PureVolume

Members: Aaron Rogers--guitars, bass, programming, Preston Goodman--guitars, Isaac Sanchez--bass, Zack Martin--vocals

Arkansas/Florida-based melodic metal; GIT-educated guitarist; currently searching for singer--songs have no vocal tracks.

Devolve is:
Aaron Rogers: guitars, bass (studio), keyboards, programming
Preston Goodman: guitars
Isaac Sanchez: bass

History of the band:
In 1996, sixteen year-old Aaron Rogers, originally of Batesville, Arkansas, population 9,986, formed a band with his twenty-four year old brother, B.J., on drums. B.J.'s fifteen year-old brother-in-law, Jeremy McSpadden, agreed to play bass. B.J.'s musical tastes had influenced Aaron growing up, who decided to form his own band after being inspired by his older brother and uncle Stacey Hutchison's other band, Mudrope. Throughout the late 1990s, Aaron was particularly fond of the melodic death metal coming out of Gothenburg, Sweden, as exemplified by bands like In Flames and Dark Tranquillity. This music was known as the Gothenburg Sound, and, with the rare exception of Florida death metal (as exemplified by the genius of Death's Chuck Schuldiner, Aaron's favorite guitarist), it outclassed American heavy metal throughout the grunge/alternative dominated mid and late 1990s. However, for the next year the band wouldn't do much but play in Aaron's parents' basement, which also doubled as the Mudrope rehearsal room.

In October, 1996, McSpadden had to leave the band due to scheduling conflicts, and B.J. stopped playing music after Mudrope's demise. McSpadden was replaced on guitar by Aaron's best friend, sixteen year-old Preston Goodman. Aaron and Preston have been the heart of Devolve ever since, collaborating on writing many of the songs and recording demos. Later in 1997, they recruited their mutual friend, seventeen year-old Greg Holland, on bass, but once again, scheduling conflicts arose. By the end of 1998, Aaron and Preston were again on their own, but continued to write songs and record demos. In 1999, Aaron recorded rough demo versions of over a dozen songs that he and Preston had written since 1996. Some of these songs, such as "Destruction", "Desolate" (the band's first song), and "Foresight", would later appear on the Devolve demo, "Frailty (of the Human Atlas)", finished in 2006.

By the time the two graduated from high school in May, 1999, Aaron and Preston had agreed to go their separate ways, but to remain in touch. Aaron, thanks entirely to the loving support of his close family, went on to study at the Guitar Institute of Technology at Musician's Institute in Los Angeles, California, from 1999-2000, while Preston spent a semester at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, Arkansas, intending to become a cardiologist. Aaron would intensely study under GIT instructors Ken Steiger, Lupo Groinig, Danny Gill, Masaki Toraiwa, and others over the next year. It was the most intense and difficult year of his life, but it would prove to be crucial to the band's musical growth. It was in 2000 that "The Search", another track that would appear on the 2006 demo and inspired by the British band Bush's single 1996 "Greedy Fly", was written.

In February, 2001, Aaron relocated back to Batesville, Arkansas and reunited with Preston. The two lived together in an old house and recorded more demos while attending community college, with Aaron focusing on liberal arts and Preston pursuing an associate's degree in computer networking. Originally, Aaron was burnt out and had no interest in playing guitar again, but Preston encouraged him with new, exciting material that he had written on slow nights working as a projectionist at a second-run theater. This material became "Man on a Mission" (about violence prevention being too gun control, as opposed to psychologically, centered and the 1999 Atlanta shooting spree of daytrader Mark Barton) and "Frailty (of the Human Atlas)", the first two tracks on the 2006 demo. Preston was also instrumental in assisting with the technical aspects of the album: prior to this time, the two had recorded all of their demos on a Tascam MKII 8 track cassette recorder. In 2001, Preston obtained a copy of Cakewalk Pro Audio 9, and, slowly but surely, the two taught themselves how to record on the PC.

In December, 2001, Preston moved out, and Aaron continued to pursue his associate's degree in liberal arts while working on demos. "The Search", recorded in the old Batesville house in 2002, was the first song recorded digitally and would later end up on the 2006 demo. New songs such as "Don't Ask Me Why" were also written at this time.

With only "The Search" completed, in August, 2002, after obtaining his associate's degree in liberal arts, Aaron relocated with his family to Conway, Arkansas, about 120 miles to the southwest of Batesville, to attend Hendrix College, a private Methodist-affiliated liberal arts school that Aaron had been interested in before deciding to go to Los Angeles, in order to obtain his bachelor's degree in history and international relations. At the time, Aaron, who was born with cerebral palsy, an orthopedic condition that limited his mobility, felt that he would be unable to pursue a career in music due to the physical rigors of touring and being on stage. Thinking he would become an American diplomat in Canada and take up a secure job in U.S. government service, again, Aaron allowed music to take the back seat to his university studies.

In 2003, Preston joined the U.S. Air Force and relocated to Fort Walton Beach, Florida, with his new wife and step-daughter. Unfortunately, this situation did not work out, and eventually, with more room to set up equipment, Preston began writing and recording music again independently of Aaron. Aaron and Preston continued to talk nearly daily, but due to their being so far apart, Aaron continued to record the 2006 demo on his own in Arkansas, although Preston helped him write nearly half of the tracks. From 2002-2004, final versions of "Man on a Mission" (complete with Preston's AM radio vocals that had been created with a transistor radio science kit back at the Batesville house in 2001), "Frailty (of the Human Atlas)", "Destruction", "Don't Ask Me Why", and "Foresight" were recorded in Aaron's Conway apartment. Also included were covers of Brazillian death metal band Sepultura's 1993 track "Refuse/Resist" and 70s/80s British industrial act Killing Joke's 1994 single "Millennium" (an older song of theirs, "The Wait", was covered by Metallica on Metallica's 1987 "Garage Days Revisited: The $5.98 EP" album).

From 2002-2005, Aaron was very busy, studying at Hendrix, the University of Central Arkansas in Conway, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, and Queen's University, in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Aaron, encouraged from his many Canadian friends, some of whom he had known for ten years, wanted to relocate permanently to southern Ontario, thinking that an eventual marriage to a friend would be possible and that a career with the U.S. State Department in Ottawa or Toronto would be easy to obtain due to the new U.S. government focus on creating diplomatic and military jobs in the Middle East. However, these opportunities did not materialize, and a number of important relationships, both in Conway and in Kingston, failed during his studies, making this an extremely difficult time (one that even included a brief stay on suicide watch in a mental hospital in Little Rock in 2004). Still, the long winter term with little to do in the "Limestone City" of Kingston encouraged Aaron to write Devolve's most aggressive track, "Nothing Sacred", while the hospitality of his Canadian friends Eric DeLong and Richard Goette encouraged him to move on with life.

Aaron returned to Arkansas in April of 2005 and continued to write and complete tracks while his university studies wound down. A final version of the old song "Desolate" was finally finished, as well as a cover of the 1995 Mudrope song "Soldiers of the Lost Cause", which was completed as an homage to his older brother and uncle. It remains faithful to the original, especially regarding Aaron's brother's excellent drumming. Aaron also completed recording "Nothing Sacred", which, with its fast, death metal-style complicated drum tracks, was made much easier to record with the use of sampled drums. The song also came in two versions: the original had movie dialogue from the classic 1957 David Lean war film "The Bridge on the River Kwai", which Aaron and Preston had watched during Preston's job as a projectionist in 2001. Aaron enjoyed most historical films and, finding the acting at once humorously melodramatic and yet very moving, he mixed pieces of the actors' lines in with the song in places as an inside joke between himself and Preston. It actually benefitted the song, but due to copyright issues with Sony Pictures/Columbia, the song had to be released without the movie's dialogue, which became the "edited" version. The last song to be recorded had been in the writing and arranging stage since 2002, when Preston and Aaron would collaborate on riffs during Preston's many visits home to Arkansas from Florida. This became "Terra Incognita", a track that's opening riff, written by Preston, was inspired by Metallica's "Enter Sandman". Speaking of Metallica, Aaron also recorded a cover of the very first song he had ever learned, Metallica's 1996 single "Until It Sleeps", from their controversial and much-maligned "Load" album.

Aaron's studies concluded in December 2005. From January to April 2006, he applied finishing touches to "Nothing Sacred", "Terra Incognita", and "Until It Sleeps". Lacking direction due to his priorities changing in Canada, in April 2006, Aaron decided to move in with Preston down in Florida to work on new material while trying to find work. Eventually, with his new degree he hoped to finance studies at Orlando's Full Sail audio engineering school and then to incorporate Devolve with the remainder of the Orlando death metal movement that had been popular in the early 1990s. During this time, Preston was deployed with the U.S. Air Force to Kyrgystan. Still, the two managed to write more riffs and work on a few covers that will eventually be released.

Aaron stayed in Florida for a year house sitting for Preston and eventually moved back to Conway in the summer of 2007 after having served as a tutor for a local Florida school district. Hampered by his disability in finding work in the highly physical, heavily touristy, military, and hospitality-oriented Fort Walton area, he nevertheless entered a Florida teacher's certification program. He also completed the distorted rhythm guitar tracks for "Until It Sleeps" in Preston's apartment, as he was dissatisfied with the ones he had originally recorded before leaving Conway. These, in addition to small changes made to "Nothing Sacred", would be the very last tracks added to the 2006 "Frailty (of the Human Atlas)" demo. It had taken over ten years to write and record and timed in, with the covers, at 1 hour, six minutes and 33 seconds, far longer and more intricate than many bands' first offerings, with Aaron having played or programmed every instrument on every track, in additon to mixing. Aaron completed assembling the artwork, which he had collaborated on with Preston since their Batesville days in 2001, in Florida, and began printing demo copies with full artwork included on a per-item basis in an attempt to entice a singer, drummer, and bassist to join the band for live shows. The CD booklet included many Renaissance and Baroque-era paintings by such masters as Rubens and Rembrandt, Aaron's favorite artist. Rubens's "Chronos Devouring His Children" became the cover for the CD, and a variety of Greek sculpture that tied in with the "human atlas" (frail humanity struggling with the weight of adversity) concept was also included. While in Florida, Preston and Aaron connected with a couple of Preston's Air Force buddies, bassist Isaac Sanchez (whom Preston had met in Kyrgystan) and singer Zack Martin, adding new members into the band for the first time in nearly ten years. Although Zack had completed a couple of songs worth of vocal tracks (which can be heard on the Devolve MySpace site), as of 2008 his status in the band is uncertain. Due to the technical nature of the drumming and the expense of a large heavy metal drum set, the band still does not have a drummer.

After Florida, Aaron briefly flirted with attending Middle Tennessee State University's recording arts program in Murfreesboro, near Nashville. It was only seven hours away from the Conway area, which would have allowed him to see his family far more often than in Florida, which was ten hours away. Still, the economically unstable situation of the American recording industry since 2000 persuaded him to go back into teaching again, and so he entered a master's program in teaching at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway in August, 2007, with an emphasis on secondary social studies and special education. He anticipates being finished with this program by the end of 2009, and is currently updating his home studio and giving guitar lessons throughout the greater Little Rock area, as well as researching and writing articles dealing with Arkansas history. He continues to play guitar daily when possible and is a serious student of the instrument, supporting not only expanded musical education programs in public schools (not just brass bands for football teams) but also the creation of a fair, equitable recording industry that respects musicians and intellectual property rights. Preston Goodman still serves with the U.S. Air Force, paints, grows the occasional banzai tree or two, and enjoys working on anything mechanical or electrical. The two continue to write and collaborate on new music and cover songs when possible. Aaron also remains on good terms with his former teachers back in Los Angeles, as well as many of his former university professors.

Due to his varied academic interests, Aaron normally writes the lyrics for Devolve songs, which normally deal with standard heavy metal topics as feelings of inadequacy, loneliness, depression, politics, psychology, religion, war, fear, suicide, death, unrequited love, romance, and the quest for meaning and personal enlightenment in life. Perhaps an important exception to the standard lyrical content is the condemnation of political leaders who use the rage of the impoverished to justify the imposition of violent leftist totalitarianism. Aaron is personally concerned with the rise of unstable, far-lefist movements in the developing world (as advocated in the music of Rage Against the Machine and Lamb of God and as personified by political figures like Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe) and the relative support of some of these ideas on some college and university campuses. In the context of the lyrical content, the point of many Devolve songs ties into the band's very name: in many cases, while vengeful, militant "revisionist" elements feel they are improving upon the world's legacy of imperialism, racism, poverty, and war, they are far too zealous and idealistic. They are actually "devolving" back into primitive, hateful beings whose solutions for the ills of the world are often as destabilizing as the problems they are meant to address. Such forces are good at destroying the old order, but are rarely up to the task of reaching a consensus about what should be in its place.

Devolve's mission in the mid to late 1990s was to eventually be part of a movement that would bring back to the fore highly produced, technical, melodic music as was originally created by the band's influences in the 1980s and early 1990s, most popularly, Metallica, Megadeth, Pantera, Slayer, Iron Maiden, and Judas Priest. The band also seeks to incorporate other influences into its sound such as 80s pop (Genesis, Phil Collins, Def Leppard) some aspects of rap metal (Korn, the Deftones), and 90s alternative (Bush, Soundgarden). Much of this has come to pass since the rise of the "metalcore" movement (the American answer to melodic, technical European heavy metal) began displacing rap metal and alternative in the U.S. in the early 2000s. Still, even with heavy metal somewhat back into popularity, the band intends to distinguish itself with creative, well-written songs, great musicianship, and relevant, socially conscious lyrical themes. Aaron, Preston, and Isaac hope to have another full-length CD finished by 2010.

The songs on this site are Aaron's completed demos for the 2006 "Frailty (of the Human Atlas)" album. On the Devolve MySpace site, run by Preston, are a few tracks with Zack's vocals, mixed and mastered by Preston over the top of Aaron's original instrumentation.