Periphery
From Left to Right: Misha Mansoor, Adam Nolly Getgood, Jake Bowen, Spencer Sotelo, Mark Holcomb, Matt Halpern
Background information
Origin	Bethesda, Maryland
Genres	Progressive metal[1][2][3][4]
Years active	2005–present
Labels	Sumerian, Distort, Roadrunner, Century Media
Members	Misha Mansoor Jake Bowen Matt Halpern Spencer Sotelo Mark Holcomb Adam(Nolly)Getgood
Past members	Tom Murphy Alex Bois Jake Veredika Travis Orbin Casey Sabol Chris Barretto

Periphery is an American metal band from Bethesda, Maryland formed in 2005. The band is known for their heavy, modern, and progressive sound that includes polyrhythmic patterns and soaring melodies. Periphery features three guitar players and is also known as one of the forerunners of the progressive metal movement known as "djent," which is characterized by low to mid-gain, overdriven palm-muted guitar sound first created by the likes of the Swedish extreme metal band Meshuggah.^[2]

After several lineup changes during its history, the band now includes Misha Mansoor, vocalist Spencer Sotelo, drummer Matt Halpern, additional guitarists Jake Bowen and Mark Holcomb, and bassist Adam "Nolly" Getgood. Periphery released their self-titled debut in 2010 and their follow-up, Periphery II: This Time It's Personal, on July 3, 2012.

History [edit]

Formation and early lineup changes (2005–2009) [edit]

Periphery was formed by guitarist Misha Mansoor in 2005, who slowly gained a reputation on the Internet via a regularly-updated Soundclick account, the Meshuggah and John Petrucci forums, and the sevenstring.org message boards. Before and during Periphery's tenure in the metal scene, Mansoor developed a reputation for doing his own audio production, the majority of which was performed with a home computer and a Pod XT. Mansoor has continued to update his personal project, Bulb, often transferring songs between the two projects. Mansoor also continues to be involved in a number of other musical projects, including Haunted Shores,^[5] Four Seconds Ago,^[6] and Of Man Not of Machine.^[7]

Periphery went through a number of lineup changes during its early history. Originally, Misha played drums in the band for live performances, but switched to guitar after recruiting Travis Orbin. Between 2005 and 2009, Periphery worked with vocalists Jake Veredika,^[8] Casey Sabol^[9] and Chris Barretto,^[10] gradually moving from a Meshuggah-influenced sound to a more ambient, melodic sound, with a focus on innovative production.

Periphery has toured extensively since 2008, supporting artists including DevilDriver, Emmure, Veil of Maya,^[11] Animals as Leaders,^[12] God Forbid,^[13] Darkest Hour,^[14] The Dillinger Escape Plan,^[15] Fear Factory,^[16] Between the Buried and Me, and Fair to Midland.^[17]

Spencer Sotelo, Matt Halpern and self-titled debut (2010–2011) [edit]

In 2009, the band replaced Travis Orbin with drummer Matt Halpern. In January 2010, Sumerian and Periphery announced April 20 as the release date of the band's self-titled debut album, to be distributed by Sumerian Records in the United States, Distort Records in Canada, Roadrunner Records in Australia, Century Media Records in Germany, and the rest of the world. On January 20, 2010, amid speculation that they had changed vocalists again, Periphery uploaded an album sampler with vocals by Spencer Sotelo, a San Diego native who was later announced to be Periphery's new vocalist.^[18]

Periphery released their self-titled debut album, Periphery, through Sumerian Records on April 20, 2010. It debuted at No. 128 on the Billboard Top 200, as well as No. 2 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart.^[19] To support the album Periphery played multiple tours around the US and Canada; a short tour of Australia along with The Dillinger Escape Plan,^[15] and a headlining tour of the UK and mainland Europe in February 2011. The band's first headlining tour, “League Of Extraordinary Djentlemen Tour”, had support from TesseracT and Monuments in the UK, while their mainland European shows included Monuments and The Safety Fire.^[20] The band ran into multiple health issues during the tour; Spencer Sotelo had a case of Bronchitis and was regularly unable to perform the entire set. Jake Bowen fell and broke a finger in the first week of the UK tour and was unable to play for the rest of their headlining tour. He recovered and joined the band during the last couple of shows on their tour with Fair to Midland and Scale the Summit right before they dropped out of the tour.^[17]

On March 22, Periphery released a cover of Metallica's song "One", which was recorded for the Homefront video game soundtrack and was released as a free download on the Homefront main website.^[21]

Icarus EP and addition of Mark Holcomb [edit]

Set up just before a concert.

On January 19, 2011, the music video for "Jetpacks Was Yes!" was posted on NME.^[22] The video features a re-recorded and re-structured version of the song, which was released on The Icarus EP. Periphery's first single, from their "Icarus EP" titled "Frak the Gods", was released on March 24.^[23]

On July 6, 2011, Periphery announced via a MySpace blog post that the band had parted ways with guitarist Alex Bois. However, they did not change touring schedules, hiring Mark Holcomb and Adam "Nolly" Getgood to play Alex's parts during live shows until they found a permanent replacement.^[24]

On 7 September 2011, they were announced as the opening act for Dream Theater on the European leg of A Dramatic Turn of Events Tour starting in January 2012.^[25] In October 2011, the band announced that Mark Holcomb (of Haunted Shores) was now the band's full-time guitarist,^[26] and in November bassist Tom Murphy decided to leave the band.^[27] The band also hired Mark Holcomb's brother Jeff to play bass on their 2012 US tour with Protest The Hero, Jeff Loomis, The Safety Fire and Today I Caught the Plague.^{[citation needed]}

On February 21, 2012 the band re-released their debut album with a new single on iTunes entitled "Passenger". This was a partially re-recorded version of an old Haunted Shores song.^[28]

Periphery II: This Time It's Personal and Juggernaut [edit]

Periphery then entered the studio to work on their next two full-length releases to record reworked "Bulb" demos as well as completely new material written by the full band.^[29] The upcoming releases would also be the first to feature the use of string arrangements and orchestral elements. The album was to be produced by Misha and Adam "Nolly" Getgood (of British progressive metal band Red Seas Fire) and engineered and mixed by Taylor Larson (Sky Eats Airplane, Of Legends, Life on Repeat).^[30]

In July 2011, Mansoor elaborated on the forthcoming albums in Australian magazine Mixdown. He confirmed that there would be two albums recorded, and that one would be a concept album. Mansoor has had an interest in a concept album for quite some time, stating that "[he] wanted to to get this concept album out there. It's been an idea for years and years." Mansoor also revealed that the band would release the albums separately, saying "[they]'ll probably do a staggered release, three to six months apart" and that "[he] really want[s] them to be these separate bodies of work, because they will sound different, and be completely different approaches, too."^[31]

Periphery II was made available for streaming on YouTube on June 28, 2012. Hours later, the band announced that Adam "Nolly" Getgood was officially joining the band as its full-time bassist. Jeff Holcomb, the band's other touring bassist, continued to perform with them during the 2012 Summer Slaughter tour until they dropped out due to a family illness, but Getgood took his spot in the live line-up for their European tour with Between the Buried and Me and The Safety Fire.^{[citation needed]}

Equipment [edit]

Guitars and amplification [edit]

In an interview with Mixdown magazine, Misha Mansoor discussed the band's live sound; "I think the tone quest ended for us with the Axe-FX. We now go direct. We don't use amps any more, we don't use cabs, we don't use pedals. We just have an Axe-FX and a Fractal MFC foot controller...and we just go directly into the board with that," says Mansoor.^[32]

Tunings [edit]

The band use 6, 7, and more recently 8 string guitars. The majority of 6 string material is written in Drop C tuning, 7 string material in Drop Ab/G# (G♯-D♯-G♯-C♯-F♯-A♯-D♯), with the song "Ji" being in standard 8 string tuning (F#-B-E-A-D-G-B-E,).

"Totla Mad", "Frak the Gods", "Muramasa" and "Zyglrox" are in variations of Drop C, with the former two tuned to (Bb-G-C-F-A-D) and the latter two tuned to (A-G-C-F-A-D). "Ragnarok" is in Drop G#, except with the lowest string dropped down to F# (F♯-D♯-G♯-C♯-F♯-A♯-D♯). "Racecar" utilizes another unusual tuning, as it is in a dropped tuning where the 6th string is dropped on a 7 string guitar instead of the 7th (A♯-C♯-G♯-C♯-F♯-A♯-D♯). "Scarlet" is tuned in an open C add 9 chord (C-G-C-E-G-D).^[33][34]

Discography [edit]

Studio albums [edit]

• Periphery (April 20, 2010)
• Periphery II: This Time It's Personal (July 3, 2012)
• Juggernaut (TBA, 2013)

EPs [edit]

• Icarus (April 19, 2011)

Singles [edit]

• "Icarus Lives!" (April 23, 2010)
• "Jetpacks Was Yes!" (January 21, 2011)
• "Passenger" (February 21, 2012)
• "Make Total Destroy" (June 5, 2012)
• "Scarlet" (February 19, 2013)

Videography [edit]

Band members [edit]

Current members

• Misha "Bulb" Mansoor — lead guitar, production (2005–present)
• Jake Bowen — guitars, programming (2007–present), backing vocals (live only as of 2011)
• Matt Halpern — drums (2009–present)
• Spencer Sotelo — lead vocals (2010–present)
• Mark Holcomb — guitars (2011–present)
• Adam "Nolly" Getgood — bass guitar (2012–present)

Former members

• Tom Murphy — bass guitar, backing vocals (2005–2011)
• Alex Bois — guitars, backing vocals (2005–2011)
• Chris Barretto — lead vocals (Ever Forthright) (2008–2010)
• Travis Orbin (Sky Eats Airplane) — drums (2005–2009)
• Jake Veredika — lead vocals (2005–2007)
• Casey Sabol — lead vocals (2007–2008)

Touring members

• Jeff Holcomb — live bass guitar (2012)

References [edit]

External links [edit]

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