MickDeth

For the former English football player called Mick Morris, see Mick Morris (footballer).

MickDeth
MickDeth on Warped Tour 2006 in Washington
Background information
Birth name	Mick Richard Morris
Also known as	MickDeth, Mr. Deth
Born	March 9, 1978 (1978-03-09) (age 33) Salt Lake City, Utah
Genres	Metalcore, hard rock, heavy metal, alternative metal
Occupations	Musician, bassist, guitarist
Instruments	Bass, Guitar
Years active	1994–present
Labels	Trustkill Records, Epic Records
Associated acts	Eighteen Visions, Clear, Die Die My Darling, Elsewhere, Bleeding Through

Mick Richard Morris, better known as MickDeth, is an American bassist and guitarist. He was a part of the bands Eighteen Visions, Clear and Misfits cover band, Die Die My Darling.

Biography

Mick was born in Salt Lake City, Utah on March 9, 1978. He was raised there along with his three sisters and brother by his grandparents. At an early age, he adopted the straightedge lifestyle, having grown up in an environment where drugs were very prominent in his life. With such things surrounding his world, Morris decided that he did not want a part of it, ever.^[1] As Mick made mention, "Living in Salt Lake City, if you wear anything 'satanic'—even straightedge because in Salt Lake, that is considered a gang—you can be kicked out of school."^[2] Morris attended Highland High School. During his time at Highland High School, he was in the band Elsewhere. Mick dropped out of high school to pursue his music career, originally supposed to graduate in 1996. Though he returned to get his diploma, and graduated when he was 20, in 1998.

Mick got into music very early on in life. Ever since he saw Metallica's video for their 1989 single "One", he knew he wanted to play music. His father was always supportive of him, playing the guitar himself. He picked up the guitar when he was twelve years old. Morris has been listening to classic rock, punk, 80s metal, thrash and death metal, hardcore, and gangster rap.

Mick has been getting tattoos since he turned twenty. His first tattoo was "DRUG FREE" on his forearm in Milwaukee on Clear's second tour. He has lost count of the number of tattoos he has gotten over the years, but he has stated that he has almost 100 skulls and 200 letters on his body. His most notable tattoos are "LIFELESS" across his knuckles, paying tribute to a fellow SLC band, and a portrait of Dimebag Darrell on his calf done by Kat Von D (which was briefly shown on the show Miami Ink).

When Morris moved to California, he held a job at Paul Frank from 2000 until 2003 (when Eighteen Visions became a full time band). He has modeled for To Die For Clothing as well as Shockhound.com.

Morris was also a judge for the 7th annual Independent Music Awards.

Recently on his Twitter profile, he announced that he has not been straight edge for two years.

Clear

Clear (originally XclearX) was a Straight Edge Hardcore band from the mid-90s out of Salt Lake City. Mick had always been a fan of the band, going to all of their shows. One day in 1997, Morris received a phone call and was asked to try out for the band when their previous guitarist left.^[3] They wrote and recorded a full-length, Deeper Than Blood, which was released in 1999. After Josh left Clear, they added a replacement guitarists and did another tour. After that tour, Mick announced that it was his turn to part ways with the band, mostly for musical differences and stating that they were not really writing songs anymore. Once Mick left the band in 2000, Clear decided not to continue on without him. In February 2007, Clear played a reunion show on February 16, 2007 at the SLUG 18th anniversary show. On the day of the show, Mick stated that he's "never felt the same passion for another band that I felt for Clear."

Eighteen Visions

In late 1999 and early 2000, Clear and Eighteen Visions did an east coast tour together. Six months later, he got a phone call from singer James Hart asking him if he wanted to join the band as bass player. Mick immediately said yes, packed his things up and moved out to California. Before joining Eighteen Visions, Mick had never played bass in his life. During his time in Eighteen Visions, Mick recorded five albums with them. They toured the world, gaining fame and fans. After recording Obsession, they signed to major label Epic Records. On April 9, 2007, Mick announced that Eighteen Visions was no longer.^[4]

Other bands

Elsewhere

Elsewhere was a shoegazing, goth rock band from Salt Lake City that started in high school. Mick has described it to be similar to The Cure and Joy Division. They were on the label Eden's Watchtower.

Die Die My Darling

Die Die My Darling is a Misfits cover band from Orange County. Mick took a part of Die Die My Darling with fellow Eighteen Visions member Ken Floyd, Bleeding Through's Brandan Schieppati and ex-Burn It Down member, Ryan Downey. Mick played two of three shows with the band, one in 2003 at the Show Case Theatre in Corona, CA and one in 2005 at the House of Blues in Anaheim, CA.^[5]

Bleeding Through

Morris filled in on bass for Bleeding Through during 2002 for their record Portrait of the Goddess album. He toured with them in 2002, appearing on the Hellfest '02, Furnace Fest 2002 and Bleeding Through's Wolves Among Sheep DVDs.

Post Eighteen Visions

Since the breakup of Eighteen Visions, Mick has toured with Hatebreed as their guitar tech on Ozzfest in 2007, on their spring–summer tour of 2008 and their Mexico City show in early 2009. He was working for shockhound (a part of Hot Topic) and he continues to sell clothes as well as occasionally his old equipment on eBay and craigslist.^[6]

Dethless Clothing

In 2007, Mick started Dethless Clothing. A couple of months after the breakup of Eighteen Visions, Dethless seemed to be finished before it really took off due to personal and financial restraints. On February 21, 2009, Mick announced via MySpace that Dethless Clothing is back in full swing starting with pre-orders on April 1, 2009. Starting April 1, 2009 at midnight a link was set up on the Dethless MySpace to pre-order the first run of blood splatter Dethless shirts. Also, a website is under construction for Dethless Clothing [1].

Equipment

• Fender Precision bass tuned to B with Dean Markley strings;
• Fernandes Gravity bass
• Music Man Stingray bass
• Ampeg SVT-4PRO and 8x10 cab
• Tech 21 SansAmp Bass Driver DI

External links

• Mick's MySpace

References

1. ^ http://www.quazen.com/Reference/Biography/From-the-Ashes-of-a-Dream-a-Star-is-Born.46273
2. ^ http://www.trustkill.com/in-the-news/view.php?id=144
3. ^ http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=302645987&blogID=356628592
4. ^ http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=70204
5. ^ http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=40253610&blogID=218998823
6. ^ http://i44.tinypic.com/23w7m1i.png

Persondata
Name	MickDeth
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	March 9, 1978
Place of birth
Date of death
Place of death