The Defiant

The Defiant

Origin	Cambridge, England
Genre	Metalcore
Years active	2010 - Present
Label	Fearless Records
Band members (from left to right)	Toby Decker, Matthew Bain, Kyle Davis, Garrett Spencer, Devin White
Past members	Lilly Williams

The Defiant are a metalcore band formed in late 2010 in Cambridge, England. They have released 1 EP and 4 full-length albums

History[]

Early days[]

The band was formed in September 2010 by friends Kyle Davis, Lilly Williams and Devin White, when they started recording covers of bands like Underoath, August Burns Red, Killswitch Engage and a couple of other metalcore and post hardcore bands.

Two months later Toby Decker and Matthew Bain joined the band and they released a couple demos on their myspace. The band played shows in small clubs, bars etc. around their hometown back then.

In late November 2010 they were noticed and signed by Fearless Records and they started working on their first self-titled EP.

Self-titled EP (2011)[]

Their self-titled EP, The Defiant was recorded from December 2010 to March 2011, and was released 25th March 2011. The EP had a straight metalcore sound with addition of traditional japanese instruments in some songs.

It consisted of 7 tracks and was very well received, with the lead single, Trapped Under The Ice getting around 10 million views on youtube.

First studio album Elements (2011-2013)[]

The band toured a lot in 2011 and 2012 to promote their EP, most notably they have toured with bands like The Devil Wears Prada, Memphis May Fire or Woe, Is Me. They were also a guest on Warped Tour in 2012.

A while after the 2012 Warped Tour Kyle Davis tweeted that the band is heading into the studio soon in order to record some songs for the new album. In October 2012 the band confirmed that they are working on a new album and that it will be probably released in summer 2013.

In December 2012 a teaser video with some ambient that later turned into a metalcore riff was released on the Fearless Records' Youtube channel. The video had only 30 seconds and was simply titled "The Defiant". The instrumental later turned out to be the intro of the first song on the album.

On the 5th of February 2013 the first single, titled "Bring Me Down" was released for the album. The single was overall well received, but some people critisized it for being notably softer than the songs on their debut EP. The song has more electronics influences than songs on their last album, and also a chorus that could be mistaken for a pop song, if not for the metalcore riffs and drumming in the background.

Exactly one month later, on 5th of March, the second single was released. The song is titled "The Chosen Ones" and it features Dave Stephens from We Came As Romans. The song is notably heavier than "Bring Me Down" and contains less electronic influences.

On 1th of May, the band confirmed that the album will be titled "Elements"

On the 12th of June the third, and last single was released. The song is titled "The Moment" and it contained little to no screaming vocals, and it had a really catchy chorus.

The album, Elements was finally released on the 26th of June.

It is the band's last album to feature former lead guitarist Lilly Williams

The departure of Lilly Williams and Deadweight (2014-2015)[]

After a tour in early 2014 rumours spread about lead guitarist Lilly Williams leaving the band. Two weeks later, on the 14th of February 2014 the band confirmed that Williams left the band because of personal reasons.

In early March 2014 the band announced that they are searching for a new guitarist to join the band. A couple weeks later it was announced that a long time friend of the band, Garrett Spencer is going to join the band and be the new lead guitarist. It was also revealed that he will also take clean vocals, while Kyle Davis will focus mostly on unclean vocals.

Garrett Spencer made his debut on a tour across Europe and the UK in May 2014, where he first appeared at a concert in their hometown, Cambridge.

After they finished their tour in late July, Devin White posted a photo of his new drumset with the caption "New stuff coming soon." This caused huge rumors about a new album coming from the band.

A couple weeks later it was confirmed on the band's Twitter that they will be releasing an album in 2015. They said that "it will be their best work yet".

For a couple months no one from the band or Fearless Records really spoke anything about the album, until in late November 2014 Kyle Davis posted a lyric from one of the songs on the new album "Underneath it all we are all the same, never knowing where to go, lost in our way". It later turned out that the quote was from the third single for the album, "Underneath It All"

On the 12th of February 2015 the first single was released. It was titled "Carry On" and it was the first song released to feature clean vocals from Garrett Spencer. Most of the fans really enjoy a subtle change in their sound, the song appeared more heavy than their previous work and a little bit more technical.

Two months later, on the 12th of April 2015 the second single, "Youngblood" was released. The song had really touching lyrics, about the band's fan who commited suicide.

On the 30th of June another single, "Underneath It All" was released.

A week later, on the 7th of July the fourth and final single, "Deadweight" was released.

The album Deadweight was finally released on the 12th of July 2015.

This is also the band's first album with Garrett Spencer.