BIO

Band Members:

Thomas Metzler – Guitar

Twain Cooper – Vocals

Alex Astivia – Drums

Patrik Lercher – Bass

Biography

Mortician was founded in 1983 by five young metal fans in the town of Satteins, Austria. After several months of powerful practicing the band hit the stage for its first concert on the 31st of March in 1984, offering an amazing show for 300 metal maniacs. From then on the band played several concerts through its local area mainly at metal/rock clubs and biker parties.

In the spring of 1986 the band recorded its first demo “Street Warrior”, which received amazing feedbacks and motivated the band to go into the studio once again in the summer of 87 to produce the nowadays highly appreciated EP “NO WAR”, which has being recognized as a cult item among the specialized press and heavy metal fans.

After a lot of local success and the great reaction over the “No War” EP Mortician got selected as one of the best ten metal bands in Austria and was invited to play together with Sepultura and Sodom in Vienna on 1989. After this, also in the year 1989 the band recorded its next demo tape entitled “Break The Rules” and keep on with the hard promotional work playing concerts around Austria. In 1990 due to different personal reasons the band ended up splitting and each of its members took different paths.

After 19 years, in 2009, the founding members of Mortician, Thomas Metzler (guitar) and Patrik Lercher (bass) decided to reunite the band. As the original singer and drummer were not available any more they decided to hire Daniel Khan for the vocals and Antee for the drums. Shortly after the reformation the band signed a record deal with Pure Steel Records and in autumn of 2009 the entire Mortician material from the 80s was re-released under the title “No War and More”.

During 2010 Mortician was booked for the festivals “Up The Hammers” in Athens and “Keep It True” in Germany which gave the band the next kick and positioned it again in the sight of the metal fans from Europe. In November of 2011 the band went into studio once again to record its first LP called “Mortician” under Pure Underground Records label, which achieved a great response worldwide and was highly acclaimed by the press.

In this new era, Mortician shared the stage with a lot of great bands like Black Label Society, Magnum, Sepultura, Sodom, Tygers of Pan Tang, Demon, Raven, Biohazard, Lordi, Vicious Rumors, Jag Panzer, Leatherwolf, Jaguar, and supported the European tour of Lillian Axe. As well performances at the “Pounding Metal Festival” in Madrid, the “Metal Headz Open Air” in Germany, the “After Dark Fair” in Czech Republic, the “Metal Rites Festival” in Greece, etc.

In November 2014 the latest album “Shout for Heavy Metal” was released becoming an immediate success, with a great demand through the entire world and receiving great reviews from the media. As well, together with the release of the album, a final update to Morticians´ lineup was announced, directly from Mexico, the drummer Alex Astivia joined the band. Since then the band has focused on the promotion of the new album playing gigs all across Europe and started preparing the new songs for a forthcoming album.

Between 2015 and 2018 Mortician played shows in Austria, Switzerland and Germany e.g. the AAARGH Festival and supporting some great bands like Exodus, Night Demon, Poltergeist, Burning Witches, ect. while working in parallel on the new songs for their 3rd studio album. But in spring 2018 Daniel Khan the singer announced that he will leave the band due to personal reasons which stopped the bands plan for a recording in 2018.

In the middle of 2018, a new singer was found with Germanys Twain Cooper (Saintsbleed, Highway Killer). With Twain Mortician prepared their show for the 2018 Hard and Heavy Festival in Satteins and continued working on their new songs. The result of the good work was the recording of the song Hell Raiders at the end of 2019 which was followed by the video release in spring 2019.

Finally in December 2019 they hit the studio in Italy where the new album „Titans“ was recorded and the band is looking forward to the release on April the 17th 2020.

  • Upcoming Shows

    • 10.05.24 Mortician in Oberndorf , Metalheadz Open Air
    • 29.06.24 Mortician in Satteins , Hard N Heavy 2024