Necare was formed in 1997 by Ryan Henry and Greer Cawthon, in Newport News, Virginia. They set to work recording a handful of songs that Ryan had written, with Ryan playing guitar, bass, keyboards, and singing, and Greer providing drums. These songs were roughly recorded on a home four-track, but they began to solidify the sound and style that would characterize Necare as the band matured. Playing a style of music highly reminiscent of old Anathema, Paradise Lost, and My Dying Bride, Necare didn't exactly "break into" the Virginia music scene. As anyone who lives in the state knows, there are precious few metal bands from there, the most notable being Deceased. Very few metal fans in the area had even heard true DOOM METAL! But Necare persevered. In 1999, Necare began working closely with producer Jhon Ackerman. He himself a metal musician, Jhon new the exact specifics of the sound that Necare wished to capture and call their own. To flesh out the sound and add an extra depth of profound atmosphere, Ryan and Greer enlisted Violist April Leightty and Vocalist Erin Vernon for the four song demo, which would be entitled Ophelia. The demo was recorded in a manner of weeks (usually worked on sporadically) until the desired sound was solidified. By the first week in August, Ophelia had been recorded. It has been reviewed in a few notable metal magazines and recognized by Katatonia's Blakkheim, who stated in a letter that the demo "will lead you on to a high status". In the spring of 2000, Necare began writing songs for a full-length release. The first of these was a song entitled Eleanor. During a day-long practice session, Greer and Ryan wrote "The Mourner", with Nick Orlando from the New Jersey-based funeral doom band Evoken contributing lyrics. With these two songs, Necare returned to Jhon Ackerman's Recording Zone and began the year-long process of recording, mixing, and mastering Appassionata. Without label support, the cost of recording had to be drawn from the band's own funds. Appassionata also saw the addition of three session musicians. The first was Ben Snider of the band Mary's Eyes, who provided violins for select songs on the album. Amy Caroline Parker contributed her choral talents to us by adding female vocals to "The Fury", which set a striking contrast to the dense metal guitars and Ryan's growled death vocals. Sadly, Amy was killed in a car accident on January 17 of 2001 before the album was complete. Andy Henson, of the band Chamber 37, came aboard to play leads on the songs. His playing style is unique and quite progressive, adding to the doom metal sound of Necare an almost "Queensryche-ish" feel. Roughly a year from the beginnings of our recording, Appassionata was complete.
We began two processes simultaneously: Ryan began to design an inlay and graphics for the CD (and there were many unforseen difficulties there, including a few PC crashes) and the band began to shop their stuff around. Earlier, even before the album was complete, we had signed up for mp3.;com. This became our lifeblood. We would be picked up by a station or two almost every week. At one point, "The Mourner" hit number 2 on the Doom Metal charts! Even though it slowly fell back, our music maintains a high, steady position on the mp3.com Doom charts to this day. Posting our music brought us to the attention of many well known musicians, including Victor from infernal Finnish Black Metallers Enochian Crescent. All were complimentary regarding our sound and the atmosphere we create. In December of 2001, we received an offer to sign to Crestfallen Records, out of Melbourne in Australia. As of now, we have currently signed to that up-and-coming Doom label, and are awaiting the release of our first full-length CD.
Source: http://www.necare.net/main.html
