Escape The Fate First Album

[Margaret Sigars]

Escapethe Fate is an American rock band from Las Vegas, Nevada, formed in 2004. Originally from Pahrump, Nevada, the group currently consists of lead vocalist Craig Mabbitt, guitarists Matti Hoffman and TJ Bell, bassist Erik Jensen and drummer Robert Ortiz. Ortiz is the only founding member remaining in the band.

The band released their debut album Dying Is Your Latest Fashion in 2006, fronted by founding lead singer Ronnie Radke. After Radke was sentenced to prison for his involvement in a 2006 killing, he was fired and replaced with Craig Mabbitt formerly of the band Blessthefall. Escape the Fate's second album This War Is Ours, their first with Mabbitt, was released in 2008 and debuted at No. 35 on the Billboard 200, selling 13,000 copies in the first week.

Before forming Escape the Fate, founding vocalist Ronnie Radke, lead guitarist Bryan Monte Money, bassist Max Green, drummer Robert Ortiz, and rhythm guitarist Omar Espinosa were in multiple bands all together. Later, in 2004, Monte Money created Escape the Fate with Max Green and Ronnie Radke, then inviting Robert Ortiz and Omar Espinosa.

In September 2005, Escape the Fate won a local radio contest judged by My Chemical Romance. The gig awarded them the opportunity to open a show on the band's headlining tour with Alkaline Trio and Reggie and the Full Effect. As a result of their show on the tour and their self-released EP demo, this subsequently led to Escape the Fate's record deal with Epitaph. Following their record deal, the band released their debut EP titled There's No Sympathy for the Dead in May 2006, which included two songs that were later on their full-length album. The EP was produced by Michael Baskette and helped earn the band attention from record labels and fans alike.

Later in September 2006, the band released their first full-length album, Dying Is Your Latest Fashion, which charted moderately on Billboard's Heatseeker and Top Independent charts. On November 20, 2007, they released the Situations EP,[2][3] it was also the last extended play that Ronnie Radke and Omar Espinosa made with the band.[4][better source needed]

On November 6, 2007, rhythm guitarist Omar Espinosa left the band due to personal issues and started a band called Perfect Like Me (after leaving The Black and White City).[5] Later, Ronnie Radke was involved in an altercation in Las Vegas that resulted in the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Michael Cook.[6][7][8] While Radke did not shoot Cook, he was indicted on battery charges, while the man who shot Cook claimed self-defense. These charges against Radke, combined with Ronnie's past troubles with narcotics and rehab, led to a sentence of five years probation.[9]Radke failed to report to his probation officer and was arrested in June 2008, where he was sentenced to two years in prison. Radke was officially fired from Escape the Fate in mid-2008.

The band turned to Craig Mabbitt, who was searching for a new band after leaving Blessthefall. Mabbitt had played with Escape the Fate on the Black on Black Tour, while with Blessthefall. After several trial shows he became the official new singer and they entered the studio to record their second full-length album, This War Is Ours. The album was released on October 21, 2008. It was the first Escape the Fate release to feature Craig Mabbitt as the lead vocalist.[citation needed] On October 1, 2008, the band released "This War Is Ours (The Guillotine II)" for download.[10] Copies of the album were made available to buy on their tour with Chiodos and Silverstein, even before the album's official release date.[citation needed] The official video for "Something" was released to MTV on January 12, 2009.[citation needed] The video for the album's third single "10 Miles Wide" was released June 9, 2009.[citation needed] "This War Is Ours (The Guillotine II)" is the fourth single off the album. The video was shot in Santa Ana, California on January 9, 2010. The video was released along with the deluxe edition of the album on April 27, 2010.[citation needed]

The album debuted at No. 35 on the Billboard 200, selling 13,000 copies in the first week.[11]Before the tour for This War Is Ours, the band had never completed a full tour. The band later went on the This War Is Ours tour with Attack Attack!, Burn Halo, William Control, and Black Tide. The band then joined Hollywood Undead and Atreyu on their 2008 tour and toured Europe during December.[12]

In 2010, Epitaph Records announced the re-release of the This War Is Ours album in deluxe CD/DVD edition with a bonus disc with many different features not seen before. The CD included two new never before heard songs, later identified to be "Bad Blood" and "Behind the Mask", an acoustic version of "Harder Than You Know", and an unreleased remix of "This War Is Ours (The Guillotine II)" called "This War Is Mine", remixed by the Shawn Crahan. It also came with a DVD that featured the new music video to "This War Is Ours (The Guillotine II)", as well as "Something", "The Flood", and "10 Miles Wide", as well as a world tour documentary and a behind the music feature.[13] It released April 27, 2010.[14]

Escape the Fate began writing a third record in early 2010, which eventually became Escape the Fate, which was released in November 2010. For the album, the band left Epitaph and signed to major label Interscope and had the record produced by Don Gilmore. Max Green commented on the album, saying, "This record is the cure for the modern day music epidemic, We are wiping the slate clean and re-writing rock music as you know it." The album spawned four singles: "Massacre",[17] "Issues",[18] "City of Sin", and "Gorgeous Nightmare".

The band had been working on the album since the release of This War Is Ours in 2008. Being able to completely form the writing and recording process with the current lineup for the first time, the band felt that the album would be a great representation for the band. This is due to the fact that when Mabbitt first joined the band, he felt very rushed to write a record and fit into an already established band. In addition, the debut on a major label also led to the band choosing to self-title the album. Lyrically, the album is heavier and darker than previous efforts, according to Mabbitt. In an interview, he explained the choice of direction for the album in that they were, "figuring out what we enjoy playing live, what we enjoy listening to on our record". Mabbitt feels that the past two albums have been working up to Escape the Fate and that this direction will continue with future releases. For writing, Craig Mabbitt expressed that he believes it is more important to focus on what the band enjoys doing rather than copying other bands for success. "[We] definitely could have been like, 'Oh, let's throw another minute-long solo, let's do a chugga-chug here, let's scream over this, and let's sound like every other band and put the same song on the record ten times so that we have a one song, ten different track album.'... we just like to be very diverse..." On working with producer Don Gilmore, the band said that he helped them "find themselves" and continue to push different parts of the song until they formed a record they were satisfied with. Mabbitt also praised Gilmore for his ability to perfect the album without affecting their music. Commenting on the album, Mabbitt feels that "This record has the heaviest song the band has ever written, it has the softest ballad the band has ever written, it has the craziest solo Monte has ever written. The whole record just has everything in it."[19]

For inspiration, Craig Mabbitt said that he drew experiences from many things, stating, "I wanted to write about every emotion that you can get from life, everything that kind of happens, every kind of story I've heard that really upset me." The track "Lost in Darkness" tells the story about one of Mabbitt's friends who was dragged out of her home and raped at gunpoint. Mabbitt stated that, "[She] was screaming for help and nobody helped her at all. Everybody just turned the other cheek. That was something that really struck me, and I see that happening a lot, just people not wanting to lend a helping hand to people when somebody is hurting... That's definitely where I went with that song." The second track, "Massacre", is about Mabbitt's past addictions and the things he did to overcome them. The ballad track "World Around Me" takes a broader view and was written about life in general. "[World Around Me is] about relationships with my ex and my child, everything accumulated into one song." The closing track, "The Aftermath (G3)", is the third song under the title of "The Guillotine" for Escape the Fate. The original Guillotine was sung by Ronnie Radke for Dying Is Your Latest Fashion and was about the video game series Halo. When Mabbitt joined, a song entitled "This War Is Ours (The Guillotine Part II)" was included on This War Is Ours and was also about Halo. However, the second Guillotine was written as well to relate to real-life soldiers in battle. For the self-titled album, Mabbitt wrote a third Guillotine track but did not want to base it off of Halo again. Instead, he wrote a more personal track about his father who was in the military when Mabbitt was a child. "[The] chorus, 'Now I'm coming home,' is an ode to my Dad and an ode to all the soldiers out there who are fighting a war for us and waiting to come home to their families." As a whole, Mabbitt feels that, "every track has a completely different underlying story to it".[19]

Vocally, Mabbitt experimented for the self-titled album. On both tracks "Lost in Darkness" and "Liars and Monsters", a track that appears on the Deluxe Edition of the album, he sang at the lowest pitch he has done yet for a track. On the track "Zombie Dance", Mabbitt described the recording process and that he recorded five layers of vocal harmony for the final mix in addition to little sound effects. He explained it was difficult to achieve the high harmonies and right pitches right for all of the tracks. Another difficulty he experienced while recording was boosting the endings of songs for an epic feels. Despite this, Craig stated he enjoyed experimenting and that he "can't wait to keep on going back into the studio and experimenting on a ton of different things."[19]

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