Brief History

In 1996, a band called Spineshank were formed originally from the band "Basic Enigma" which involved current members; Jonny Santos, Mike Sarkisyan and Tommy Decker who broke up after thinking they were unable to fulfil & challenge the quality of music the bands were coming up with at the time. Only a couple of months later they inducted Rob Garcia from the old band "Swinside Circle" to play on bass for the band "Spineshank" to become one of the four members of Spineshank we now know today.

With there distinct and brutal Spineshank sound it caught the attention of Dino Cazares of Fear Factory. After he heard there demo he invited Spineshank to warm up the crowd for Fear Factory at the Whiskey A-GO-GO in LA. This was to be the first gig for Spineshank, hitting the scene hard & strong. Roadrunner Records' attention was soon attracted in the name of Kevin Estrada working on their A&R team. Listening to there demo tape they caught his attention with Spineshank's earlier songs such as "Detached", "Where we Fall" and "If it Breathes". Roadrunner started passing a new demo tape around LA with the earlier versions of "Stain" and "Mend" on as well as the still unreleased track "Novocaine". And after signing up with them they released there first album, Strictly Diesel a year and half later. Explaining the meaning of the new Strictly Diesel Jonny said "A diesel truck starts out slow. It gets on the freeway and everybody hates it, because it's in the way and it's slow. But once it hits 80 miles an hour, nobody's gonna even come fuckin' close to it. And that's Spineshank.". The critics disliked the album saying it was too generic and a clone of Fear Factory which was an easy link when they knew Burton C. Bell helped with the vocals for "Stain (Start the machine)". The band then started touring with other great rock bands such as Fear Factory, System of a Down and Static-X.

After the band got back off the road they were back in the recording studio in October of 2000 recording there new album 'The Height of Callousness' which barely restrained the heaviness and speed of the frustration, anger & depression that had built of up inside them, to unveil their The Height of Callousness. Jonny says that critics that put a downer on their first album help him with some of the anger and thanks them for their views.

After a tour of the world promoting 'The Height of Callousness' they hit the studio where they are locked up making there new album now more experienced and aggressive then ever. Check out the news section for the scoop on the upcoming album thats currently in progress.