EXMORTIS was formed in mid 1987 by guitarist/vocalist Brian Werking who recruited ex-bassist Chris Wiser. A few months later drummer Aantar Lee Coates and guitarist Ted Hartz joined the band. Shortly after, Ted Hartz was released due to personal reasons. After a few short months of continuous rehearsing, Exmortis tried out vocalist Mike Simons. He seemed to fit the style that Exmortis was looking for so they kept Mike in the band. He brought kind of a Kreator style vocal presence to the band which Exmortis seemed to like. In July of 1988, Exmortis entered the studio to record their “Descent Into Chaos” demo which was only 3 tracks but what a demo it was. The track list was Lords Of Abomination, Exmortis and Pathogenic Silence. Releasing the demo was just beginning. Little did they know that they were about to explode into something they never thought possible. Once the demo had reached a few hands in the underground, people began to talk and trade the tape with each other. At the time they had no idea the magnitude of the tape trading phenomena was so large-scale. Within a few months Brian was receiving mail from all over the globe asking for material to review in fanzines. He made it his ongoing task to send free tapes and band information to all fanzines asking. There were even fanzines dedicated to horror movie reviews that wanted to review and/or feature the band on its pages. During this time Exmortis began playing live shows and increasing the awareness of this bands pure power and aggression to the public. They played shows mainly in the Maryland and Washington D.C. area but it was strange for them since they had received so much attention internationally and not enough local to their own area. With all that said, Exmortis played shows with bands such as Deceased, Indestroy, Mal Feitor, Rancid, Pendulum, Internal Void and others. Exmortis was received very well and are said to be Maryland’s First true Death Metal band to ever exist! Within months, Mike Simons was released due to a lack of interest in the music and Brian Werking began chanting the words for Exmortis. They found that Brian’s voice was more suitable for the band. It had lower tonal qualities but was still able to reach highs to bring more diversity to the Exmortis style. In February of 1989, Exmortis released their second demo titled “Immortality’s End”. This demo had four tracks including a spooky intro composed by Pete Eicher. The track list was Immortality’s End, The Resurrection, Beyond The Realms Of Madness and Casual Killing. These four songs were aggressive and technical with many timing changes throughout. The Exmortis style of Death Metal was finally born. After the “Immortality’s End” demo was released, every fanzine in the world wanted to have Exmortis included in its text. I think it would be rare to find a zine of that time period that did not have an interview or a review of the two demos in it. Exmortis began to play live shows once again but this time, expanding out into other states. They played shows in Maryland, Washington D.C., Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York and New Jersey. Some of the bands they played with were Immolation, Ripping Corpse, Prime Evil, Fatal, Oblivion, Hypocrisy, Desecration and others. Some time around the middle of 1990, Exmortis was no longer able to practice due to reasons beyond their control and were forced to cease their existence for a time. Everyone in the band went their separate ways. Aantar Lee Coates and Ted Hartz separately moved to Tampa, Florida, Brian Werking moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Chris Wiser stayed in the Washington, D.C. area. Unbeknown to anyone Brian began dabbing into computers and with his drum machine started writing new material for an upcoming third Exmortis demo titled “Dreams Of The Dead”. Fully capable of composing all instruments himself, Brian planned to release this demo without help from studio musicians. There were three songs prepared when he was contacted by Rage Records out of New York. Once discussions were through Brian decided to let Rage Records release the third demo on a vinyl 7 inch EP which he titled “Fade From Reality”, featuring only two of the three songs prepared for the demo. The track list was “Dreams Of The Dead” and “Fade From Reality”. The “Fade From Reality” 7 inch EP was released in October of 1991 and received an enormous amount of publicity throughout the underground. Almost immediately after the release of this 7 inch EP Brian started into another downward spiral and for personal reasons had to remove himself from the scene for a short time. In the Fall of 1993 Growing Deaf Entertainment approached Brian and asked if he could record a few new songs for a project they were working on called “The History Of Things To Come”. It featured lots of underground bands that were partially responsible for creating the history of Death Metal. Brian agreed and in Early 1994 the CD was released with two new Exmortis songs titled “Necrotic Visions” and “Silence Of Darkness”. These songs were released not under the Exmortis name but under the alias “Bloodless” but believe me these songs are in the Exmortis style all the way. After the Growing Deaf release Brian took a break to attend college and in 1997 moved to the Tampa, Florida area. Fully knowing that Exmortis would never be far from his mind, Brian continued to write new material in wait of the perfect time to unveil the Exmortis name to the underground once again. In 1999 Brian completed a series of Tribute CD’s for Dwell records using the Exmortis name. The two tributes that stand out most are the Death tribute which featured Exmortis playing the song “Baptized In Blood” and the Morbid Angel tribute which featured Exmortis playing the song “God Of Emptiness”. Both of these tributes sparked the buzz in the underground but what followed was another series of unfortunate events in Brian’s life that caused his removal from the scene once again. In 2001 Exmortis released both the “Descent Into Chaos” and “Immortality’s End” demos in a limited edition CD-R of only 250 copies of each. These songs were re-mastered previously by Brian in 1999 from DAT. In present day 2005, both Brian and Aantar Lee are beginning the next phase in the evolution of Exmortis. They are planning to release a new demo titled “The Resurrection” sometime during the later months of 2005. The demo will feature five songs including the title track “The Resurrection” which was previously recorded on the “Immortality’s End” demo in 1989. Other songs included will be titled “And There Was Pain”, “Awakening Of Sin”, “The Slaughter Begins” and “Exmortis II”. Exmortis is also planning to re-release some older material on CD very soon. The “Descent Into Chaos” and “Immortality’s End” demos will be available for purchase together on a single CD. The “Fade From Reality” 7 inch EP and the songs from “The History Of Things To Come” compilation will also be available on a single CD.
