The Rotted were an English death metal/d-beat band formed in England in early 2008.
History
The band was formed from the ashes of death metal / grindcore ensemble Gorerotted by ex-members Ben Rotted, Tim Carley, and Phil Wilson, along with Gian Pyres and Nate Gould due to a musical progression and a desire for less limiting lyrical themes: the band themselves say that The Rotted and Gorerotted are two entirely different entities, with The Rotted incorporating more of a punk/D-beat style into their brand of death metal. Their debut album Get Dead or Die Trying was released on Metal Blade Records worldwide in the summer of 2008, and unusually includes 2 instrumental tracks; 'A Brief Moment Of Regret', which was picked up and used by high street clothing store chain Topshop/Topman in their playlist during the summer of 2008, and a cover of the theme music from British Horror film28 Days Later Having completed a short UK tour in July 2008 with fellow Brits Ted Maul, the band went on to play festivals such as Wacken Open Air, Dynamo, Elsrock and Summer Breeze Open Air that same year. The end of 2008 saw The Rotted playing many club shows across the UK and Germany. In July 2008 The Rotted announced that Wilson would quit the band for personal reasons; his last show with the band was at Wacken Open Air. He went on to form Symphonic Metal bandSaturnian and was replaced by former Screamin' Daemon frontman Reverend Trudgill. Trudgill is a professional tattoo artist, a legally ordained minister, and even founded a cult known as The Church Of Daemonology in 2002. In April 2009, the band headlined a tour with label mates and fellow UK bands Malefice and Anterior as part of the Metal Blade Assault tour, and also appeared at various festivals including Bloodstock Open Air, Hellfire and Hammerfest in the UK, Chaos Emergente in Portugal and Headbang in the Netherlands. They later went on to join Scottish pirate metallers Alestorm for a tour in December the same year, now as a 4-piece, having parted ways with guitarist Gian Pyres. In July 2010 The Rotted put out a self-financed, self-released EP entitled Anarchogram. UK shows with Man Must Die and Sworn Amongst were undertaken in July, followed by European dates with Misery Index, Grave and Arsis in November, and finally 3 headline shows in Israel with The Fading in December. In July 2011, 2 days before the band was due to perform at Obscene Extreme Festival, guitarist Tim Carley severed the end of the 5th finger of his left hand in an accident. After some reconstructive surgery the same day, the band announced all the summer's festival dates would go ahead as planned, albeit with Carley's damaged finger heavily bandaged. The Rotted entered Parlour Studios in January and February 2011 with producer Russ Russell to recorded their second full-length album Ad Nauseam, which was released on 31 October through Candlelight Records. A single Apathy In The UK was also released as a limited edition 7 inch vinyl on Hammerheart Records. A UK tour with Grindcore supergroup Lock Up and Dripback took place in December, from which footage for a video of the song 'Surrounded By Skulls' was collected. In 2014, the band announced that their performance at the Camden Underworld on 20 September would be their last and that the former members would be concentrating on education, tattooing and other musical projects; Vocalist Ben has since joined Extreme Noise Terror, guitarist Tim currently plays in old time acoustic Gypsy/Ska/Punk band Jo Carley And The Old Dry Skulls, Nate Gould plays in Israeli Death Metal band Lehavoth and Reverend Trudgill co-owns Brighton tattoo studio Skinned Alive
