Ceasing Hope to Undercast

 

Ceasing Hope

Like lots of kids, we had dreams of becoming great musicians. Ceasing Hope was a way to act on these dreams. Us: Zach, Derek, and Chris, would get together every once and awhile to jam out together. We called ourselves Ceasing Hope more as a joke, that is until we could find ourselves a real name. We never really finished any songs, but we did work a lot on creating music and learned some things that you must know to play in a band. 

Formation of Undercast

We didn’t really know Rob or Kevin very well in the beginning. We just knew that they were the missing parts to Ceasing Hope; that is a drummer and a singer. Rob and Kevin at the time started their own band called Undercast and were about a week into it when Rob talked to Chris about joining Ceasing Hope. The members of both bands got together and talked it over. We all agreed and formed into Undercast in April of 2004. Our first practices were at Rob’s church. Unfortunately, they weren’t very supportive towards us and made it very difficult for us to get together there. Shortly after the third practice, Rob decided that he wasn’t interested in playing with us anymore. For the rest of the time, Undercast got together in Zach’s basement every once and awhile, just to keep the band running.

 

Merick

 

The Birth of Merick

In September of 2004, we found a new drummer and started playing like a band again. Justin had experience with bands back in Maryland and Arizona, so it was easy for him to jump right in. We all thought it would be appropriate to start over with a new name (Merick) and to try from scratch. Justin was a big help to Merick in the very beginning. He really pushed us all to work hard and get on the right foot. On November 20^th, a month after Justin joined, we had our first concert ever. It was a major milestone to the band and also placed us in the music scene in Minot. We had two other concerts and put out an all Instrumental Demo out before Justin quit and moved back to Maryland.

 

Versatility of Merick

Right after Justin left, we began to look for a drummer to take his place. We knew a guy in a band that was very good and was up for playing with us. We contacted Dereck and he gladly joined up with us. Our style of music changed a little after the addition of Dereck, due to his hardcore background with his other bands. We all adaped our sound and began to write new music. On February 25, 2005, Merick had its first concert with our new drummer. The show went without a hitch.

 

New Sound of Merick

In the summer of 2005, our long time bass guitarist, Derek moved away to Fargo, ND to go to college at NDSU. We searched awhile and asked Keith, a guitarist in our sister band, Shinning Black, if he would play Bass for us. He gladly accepted our invite and we started working towards up coming concerts. Keith really brought in a new edge to the band. We began to create heavier stuff than what people were used to. We in turn changed our genre with the addition of harder riffs and louder, screaming vocals. Our first concert with Keith was on October 2^nd in 2005. We played an awesome show and our audience really liked our change of genre.