Smaug

MySpace Profile: www.myspace.com/rockymountainsmaug

Smaug has grown on the ideal of playing heavy music since the bands birth in the winter of 2005. Formed by Ty Earls and Jeff “Effe” Montoya after the breakup of Ironkind, the band started to evolve into what you would call “Epic Doom Metal” with touches of traditional heavy metal.

After a year, Smaug was satisfied on how the songs were coming together. Smaug recruited bassist Ted O’Brien into the ranks and recorded our first demo; “To The Ends Of The Earth…” with Effe and Ty taking on vocal duties on the recording. This gained the interest of Alton Schoonmaker, who had originally been a front man in various grind/death metal bands, decided to take a brave approach to sing with clean vocals. This also gave Smaug the opportunity to test out our abilities to play live. And the response from the audience was super yet, we did not feel complete as a band.

The spring of 2007 came and we were desperately in need for a second guitarist to fill in the gap to create a more heavier sound live as well as bring the melodic element into our music. The mention of Keith Sanchez was in mind and for some coincidence, he showed up at a gig and was auditioned. A few months passed and Smaug recorded a second demo called “Barbarian Hessian Metal” . This featured a newly recorded version of “Mother Earth” with the current lineup.

Thisled to the opportunity of having enough songs to record a full length. We went back into the studio to record six songs and released “…As My Blood Runs Cold” on our own label Fire and Gold. To this day, Smaug continues to write, tour and play live. With the unfortunate departure of Ty, we were lucky enough to find Zack Ross who filled in Ty’s shoes without a problem.

We do believe that Smaug is a great band and will continue doing this project no matter the struggle or obstacles that come at us.