Daniel Martin - Guitar / Vocals

About Danny

That took over an hour so this may take forever....Deep down i've known all i want to do is play in a bitchin band, busting out hot licks! ever since the first time i heard freebird... I went from hating it on principal to immediately wanting to learn guitar/drums in the space of those 9 epic minutes! for my 14th birthday i received a right handed squire strat (despite being left handed) and from that moment on i.... well... didnt do very much with it. But eventually when i was 16 i started playing properly and forming cover bands, playing nirvana covers and the odd metallica tune. It was only when i started taking lessons from local legend greg davies that i really got into it. He taught me numerous things but more than anything he just made me want to play, sitting in a jam night drooling as he shredded my face off week after week! I became a regular at the jam night, where the majority of songs where classic rock, blues and metal tunes. I just couldnt get enough of bein on stage rocking out to songs like whole lotta rosie and doctor doctor!!... with slightly modified solos of course...

I eventually started a classic rock covers band with a few friends, but we found it extremely difficult to find a singer. One drunken night in our local we were discussing our dilemma when ZZ Tops Tush came on the jukebox. having listened to the 1st air guitar album a ridiculous amount of times i knew all the words so started singing to myself. My mates decided that i should be the singer in the band and my initial thoughts were: "you can f**k off!" but i decided to give it a try and after many a month of hollaring in my front room, i felt confident enough to let other ppl see me hollaring. The cover band didnt go far but then i was asked to start wingit with a few good friends from the jam night. What's better than playing all your favourite tracks every weekend and getting paid for it? the encore song being the song that started it all.... freebird!

After college i went to manchester uni studying biology. Pretty pointless as i dropped out after a term but it was here that i met dario and after finding out we both played guitar, the amps were immediately moved into the common room and we spent many evenings annoying the hell out of our mates! A year later i started a music degree at Salford uni, ending up with dario as a house mate. I think it was always on the cards that we were gonna start a band together eventually and it worked out perfectly to be when we were in the same house and could write, practice and bounce ideas off each other daily. There were unfortunately numerous line up changes initially, but eventually Tom was asked to join the band after seeing a tasty display at a roadhouse gig. 2009 was all about preparation, now in 2010 we're ready for action, i can tell we all enjoy the music we're playing.... and if u like screaming vocals, kick ass riffs and shredding solos you will too!

so keep any eye on this space and keep rockin cuz we fucking will!!!! \m/

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About Dario

Fuckaluckadingdong!!! Well all of the above is completely dependant on what day of the week it is! I actually wanted to be a drummer a long time ago but guitars are cheaper and annoy less family members. My first guitar was an old and battered Red and White Encore Strat that I paid a friend £50 for including an amp and lead... I got totally ripped off haha! It weighed more than me and sounded like a brick going through a blender! Anyway without it i never would have played in all those bands at school, gone off to Uni, dropped out and started a Degree in Music. And now here we are, I play Lead (and very occasionally rhythm) guitar in a band I love and hopefully thats all i'll have to do for the rest of my life! Jealous yet?

Live music is where it's at, don't get me wrong I love being in the studio and actually 'Creating' something but thats more like a piece of art... you spend days, weeks, months fine tuning, taking bits out and adding new things. On stage you've got that second to play something that works other wise it all goes tits up... but even when it does you can still pull it all back round. Leads fall out, pedals don't work and occasionally drum kits fall over... every gigs different and just because you had an awesome gig last night before doesn't mean tonight is going to be the same.

My first proper gig was seeing Fear Factory at Newcastle Uni (crowd surfing to Linchpin is something you just don't forget) whereas my second was [Spunge] at Northumbria Uni literally the day after... obviously i had no idea musically where I wanted to be. 16 was a pretty good age; a lot of time spent discussing bands, a couple of second hand CD shops and the development of Napster (back in the days where you were lucky to download a song a day) later and the whole Hard Rock / Metal thing seemed pretty natural. It's no surprise Hell To Pay is in a similar vein, hopefully with a few modern twists and turns along the way. We're not claiming to be doing anything drastically different, we just think we do it better than everyone else out there... We Will Melt Your Face Off!!

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About Tom

HELLLOOOOO CLEVELAND!!! Well, after been force-fed a diet of Bon Jovi, Aerosmith and Guns N Roses growing up, there is no surprise playing in a rock band was all I ever wanted to do! By aged 11, I managed to convince my parents that I wanted to play drums and the Christmas of '99 saw me get my first drum kit! This was a defining moment as I then started taking lessons and by aged 16 had my grade 5 at the Guildhall School Of Music!

During high school, I was definately the odd one out with my musical interests, whilst everyone else was conforming to the likes of Blink 182 and Papa Roach, at aged 14 I was going to gigs such as Maiden, Bon Jovi and Velvet Revolver, and discovering the likes of Metallica and Motley Crue.

Shortly after turning 16 me and 3 of my best mates formed a sloppy covers band, covering songs by our heroes, such as AC/DC, Guns N Roses and glam rock flag flyers of the time, The Darkness! Yeah we thought we were cool, playing massive shows to crowds of tens at birthday parties and jam nights. The high life of a gig a month and bus rides to gigs was short lived though as all of us were off in our seperate ways to University, Manchester been the city of my choice!

After 2 years of not playing a single beat, and thinking the dream had died, I hit the jackpot and heard of an original classic rock band auditioning for a drummer! I snapped the chance with both hands and nailed the audition. The May of '09 saw us land our first gig, supporting an up and coming band, Hell To Pay! We opened for them and then as they took to the stage, i stood jaw dropped at what I was witnessing, with quite possibly the biggest grin implanted upon my face. After that gig I continued gigging with my band, and about 6 weeks later, on a sunny June afternoon, i received a phone call from an unknown number. It turned out to be Dario from Hell To Pay and in the style of Steel Dragon, asked me to fill in on a gig for them. I couldn't believe what I was hearing and jumped at the chance, playing a killer show. After that, Dan and Dario asked me if I wanted to take the job full time, and now here I am, kicking ass everywhere we play, working hard in the studio ready to record the new EP! So all thats left to say is see ya' on the road in 2010!

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