After the second singer was fired from the band due to lack of commitment, Chris decided that he would take over vocal duties permanently. With the new format of the band as a four piece, their sound evolved into the band’s now infamous brutality. Their second EP (which contained new material and some re-recorded songs from The First Assault ) named Past Demo(n)s was released. It contained crowd favorites like Craven and Fallen. This new sound was a hit with the metal heads of north Queensland. The band played over 50 gigs from Cooktown to Townsville over the next 5 years. In late 2003, the band hit the studio to record their next EP ‘Take Control’ which was released in mid 2004. In late 2003 they band hosted their own metal festival “The Metal Tank Festival” which far surpassed all expectations for attendance and success. With over 600 far northern metal heads attending to see 14 bands, the far north community made their voices heard.
In wake of Metal Tank, the Cairns music scene took a turn for the worst. The local gigs started drying up and no venue wanted to support local metal. During this dry spell the band undertook the recording of their last EP, ‘The final Insult’. Unfortunately, in early 2006 band exhaustion and tension took its toll and the band decided to take a break from music. Six months passed and the members decided to put the band into hiatus. As a posthumous release the Final Insult was completed and released in 2008. At the beginning of 2009 Chris undertook the massive task of recording all of the unrecorded songs that never made it to any release but were heavily rotated in their live set. This new release, a full length album is title 'Unreleased and Unrepentant" was released in August of 2013. Currently the most of the band members are active musicians and have moved onto to other projects. Dave has a new band named Harbinger that is currently playing gigs around Cairns. Chris and Barry are in the process of writing new material as we speak and may mean the rebirth of Locotus. More details to come. \m/

Source : Christopher Fowler