Follow The Deceived

Within the last two years, it may seem as though Follow The Deceived had been on a hiatus, were broken up, or on a stasis of sorts. Without any new songs, or new material in almost two years, what really happened to the band?

Well the band as it was once known had dissipated. Everything that could have went wrong, went wrong. Mark Cruz, lead singer and rhythm guitarist hesitantly reflects on the situation.
"For me, it had to be one of the hardest times not only in my personal life, but in the band as well. Relationships in the
band came to a head, friends were no longer friends, and the band as unit was gone. After losing it all, I really decided that my only choice was to keep it going. I had sacrificed so much up until that point, why stop now?" With the task of rebuilding the band now ahead of him, what was he to do?

Time passed and new members joined; the first being Tommy Wojcik. With his insight into music, and a chance meeting that almost never happened, Tommy and Mark began a partnership that would grow way faster, and stronger than either of them expected. Within three months of playing together, an albums worth of material was ready and recorded. It was at this point that Johnny Castillo joined the band as their bass player. In time however, it became very apparent that Johnny's real strengths were in his guitar playing skills; leading him to become the bands lead guitar player. With this role change, it became clear that the current material that was recorded had to be changed. The style and genre of the band changed, and with it the original album was scrapped…

December 2009 is when the recording began for the album that would become "Hope In Negative Spaces". After recording numerous songs, the final number was whittled down to six. Mark reflects on how the name came about. "It was pretty clear to me from the beginning of this project that the name of the album had to really reflect everything the band went through to get it completed. The name that came from a casual conversation was Hope In Negative Spaces. To me, it defined how I felt at the time. When everything seemed to go wrong, and the future looked extremely bleak, hope had seemed hard to come by. However what I learned from my experiences was that even in the darkest of times, in the worst of situations, when thinking positive was more of a chore than a right, that little ounce of hope is what kept me going and kept this dream alive."

From the manic, almost clockwork overtone of "Memoirs Of A Madman", to the powerful, soaring, call to arms feel of the title track, "Hope In Negative Spaces", to the heavy, fast, catchy, melodic feel of "Make Your Mark", Hope In Negative Spaces is a sonic journey from start to finish. "The core concept that underlies the record is hope", says Mark Cruz. "I felt that at times, its so easy for us in our day to day lives to become disillusioned, blinded, and cynical in life so much that we in turn don't realize some of the good that stems from these situations. There is always a bright side to everything. Life has a funny way of masking blessings as tragedies, and far too often, we forget that. I wanted to write a collection of songs that reached all over the spectrum sonically, but were all linked by this central theme of hope."

Hope In Negative Spaces is available now on iTunes, Amazon.com, and can be heard on the Follow The Deceived Myspace page (www.myspace.com/followthedeceived), or on Facebook (www.facebook.com/followthedeceived).