The Way Of All Flesh (band)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Way Of All Flesh Live, 12 June 2005 @ The Exchange, Edinburgh

Esprit d'Escalier; The Way Of All Flesh, 2005

The Way Of All Flesh is a gothic rock band based in Sheffield, England, originally formed in the mid 1990s. The original lineup consisted of Steve Jackson (Lead Guitars), Kathryn Rennie (Keys), Jasper Fisher (Bass) and Dave Redford (Rhythm Guitars) all students at the University of Sheffield and was completed with the addition of Simon Clifton (Vocals). This line up remained for their first few gigs until the departure of Jasper and Dave due to internal tension surrounding the amount of time they could dedicate to the band. The remaining trio continued to write new material with Kathryn Rennie taking up the bass guitar, forcing the use of an electronic sequencer for the keyboards, until Simon Clifton left Sheffield for a change of career.

After 9 months of Kate and Steve working on new material, Dave Redford rejoined the band as the vocalist and then 3 months later, inviting Kelly Dorset to join as a rhythm guitarist. 3-4 months of further practising lead to the first of large number of Sheffield gigs from 1999 through till 2001.

2000 saw the release of an entirely home produced 3 track demo. Due to an unfortunate hard disk crash during the final mixing a lot of the final parts were lost, including all of the final vocal takes and the entire bass track for one of the songs. Despite this significant set back, the demo was completed using pieced together practice vocal takes and eventually released in a small run. The CD cases were personalised in an extremely manual and time consuming manner, using various kinds of spray paints to create an interesting effect. A copy of this demo eventually found its way into the hands of DJ Dave Exile who started playing it at clubs such as Exile and Temple Tenebrae Tarantella.

2003 included work on a second demo at Avalon Studios in Sheffield recorded in 3 days. This three track demo provided their launch into the UK and Europe goth scene. Following promising reviews by Mick Mercer, Meltdown Magazine and Kaleidoscope Magazine, tracks from it were beginning to be played in clubs around the UK and in Europe and Final Resolve was included on the Strobelight Records release, New Dark Age Vol 2.

Much of 2004 was spent working on their debut album Esprit d'Escalier, entirely self funded and mostly recorded in Black Cat Studio 2 (otherwise known as Steve's bedroom). With the majority of the recording completed, they entered Avalon Studios in Sheffield to complete the mixing of the CD. This continued into early 2005, with the CD being finally released during August 2005 after last minute production problems at the pressing plant.

The band began gigging again in ernest in 2005, booking 13 dates around the UK including the Dark City Festival in Edinburgh, a 7 band Charity Event at Midian in Birkenhead and will end the year opening The Nightmare A'fore Christmas.

1 Points of Note
2 Releases
3 Notable Support Slots
4 External links

[edit] Points of Note

There is another band using the name The Way Of All Flesh. They are a Connecticut based death metal / hardcore band and have been using the name for a number of years now. The UK based The Way Of All Flesh have prior usage of the name however. The bands are aware of each other and there appears to be no issue between them.