Onward is a new American power metal act founded by guitarist Toby Knapp from Montana, USA. In the 90's Knapp was known as a guitar virtuoso and was interviewed in Guitar World Magazine at age 18. Soon after he signed as a solo artist to Mike Varney's Shrapnel Records. His debut instrumental album "Guitar Distortion" sold well and was given great reviews by magazines. In the mid 90's Knapp left Shrapnel and played in several bands. He even joined a black metal band called Darken and released an EP with them on Defiled Records in 1998. All the way he was writing more traditional heavy metal on the side but he had trouble finding members to form a band.
Finally he managed to find people in his area with similar taste in music and began playing together with Randy LaFrance and Jon Pereau. Around this time Denis Gulbey, president of Sentinel Steel Records, became interested in the band. He helped them to enter the studio and found the vocalist Michael Grant (who had also released a solo album called "Path To Glory" on Gulbey's label) from Los Angeles to make the line-up complete. The band now recorded their debut album named "Evermoving". It was mixed at the legendary Trax East studio in New Jersey (Symphony X, Sick Of It All, Snapcase etc.). The album was supposed to have been released on Sentinel Steel but Gulbey sold the rights to Century Media who signed the band.
The band now started writing new material for their next album right away. They were also asked to record cover songs for tribute albums to Uriah Heep and Savatage to be released this year. Their debut was released through Century Media on January 22nd in Europe (January 23rd in America). They also played at the November To Dismember Festival 2000 in Los Angeles and will be playing at the first annual Power and Progressive Metal Festival outside Chicago this year. Their follow-up Reawaken will be released later in the year 2001.
