Tyler Wolverton

Tyler Wolverton is a metalcore vocalist, band leader, and percussionist from Auburn, Washington who has performed and recorded with many groups during his career.

He is best known for his work as fronting the industrial/grindcore endeavour known as [http://www.myspace.com/codecmidicore Co/Dec] , and most recently for fronting the metalcore band [http://www.purevolume.com/surekill Surekill] . Typically playing an outlandish style of music with heavy screams and riffs, Tyler is more notorious for his stage antics than anything else. Although he has played only a handful of shows, most of them have ended with Tyler sporting a bloodied nose, lip, or other injuries, due to him "going totally ape and forgetting about physical pain," due to his steadfast dedication and passion for the music he plays Notably, Tyler has almost always been willing and able to assist friends on stage, eventually leading him to become a small hero in a very tight-knit local music scene. He has been in many bands and projects, including The Honky Tonk Murder, STAARS, Onyx Hammer, Matt Mayhem And The Murdercats, Surekill, and Co/Dec.

Early career

Wolverton started drumming at the age of thirteen. He is entirely self-taught, and began playing along with the songs on a local mainstream rock radio station. Eventually, his tastes in music would change, and his skills would increase. He then started playing along with some of the heavier and more complex CDs in his collection, such as Converge, and Between the Buried and Me.

The earliest official project was drumming with his friends Nathan and Danny. Sumo Night Club, they called themselves, was lo-fi rock act doing mostly covers. "Quite frankly, we didn't do a damn thing besides mess around, but that was fine by me. We were having a lot of fun doing that," he recalled in an interview with his friend's music website. After several months with Sumo Night Club, Wolverton decided that it was his time to move on, and pursue something heavier and more technical. Sumo Night Club would eventually recruit Michael Hayden as their new drummer, and Wolverton set foot in a new direction.

Honky Tonk Murder was a mixture of country and metal and, oddly enough, one of the better-known projects in Wolverton's early career. Most people knew that HTM was nothing more than a joke, but some people thought it to be a sincere musical endeavour. When reminded of "The MURDER," as some call it, Wolverton said, with a laugh, "“I guess you could tie it into my love of ridiculous, over-the-top music. Sure, it's not as insane as some of the solo crap I've done with drum and synth programs on my computer, but it's still one of those things that makes you think 'Whoa, what the hell?'”" Honky Tonk Murder became a joke at his highschool for a while. Wolverton, known in the band as T-Texas Tyler played guitar and vocals on each track recorded. The band went on to write a handful of songs before it disbanded, but not before their only song “I Been In Love With The Same Woman For Thirty Years... Don't Tell My Wife” was released on their myspace page.

STAARS

With Wolveton’s mind set to make out-of-the-ordinary music, he, along with his good friend Tony started an experimental drone metal project, dubbed STAARS. In this endeavour, there are no vocals and no percussion. There is only a downtuned bass and a downtuned guitar. It's safe to say that each dirge has a sludgy feel to it, as most drone metal does. For this project, he went under the moniker Jean-Michel, and Tony as Jean-Pascal.The band described themselves (somewhat jokingly on their myspace page as the following: "On a semi-drunken quest to find new music in the burning embers of a new year, Jean-Michel stumbled across a new genre that would change him forever. Initially thought of nothing more than a novelty, he would listen to a clip of the song 'Black Wedding' by the band Sunn O))) for no more than an hour at a time. The periods grew to two and even three hours, slowly taking over and eveloping his entire music library. Eventually, this song became so enthralling and time-consuming that he had to tell someone, and fast.One person came to mind. Jean-Pascal also initially thought of the aural sounds capes as a novelty, but later it overtook his musical library, just as it had done to his friend. The two of them would talk about it extensively, and listen to it incessantly. After listening to more groups of the genre, drone metal had become a way of life for Jean-Pascal and Jean-Michel. They vowed to start a band to not only pay homage to the subsonic demonoliths who blazed the path they travelled, but to also blaze their own."

Petty differences in ideals sent STAARS into a nearly two year-long hiatus. There has been talk between members of rekindling the band, but nothing has been confirmed as of yet.

Onyx Hammer

Since STAARS had ended, Wolverton had a new goal in mind. He was desiring to start a power metal band, and so he started Onyx Hammer with long time friend Matt Mayhem. Matt would pick up the primary guitar duties, and Tyler decided to fill in the spot of drummer. The two were the mind and body of the band, and had nothing more in mind than to make metal music for metal people. Critics who entered a practice session jokingly said that it was "too much metal for one hand." Eventually, that became the band's slogan and anthem. The group had some of Kent’s prime figures in music, featuring Shay Kinbabys on bass (co-founder of The Stigmatics), Plaid Lad on vocals, and Zakk Robbins on guitar. The band didn't last but a couple of months, due to scheduling difficulties between members. Again, another one of his bands was forced to snuff out its own flame.

Compression/Decompression

In the ashes of Onyx Hammer, Tyler Wolverton met another active musician in the local music scene, Steve Stigmatic, award-winning saxophonist who had been in many other bands including [http://www.myspace.com/deadmembers Dead Members Of Society] , [http://www.myspace.com/thecountedpunx The Counted] , and [http://www.myspace.com/NRNmusic NRN] . The two met at a party through mutual friends and discussed their varying musical tastes and influences. The discussion outlasted two campfires and many, many beers, and would lead Wolverton to show Steve some of the different elements of industrial music. After having several other discussions about music the two decided to make a mixture of noise, metal and industrial this leading to Wolverton’s most recognizable band, Co/Dec (Compression/Decompression). Steve Stigmatic was looking to make some new music, but became bored of the routine each of his punk bands seemed to have, so he decided to make some heavy industrial beats with his synth. Soon Wolverton decided to make lyrics and added his own touch of heavy metal vocals. After only a few practices, the two quickly made a demo entitled "“From Hell”". Co/Dec became a regular on the local Auburn radio station KGRG. "“From Hell”" became their first single on KGRG's industrial show, System Overload. Shortly thereafter, the duo produced the song "Plague" as their follow-up, but were unimpressed with the overall sound of the song, and so it became an internet-only release. After several weeks, there became a collection of over 30 unfinished songs, and three remixes of "“From Hell”". To go along with the rising amounts of songs to complete, there was a phenomenal spike in Co/Dec's popularity. After a band discussion, Tyler and Steve decided that a live performance was in order. A large house party with fans of their music was scheduled for the middle of March 2006 in a northern Seattle neighbourhood. Unfortunately, as popularity rose, so did the frequency of Tyler's drinking. The day of the show was a complete disaster, as Tyler had set out the night before, looking for a pre-show party. Apparently, he had so much to drink that he lost his keys at the house he partied at, and before he realised it, there was an hour before the show, and he was all the way in Tacoma. Luckily, Steve was able to contact Tyler and pick him up. Allegedly, when Steve finally found him, Wolverton was in pretty bad shape, without a shirt, covered in his own vomit, and passed out, sitting against a dumpster. This would lead to the cancellation of other future shows at other local venues such as Neumo's and Studio Seven, as well as the band being put on hold for a while.

Matt Mayhem And The Murdercats

Co/Dec went to fast into local success and was put on hiatus as both Steve Stigmatic and Wolverton knew they could come back anytime to release their EP on an as-of-yet to be decided record label. Wolverton looked towards a new pshycobilly band, Matt Mayhem and The Murdercats. He would return to the drum set and dish out a furious blast of sound. The band was fronted by long time friend and former bandmate Matt Mayhem, with Shay Kinbabys(bass), and Zakk "Madcat" Robbins (guitar), who were also a part of Onyx Hammer. The band would go on to play a few local events. Sadly enough, Shay and Madcat had to leave the band, due to them both moving away to go to college, but MM & TMC are still going strong, and looking for new members.

Current Endeavours

Tyler is now heavily involved with the metalcore outfit Surekill. A four song demo was recently recorded with a partial lineup (guitars, drums, vocals), but the vocals were removed, as he was very displeased with his performance. More recently, the band has undergone some minor changes. He and bandmate Matt Godsey have moved positions, and now Wolverton is on drums, while Matt is now doing vocals and secondary guitar work. The band is holding off on doing any more recording for the time being, as they are working to find a different variant on the metalcore genre that better suits each member's playing style. However, there is talk that a demo or EP may be recorded and released by mid-to-late spring of 2007. Wolverton and Godsey are also rumoured to be starting a new sideproject that they have stylistically labeled "black'n'roll," which is what they have dubbed groups like Satyricon.

He is also writing material and drumming for Matt Mayhem And The Murdercats. However, the band's growth has been greatly impeded due to the loss of two members who are moving away for college.

In addition to being put on hiatus, Co/Dec's other member, Steve Stigmatic, is moving with Zakk (guitarist of MM&TMC) to go to college, which will make matters more difficult in regards to recording and becoming active once more.