ICYCORE´s history began in 1998 at the technical university of Pisa, where guitar player Tiziano Romano and drummer Alessandro Bracaloni found out that they both were fans of bands like MEGADETH, DREAM THEATER, QUEENSRYCHE and the local heros ELDRITCH. Together with Alessandro's girlfriend of that time, Lisa Oliviero, they founded the core of the band. "At the beginning, both Tiziano and me were big Thrash fans, so we oriented ourselves towards bands like MEGADETH", Alessandro explains. "My love for progressive music was raised by Lisa, who even then was a very talented musician and had a particular liking of Prog Metal and melodic Metal à la ANGRA."
Shortly after the band had been established, the computing science students began searching for a singer. During the auditions, they did not only find the brilliant voice of Valerio Voliani, but a great second guitar player, too: Davide Alberti. The old schoolmate of Lisa´s who had helped out at the keyboard (Andrea Petracco) was replaced by Andrea Baroni and so, the band´s lineup was complete. Alessandro: "It has always been important to us to find not only good musicians, but real friends, too. The priority is literally to "play" with the musicians, not to "work" with them."
Shortly thereafter, in 1999, ICYCORE released the demo-CD "Altered Feelings" which immediately caused a big sensation in the scene. The media reaction was great, and the first interviews and gigs followed. Alessandro: "It was important for us to stress from the start that we do not play Progressive Metal, we play Heavy Metal - in a progressive way. Our influences had always been very diverse, be it Hardrock or Thrash - everything." Underground Symphony Records were immediately willing to pay for the recording of the debut album "Wetwired", and the experienced musicians recorded the twelve album compositions in about record time and waited for the release.
Time went by - but due to various problems Underground Symphony Records had to procrastinate the release again and again. In the meantime, ICYCORE played a lot of shows, among others as opener for ELDRITCH in Pisa, in Turin, and all over Tuscany, and in their hometown of Livorno. Unfortunately, Davide Alberti had to move to Florence due to professional reasons, and left the band. But Tuscany´s Metal scene is thriving, and so ICYCORE quickly found a more than equally matched substitute: Francesco Caprina. Because the cooperation problems with Underground Symphony had become unsurmountable, finally Limb Music Products acquired the rights for "Wetwired".
Source: http://www.icycore.com/Core.asp
