Re-invigorated battle metallers – and they like sacking a drummer
MALICE started as a project of Bassist “The Metal Warrior” Rayman James. Originally it was started by Rayman and his brother Jay Mez’s band, but Jay Mez quickly left the group before it officially got its start. After years of frustration of not being able to find the right musicians to work with, Rayman put the Malice band aside and began working on a solo album. It was in 2009 that Rayman met Sheridan Dolan at The House Of Rock (THOR). Sheridan was performing with some friends in another band and Troy Niebergall introduced the two, who became fast friends. This friendship is what influenced Rayman to turn his attention towards Malice once again. So Rayman began writing new songs and dusted of some old songs he had written for Malice, and went to the Studio and recorded some new demo tracks.
With the demos written and a new young talented guitar player in the band, Malice needed a singer. After Months of searching and placing ads across the entire USA in search of the perfect singer, Rayman ran across Rob Jolonen at a Hammerfall concert in St. Paul. They had very similar interests in music so after the show Rob auditioned for Malice out on the street in front of Station 4. A Few weeks later Rob came into the studio to cut some demo vocals for Malice, at that point Rayman was sure Malice had found their lead singer.
Finding a drummer was a bit more of a task, Troy Niebergall sat in to play all the drums on the demo tracks but Malice needed a full time drummer. In the summer of 2010, Malice worked with a total of 18 drummers, who were all either kicked out of the band or left due to artist difference with Rayman. Rayman was getting on a plane to head to Romania when he received a phone call from Sean Doan. When Rayman got back from Romania, he met up with Sean and finally Malice had found their drummer.
In 2012, Malice released their debut album “Triumph and Glory”. Shortly after the albums release, drummer Sean Doan left the band due to conflicts with his other bands “Stir it Red” and “Do as The Romans Do”. Sean was replaced with North Dakota native David Koepplin Jr. Finally Malice was ready to go out on tour to support the release of “Triumph and Glory”. Shortly before the tour would begin, Rob Jalonen parted ways with Malice, and was replaced with former ACCEPT / BANGALORE CHOIR front man David Reece.
After 2 years of working with the band, David’s heart was not in the music and wanted to explore different ventures. Malice wished him well and they parted on good terms. He was soon replaced with vocalist David Whitmer from North Carolina.
