Eric started writing music with a sequencer and sampler under the impression of heavy music recorded using machines. Soon he invited guitarist Steve Stegg and bassist Lou Louvenir to play his new songs which were dark and moody. Eric dubbed the band \"Tapping the Vein\", its name was taken from the work of famous horror scribe Clive Barker. After a short period of working with male vocalists who couldn\'t make the band successful, the trio finally got lucky when a girl with a very powerful voice came to the audition. The girl (Heather Thompson) was asked to join the band and she was the one who made this music really explosive and energetic.
After recording a self-released EP (Butterfly) over a single weekend, \'Tapping the Vein\' started making the local rounds with shows. At the concerts the audience was truly impressed by this new project unlike by Eric\'s previous ones. When things were starting to take off, Steve and Lou left the band for their families\' sake, but the remaining two members, Heather and Eric, decided to search out worthy successors not to let the band fall apart. They invited Joe Rolland, a versatile player and a veteran of the local Goth scene where Tapping the Vein were also popular. Another new member was Mark Burkert, a classically trained guitarist who adored playing loud music. Soon the band recorded a second self-financed EP called Undone.
One of the good things happening to the quartet were national rock acts which included Depeche Mode, Alanis Morrisette, The Sisters of Mercy, Switchblade Symphony, The Damned, Gravity Kills, Type O Negative and VAST. This brought a large amount of fans to TTV and their music started becoming more wide-spread. This is easily evidenced by MP3.com, who recorded from November 2000 to January 2002, over 230,000 downloads of Tapping the Vein’s music.
In addition to the two EPs, the band was featured on the compilation albums The Unquiet Grave (Cleopatra Records), Diva X Machina (COP Intl.), Compe Noctem\" (Carpe Noctem magazine), Unheard (CDNOW.com) and contributed their version of \"Cornflake Girl\" for Cleopatra Records’ Tori Amos tribute album, Songs of a Goddess.
The next step was to find a label willing to take a risk on the band’s hard and unusual sound. Eric sent a demo to Nuclear Blast (probably the world’s greatest heavy metal label) and was surprised to find a message from the president of it himself in some weeks! TTV entered the studio with friend and producer Scott Stallone. The result is the debut full-length album The Damage and hundreds of gigs. Now the band\'s creativity is much more mature and their plans for future are also big. So, it\'s another good metal band in the world. |
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