Juan Garcia (guitarist)
Juan Garcia | |
|---|---|
| Genres | Thrash metal, Heavy metal |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, Songwriter |
| Instrument | Guitar |
| Years active | 1982–present |
Juan Garcia (born in Cuba in 1966[1]) is a Cuban-American heavy metal guitarist. He is perhaps best known as the guitarist for the thrash metal bands Agent Steel and Evildead and the power metal/speed metal band Abattoir. He remains involved in all those bands today.
Biography
In 1982, Garcia formed the band Abattoir with vocalist Chris Malaki, guitarist Mark "The Shark" Caro, bassist Mel Sanchez and drummer Ron Gonzales. He played on two of the band's demos Original Abattoir (1983) and Demo 1984 (1984) before leaving the band in October 1984 to join Agent Steel. He recorded two albums with Agent Steel Skeptics Apocalypse (1985) and Unstoppable Force (1987) as well as their EP Mad Locust Rising (also 1985).
After leaving Agent Steel in 1987, Garcia reunited with Mel Sanchez to form Evildead, with the intention to write heavy music with more hardcore and thrash metal elements; more so than their previous bands. The band's name was inspired from the Sam Raimi horror film The Evil Dead. Their lyrics focused exploring political and social themes mixed with horror and nuclear war topics. During their inital career, Evildead released two albums, a live recording and an EP. After several lineup changes and an attempt to make a third album, the band broke up in 1995.
After Evildead folded, Garcia, along with his former bandmates Karlos Medina, Dan Flores and John Dette (later replaced by another former Evildead member Eddie Livingston and then Rigo Amezcua) formed a new band, Terror (not to be confused with the hardcore punk band with the same name), with . This band would follow the same vein of Evildead, but with lyrics in Spanish. After maninging to release an album in 1997 (Hijos de los Cometas) and a self-titled EP in 1998, Terror split up and Garcia returned to Agent Steel. He was also involved in Killing Machine[2] and Obscene Gesture.[3]
In 2008, Evildead announced that they would reunite in the summer of 2009 for shows. They also began rehearsals for the Thrasho De Mayo event that was held in Los Angeles in May, 2010. The band also performed at the "Way of Darkness Festival" in Germany later that year. The current line up features new vocalist, Steve Nelson (Winterthrall, Noctuary), Rob Alaniz (original drummer), Albert Gonzalez (original guitarist), Mel Sanchez (original bassist), and Juan Garcia (original guitarist). Evildead plans to release new music in the near future.