1994
Formed in October.
1995
Debut demo Unique was recorded in August in Take-One Studios and released in September. In the Autumn tons of demo tapes are spread world wide to all metal medias and the band gains favourable reviews everywhere and are being interviewed by magazines in almost every country around the world. In December the Unique demo is chosen as The best metal demo of 95 on National Danish Radio and Unique ends up being printed in around 1000 copies.
1996
Withering Surface are featured on the Extremity Rising compCD (released by Serious Entertainment) and shortly after the band sign a CD-deal for two albums with Euphonious Records/Voices Of Wonder, after having compared offers from other labels.
In September and October Withering Surface record their debut album Scarlet Silhouettes in Swedish Studio Fredman with producer Fredrik Nordström (known for his work with At The Gates, In Flames, Dark Tranquility etc.). Guest apperances by e.g. Jesper Strömblad (In Flames, guitarist).
1997
In March Scarlet Silhouettes is released world wide and gain great response. The international press praises Withering Surface and interviews are done in several bigger medias like Terrorizer (UK), Metalized (DK) & Metal Invader (Greece) and reviews are appearing in all relevant metal publications world wide.
In the summer Scarlet Silhouettes is selected to be licensed to the Japanese market and the band enters the Borsing Studio in Denmark in August to record a bonus track for the Japanese version of Scarlet Silhouettes.
In October the band enters the Soundzone Studio in Denmark to record a cover song of Mercyful Fate called The Oath for feature on a tribute to Mercyful Fate released by the French label Listenable Records in December.
Withering Surface is the only Danish band on that tribute CD! See the backpage for concert program in 1997.
1998
In April Withering Surface once again enters Studio Fredman with the assistence of Fredrik Nordström and Anders Fridén (In Flames).
The result is 10 new songs with a new approach being much more melodic, technical and atmosheric and less brutal,fast and aggressive. The title of the album is The Nude Ballet.
The album is mastered at Sweet Silence Studios (Metallica, Morbid Angel etc.) in May 98. After some line-up trouble and trouble at the record company The Nude Ballet Is finally released in Denmark in early December.
The response from the National press is incredible and is praised as one of the best Danish metal albums in years in National medias like B.T., Politiken, Gaffa, Mix, NRG & Metalized.
1999
Due to the incredible respons on The Nude Ballet, it is nominated for a Danish Hard Rock Grammy along with two other Danish bands, Saturnus and Superfuzz. Withering Surface, however, didn't win the Grammy, but did however get very drunk at the Grammy party which found place in February.
The international press are crazy about The Nude Ballet, which results in a lot of interviews. Withering Surface are e.g. praised in the biggest international hard rock magazines like Terrorizer (UK) and Rock Hard (Germany), Scream (Norway) etc.
The Japanese company Marque decides to license The Nude Ballet to the Japanse market, so in March Withering Surface enters the Aabenraa Studio with acclaimed producer Jacob Hansen to record the bonus track Forever Fragile. Withering Surface are chosen to play at Europe's biggest rock festival,The Roskilde Festival, in July.
This is the biggest highlight in the history of the band so far.... and Withering Surface convinced around 8000 people at the White stage on Sunday the 4th of July that they definitely are one of the best live bands in Danish metal
2000
This was a very tough year for Withering Surface. We had an incredible hard time finding a new guitarist after the departure of Marcel Lech in the beginning of the year which lead to the poor gigging situation of only one concert in Copenhagen with session guitarist, Jacob Zimmermann.
We had decided to find ourselves a new record label and went on writing songs for an upcoming album with only one guitarist. In September we entered Berno Studio (The Haunted, Deranged, The Quill) in Malmo to record a promo exclusively for landing a new deal. We had our old friend, Jakob Krogholt doing a lead on the song "Joyless Journey".
Jakob really liked what we were doing and we talked about him joining the band - and so he did. At first as a session guitarist, but later on it lead to his involvement as a fulltime member.
2001
The first six months Withering Surface were busy writing songs for the next album. After having got a lot of different offers from different labels around the world we fell for the small England based label Copro Records and signed a three album deal in June. Subsequently the recording of "Walking On Phantom Ice" began in the Berno Studio in Malmo with producer Berno Paulsson (who we grew fond of while recording the promo the year before) and co-producer Johan Axelsson (of Deranged).
The album was released in the fall and we embarked on a small winter tour around Denmark with death metallers Iniquity. The reviews were the big thing this time around. We were excitingly awaiting the critics from both the medias and fans since we had taken a large step forward with a totally fresh line-up and writing process as well as a new label and recording studio.
Our efforts were rewarded with killer reviews in both the most important medias as well as all the minor webzines and we experienced a huge increase in interest from all around the world.
2002
After the release of "Walking On Phantom Ice" we toured around
Denmark with our friends from Iniquity the first few months.
We were really eager to get on the road in the rest of Europe to promote the new album, but we couldn't find the right bands to tour with. Copro were also working hard on getting us on a tour and finally
it happened; They managed to get us on a UK tour with Opeth and Arch Enemy, which we highly appreciated, since the two bands seemed as a perfect match for us.
Furthermore we were asked to play the highly acclaimed Wacken Open Air in Germany, something we had always wanted. This was very much the long awaited year for our live experiences. We spent the last half year concentrating on writing material for the next album and played a few dates with Raunchy.
2003
We started the year off with saying goodbye to both Morten and Nikolaj. Morten was moving to the other end of the country and Nikolaj and the rest of the band had gone separate ways on several issues. A sad moment, but we all felt that it was right for us. Shortly after we hooked up with Lukas Meier from Sacrificial. He was mainly to help us out on our forthcoming tour in Germany and to play with us until we found a new drummer.
Before the tour we released the "Ichor" MCD which contained previously not and limited released material along with a live track from the Roskilde Festival in ´99. It was more of a "fan thing" and to show that we were still rocking. It was limited to 1.000 copies and sold out pretty quickly.
We had a killer time on the road in Germany along with old times compadres, Iniquity and Germanys own My Cold Embrace (who are also very cool dudes). After a quite chaotic trip (where we lost our merchandise stuff and Lukas was hospitalized with a kidney stone) we calmed down and started focusing on the next album we were supposed to record in the Berno Studio in June and release through Copro Records.
As we were getting ready to record the album, Copro contacted us three weeks before to tell us that they were financially incapable of meeting the economical demands for the recording... NOT cool at all, but we made the best of it by parting ways with them and decided to kick some serious ass on the new material.
We booked Tue Madsens Antfarm Studio in the fall and started to review the stuff we had written, rewrote and did some new stuff that turned out even better!
About six weeks before the recording we decided that Lukas couldn't meet our demands on prioritizing, so we left each other in good friendship. So we called up Nikolaj, who we were still hanging out with. He was very much into the idea of rejoining the band - at least for the recording. So we rehearsed as hell for those six weeks and took the chance to review, rewrite and do new stuff - well, guess you heard that one before... Nikolaj was really bashing away and brought a lot of fresh energy into the band. Felt good to have him back!
Anyways, we went and recorded the best fucking shit we have ever done - who would have thought that!!! But you'll just have to wait until next year to hear what all the struggles have produced
Source: Site officiel: http://www.witheringsurface.dk/
