from left: Jeffrey Morgan - guitar John Abernathy - guitar Shaun Gier - vocals Greg Donnelly - drums Michael Nordeen - bass
With Passion formed in the summer of 2002 from the ashes of local Sacramento bands Athena in Hades, Severance and Impulse 120. They quickly made their mark on the Northern California scene, playing shows with a wide array of national metal and hardcore acts including As I Lay Dying, Between the Buried and Me, Himsa, Misery Signals, The Red Chord, Scars Of Tomorrow, Six Feet Under, Stretch Armstrong, Terror, and many more.
After some early line-up changes, the band arrived at the line-up of Samuel McLeod on vocals, Shaun Gier on guitar and backing vocals, Andrew Burt on guitar, Michael Nordeen on bass, Brandon Guadagnolo on keyboards, and Jacob Peete on drums.
With this line up the band released the EP "In the Midst of Bloodied Soil" on Earache records in March of 2005. They completed two full US tours following up the release of this EP, but then in the Summer of 2005 the band suffered a crippling line up loss when all members but Shaun Gier (Guitar) and Mike Nordeen (Bass) decided to quit the band to pursue personal interests.
Around this same time, another local Sacramento metal band who had shared members with With Passion called Conducting From the Grave was in search of a new vocalist and new bassist. Shaun Gier of With Passion used to sing for Conducting From the Grave and Jeff Morgan of Conducting From the Grave was the original guitarist for With Passion, so to solve both bands line up problems, the three remaining members of Conducting From the Grave joined forces with the two remaining members of With Passion. Thus the band has arrived at its current and most solid line up: Shaun Gier on vocals, Jeff Morgan and John Abernathy on guitars, Mike Nordeen on bass, and Greg Donnelly on Drums. The band decided to drop keyboards in favor of a more technical, less melodic sound. The current line up did a full US tour in early 2006 opening for Nile, Hypocrisy, Soilent Green, Decapitated, and Raging Speedhorn.
With Passion is now currently at home working on a full length debut album to be released on Earache records sometime early 2007.