Chapter 2

It took us a while to choose a name, actually. We were all thinking of names, but most of the stuff we came up with was either too generic, or had already been taken. Finally, I saw the word "inquest" somewhere and found that there was only one band around with a similar name. (but they were called In-Quest and were from another country). Personally, I like it because there's no real connotation to it. It could be anything. You hear "inquest" and you don't automatically assume anything. Therefore, our image, and the way people perceive us is totally dependent on our skill as musicians and performers; and the quality of our songs. No image to mar people's first impressions.

After that we started learning songs and looking for bassists and guitarists. We began to see a really really nice vibe in our practices and I was actually kind of afraid of finding someone who was right for the job, but who didn't fit into the atmosphere. We tried out a couple of people, and then Alex mentioned that he had a guitarist friend who may be interested. I talked to the guy a little while later, and he agreed to come in and practice with us.

The first practice with Chris was golden. This guy was a better guitarist than me, and he learned riffs in minutes. He came to the practice drunk and managed to learn most of Haloed Thorns in about an hour. He was laid back, and we all had fun with him there. Our band was set. We began having regular weekly practices, and I taught Chris the three songs we had been practicing. These were Haloed Thorns, Aspiration, and Solution, from the "Ashes" album. Chris picked up the material fairly fast, and we began working on a new song.

Around this time, maybe a little earlier, I began to realize that my guitar playing skills really needed a boost if I wanted to keep up with Chris and Alex. Not only that, the music I was listening to, and the music that I wanted to play called for far more speed than my playing could provide. The problem was that since I was self-taught, I had never had anyone force me to learn to alternate-pick on guitar. I was good at down-picking, but it handicapped my speed and accuracy immensely. When Chris joined, I realized he could play riffs twice as fast as mine and I needed to step up. I began to practice alternate picking for a couple of hours every day. I started learning songs that were out of my reach speed-wise, but I learned them properly, with alternate-picking. Soon, I saw my technique start to improve, and in a couple of months, I was beginning to catch up to Chris.

The first song we wrote and put together as a band was Destiny In Flesh. It took us a really long time, somewhere in the neighborhood of a month, because we wanted to write the craziest thing we could. The guitar parts had riffs of varying tempos, time signatures, and styles all over the place, and the song set a record for the number of riffs crammed into 5 minutes. Alex went all out on the drums and figured out ridiculously technical fills and beats. We all had so much fun during those practices, just laughing at the insanity of what we were playing. Alex would hear a riff and put a counterintuitive beat behind it that somehow worked, and Chris and I wrote riffs that took hours of practice to learn and play without mistakes. I remember at one point Chris and I played a riff with eighth note triplets in a measure in 4/4 and a measure in 3/4. I had an idea for a basic beat behind it, and we played it through pretty much on the first time. Alex thought for a second and said "You know what, this is too easy. Let's treat the notes as just straight eighths and play this in 21/8." That kind of stuff became regular at practices and writing sessions. We began to write riffs and songs to make people think, and to make ourselves laugh. The crazier it was, the better it sounded. Unfortunately, a problem arose.

Alex was fed up with the Computer Science program at UCSB, and decided to transfer to the Musician's Institute in LA in the Fall. Not only that, during the summer he had a tour with his main band, Midnite Overture. This meant that ultimately, it would be very impractical for Alex to stay in the band past the summer. We all felt bad about it but decided to make as much as we could out of the time the four of us could stay together. In practices, all we worked on was writing and learning one more song, Undeceiver. Unfortunately, the last few practices were very difficult to secure, since the Linda Vista room was being used for end-of-school events and studying. Not only that, but we got our balls squeezed by the management of the place since they didn't want us using it so much. We were restricted to one weekly practice lasting two hours at a specific time. This was shitty anyway, but on top of that, we often got kicked out by RAs and people who had pre-planned events. Despite the setbacks, we also decided that we had enough material to go into the studio for a proper recording of an EP. So, by the end of May we booked SRS Studios in Goleta for two days to record drums.