Dead Poetic

Dead Poetic emerged from Ohio in 1997 as a four-piece lineup of Brandon Rike on vocals, Zach Miles on guitar, Josh Shellabarger on drums, and Chad Shellabarger on bass. The group carved out a forward-looking punk approach that incorporated their Christian convictions inside a hard-rock framework. Tooth & Nail Records noticed them in fall 2000 after the band performed and promoted themselves at the Cornerstone 2000 Festival. The following year they signed with the label and booked sessions at Poynter Studio in Little Rock, Arkansas, with producer Barry Poynter, whose credits include the Juliana Theory and Furthermore. Those recordings yielded the debut album Four Wall Blackmail, issued in spring 2002. New Medicines arrived in 2004, after which the original configuration essentially collapsed. The band later reassembled around the remaining core of Rike and Miles, adding drummer Jesse Sprinkle, previously of Demon Hunter and Poor Old Lu, plus guitarist Dusty Redmon and bassist John Brehm, both formerly of Beloved. Chino Moreno of the Deftones and Aaron Sprinkle, Jesse’s brother, handled production duties, resulting in the alternative-rock-leaning album Vices, which appeared on Halloween 2006.