Written down by Tobe Schmidt (from the official website, http://www.layment.com/)

How it began...

Djardes Jeromin and I knew each other from school and from playing the guitar in our local musicschool (Herne, Ruhrpott-area, North-West-Germany). After playing together in several projects we decided to form a band someday. That day came when he left his former band NIGHTMARE to form a classic Heavy Metal 3-piece, following the model of RAGE or SODOM. I was supposed to play bass. The only problem was I did not own a bass, so we had to find someone who had one. We found that guy in Manuel "Kelly" Marquard, who did not only own a bass but could also play very good. So I had the opportunity to play my instrument I had learned, the guitar. The part of the singer was taken over by a female called Pia Lupazewski, the drums, after a short intermezzo with a girl named Britta, were tamed by Henning Schulte. Some month later Moritz Fuellgrabe took the seat behind the keys.

The band was called VALORÉNÉN, an exact translation cannot be given, its some result of our insane minds. This all took place in summer 1996 and it took us until 1998 to play our first gig. Until then we had changed our name into LAYMENT. For this name there are many explanations, I cannot remember the real one. It has something to do with letters, ripped off the front cover of an amplifier, all mixed up, the forced misspelling of the word lament and some other reasons...

At that time Kelly had left the band and was finally replaced by my brother Julian "Raillord" Schmidt.

Pia decided to move to Berlin. Her place was taken by Britta Backhaus. Her voice changed our style more towards gothicmetal. We combined that with elements of Power- and Black-Metal.

Djardes formed a second band in 1999, called CRYSALIS. That band's importance for him grew 'cause we all had different opinions about what to play, and so he left in 2000. His place was finally taken by Holger Simon, who now plays with CUSTARD. We recorded one demo in October 2000, then the band split off.

Moritz and Britta play with SELFTRAP (see Selftrap.com). Henning plays with LAST MAN STANDING, I went to join the SLAVES OF CRUELTY and my brother Julian "Raillord" founded a band with our youngest brother Marosch.

When I left the SLAVES OF CRUELTY and the Band of my brothers also split up, we started thinking about how to build up LAYMENT again. Julian Ludwichowski (drums) and Kris Krajewski (keys) made the band complete. Live this package kills!

This was in 2002.

Now we wait for the things to come...

Tobe, Summer 2003