1991 LINE UP: Cristiano Borchi (Bass, Vocals), Claudio Di Carlo (Guitar), Riccardo Montanari (Drums)
Stormlord project starts in september 1991 from an idea of Cristiano Borchi after a meeting with Claudio Di Carlo. They decide to play together and Cristiano offers to drummer Riccardo Montanari to join the group. After a short period of covers, the band starts to write some songs. The proposed style is Death Metal.
1992 LINE UP: Cristiano Borchi (Bass, Vocals), Claudio Di Carlo (Guitar), Riccardo Montanari (Drums)
The band enters in studio to record a first demo, "Demo '92", recorded and mixed in one day. There wasn't so big ambitions in this demo, it was only an opportunity to take confidence with the recording studio and to start to publicize the name of the band. The demo is released in April and the band makes in June his first gig in Rome, during a three-days rock festival. The concert is broadcasted by Rock Radio in Rome. In July Andrea Cacciotti joins the band as second guitar player, to improve the power of the sound and to perform better solos. In September the first real gig of the band comes, and at the same time Stormlord start to write the material for the new demo.
1993 LINE UP: Cristiano Borchi (Bass, Vocals), Claudio Di Carlo (Guitar), Andrea Cacciotti (Guitar), Riccardo Montanari (Drums)
In the first half of the year Stormlord prepare the songs for the new demo, recorded in May and released in September. In "Black Knight" the first epic influences can be heard: it's a concept demo based on an easy fantasy story (really unusual in that period, when it was not a trend to talk about knights and battles, especially in the extreme music). The demo we can definite "Epic Death Metal", is a big success and sells more than 1000 copies. The name of the band starts to be known in the italian underground, and Stormlord perform many live shows in Rome. This is the year where the group performs his first show outside Rome, in Naples.
1994 LINE UP: Cristiano Borchi (Bass, Vocals), Claudio Di Carlo (Guitar), Andrea Cacciotti (Guitar), Riccardo Montanari (Drums)
During the first months of the year Claudio Di Carlo leaves the band because of job problems. With the new guitar player Dario Maurizi, the band writes a new instrumental song, "The Spirit Of The Storm" (never recorded or published), and gets in touch with italian label Metal Horse Productions that proposes Stormlord to appear in a cd sampler, "Dawn Of Gods". The group writes the new song "Cataclysm" for the sampler. In the meantime Riccardo Montanari quits the band because of university problems and is replaced by Gabriele Valerio.
1995 LINE UP: Cristiano Borchi (Bass, Vocals), Andrea Cacciotti (Guitar), Dario Maurizi (Guitar), Gabriele Valerio (Drums)
With a new line up the band plays a gig in Rome and records the song "Cataclysm" for the sampler. This song is really far from epic atmospheres and much more into typical death metal ones. Anyway there was a weak spirit in the band, so Dario Maurizi and Gabriele Valerio decide to leave, probably because they weren't trusting so much in Stormlord. A new drummer was found, Marcello Baragona (well known in Rome for being the only 44 years old man in the world to be a great death metal drummer). Metal Horse Productions proposes the band to publish Stormlord debut minicd and the deal is signed. Stormlord start to prepare the new material with the help of Riccardo Montanari on the second guitar: he was the drummer of the band, but in the last years he was studying guitar and became a good performer. The new songs are much more epic and melodic, and it's natural for Stormlord to turn into Epic Black Metal and insert a keyboard player, Fabrizio Cariani. At the end of the year Andrea Cacciotti leaves the band for never well understood reasons.
1996 LINE UP: Cristiano Borchi (Bass, Vocals), Fabrizio Cariani (Keyboards), Marcello Baragona (Drums), Riccardo Montanari (guitar session)
You can easily imagine the hard period for Stormlord: an incomplete line up made by musicians who joined the group since only two months plus a session guitar player. Cristiano decides not to split the band and to change the internal attitude and turns Stormlord into a sort of his own solo project. It was the only way to go on. With this line up the band records in June the songs for the debut minicd "Under The Sign Of The Sword". In Stormlord sound starts to be present much more melodies, epic parts, choirs, female voices and the lead vocals turns into scream. In the same year the line up was ready for the live activity: Dux Tenebrarum (currently in Art Inferno) and Pierangelo Giglioni join the group as guitarists and Fabban (from Funeral Oration) is added as session bassplayer. That's because Stormlord wanted to create a live set that could better represent their new music, and Cristiano wanted to have the hands free to give more spectacularity to the shows.
1997 LINE UP: Cristiano Borchi (Vocals), Pierangelo Giglioni (Guitar), Dux Tenebrarum (Guitar), Fabrizio Cariani (Keyboards), Marcello Baragona (Drums), Fabban (Bass session player), Raffaella grifoni (Female Vocals)
The minicd is released and Stormlord start a strong live activity: they plays gigs and festivals in Italy (some of them with bands as Overkill, Death SS, Domine...), they take part to Italian Gods Of Metal festival. Dux Tenebrarum leaves the band and Pierangelo offers to replace him for the guitar parts becoming the only guitarist of the band. The success of the minicd is good but only in Italy, due to the small distributions of Metal Horse Productions outside Italy. So Stormlord record a promo with 3 new songs to send to the labels hoping this way to find a new deal with a label that can publicize the name of the group in Europe. At the end they sign for the german label Last Episode. After the recording of the promo, Fabban quits the band to concentrate himself on his project Aborym and is replaced by Francesco Bucci.
1998 LINE UP: Cristiano Borchi (Vocals), Pierangelo Giglioni (Guitar), Francesco Bucci (Bass), Fabrizio Cariani (Keyboards), Marcello Baragona (Drums)
Last Episode prints the three-tracks promo as a minicd entitled "Where My Spirit Forever Shall Be" and the band replaces Marcello Baragona with David Folchitto. With this new line up Stormlord start a strong live activity (supporting even Atrocity in Percha): in April there is the first gig outside Italy (in Germany with Sacred Steel) and the name of the band starts to be known in Europe. At the same time Stormlord start to prepare the new material for the full cd, and they return to be a real band. Now every member is 100% involved in the project and Cristiano is no longer the "factotum" of the band. Every element of the group gives his contribution and ideas for the songs, and the year is spent to write the material for the new cd and to promote the minicd with interviews and live shows.
1999 LINE UP: Cristiano Borchi (Vocals), Pierangelo Giglioni (Guitar), Francesco Bucci (Bass), Fabrizio Cariani (Keyboards), David Folchitto (Drums)
On January 8th Stormlord enter in studio to record the new cd "Supreme Art Of War". The recording sessions are over on April 24th and at last in August the cd is released. An european tour with Mystic Cyrcle, Graveworm and Suidakra is planned for October, but Fabrizio Cariani has to leave the band because of university problems and is replaced by Simone Scazzocchio.
2000 LINE UP: Cristiano Borchi (Vocals), Pierangelo Giglioni (Guitar), Francesco Bucci (Bass), Simone Scazzocchio (Keyboards), David Folchitto (Drums)
After the European Tour, Stormlord start to write the material for the new album. The relations with Last Episode was not so good as at the beginning, so the band decide to split from the label. After months of contacts with Last Episode the band rescure to break the deal and sign for Scarlet Records. At the same time, the band plays some gig in Italy with Domine, Vision Divine and record the material for "The Curse Of Medusa" EP. At the end of the year the songwriting for the new full lenght album is near to be finished.
2001 LINE UP: Cristiano Borchi (Vocals), Pierangelo Giglioni (Guitar), Francesco Bucci (Bass), Simone Scazzocchio (Keyboards), David Folchitto (Drums)
Stormlord finish the songwriting for the new album in the first months of the year and enter in “Outer Sound studios” (Novembre, Abstracta, Savers, Edenbridge etc.), in Rome, to record the second full length album "At The Gates Of Utopia", engineered by Giuseppe Orlando and Max Pagliuso . At the same time the EP "The Curse Of Medusa" is released for Scarlet Records. The album is recorded between 15/3 and 25/5, and after the recording sessions, Stormlord play some gig in Italy to promote the EP, awaiting for the release of "At The Gates Of Utopia", finally out on the 23 of November (except for Japan, where the album is out through Soundholic on 24 october with the two livesongs from "The Curse Of Medusa" EP as bonustracks). The second Stormlord European Tour starts on the 26 of November, seeing the band giving hell to Germany, Italy, Holland, France, Austria, Croatia and Hungary together with Ancient and Thyrane.
Source: http://www.stormlord.net/
