Heavy metal magick is real. The story of Blind Oath is one of super-fandom and an authentic commitment to the true heavy metal community at large. Individually, and collectively, Blind Oath have spent a large chunk of their lives traveling to various metal fests, booking metal shows for touring bands, and racking up iron-clad friendships and unforgettable experiences along the way.

Formed in 2018 in the rusted Bible Belt city of Tulsa, Oklahoma, Blind Oath creates epic-scale traditional metal that erupts with the kind of old-school energy that harkens back to power metal’s glory days. The band’s lyrical lore is expertly distilled into concentrated Sword & Sorcery tales channeling the hermetic, gnostic, and alchemical, historical accounts of witchery, and epic gothic poems of old. Blind Oath’s self-titled debut, recorded with producer--and Night Demon guitarist--Armand John Anthony, is set for a March 17 release via Tulsa non-profit Horton Records.

Our story begins in 2015, as guitarists Mitch Gilliam and Rob Gutierrez played in the old-school metal cover band, Dr. Rock Doctor, which jammed its takes on foundational champions like Venom, W.A.S.P., Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Omen, and Manowar while serving as the host band for traveling hordes (as Mitch was booking and promoting Tulsa area shows for bands such as Visigoth, Speed Wolf, Gatecreeper, and Manilla Road). Soon, Dr. Rock Doctor morphed into Satanico and the Demon Seeds, a live band karaoke ensemble featuring Gilliam, Gutierrez, and soon-to-be Blind Oath bassist, Jacob Fuller. This group grew to perform cuts from Slayer, Blondie, Heart, Dead Kennedys, and Misfits, while uncovering the talents of regular karaoke participant, and future Blind Oath vocalist, Eric Miller, who won over the musicians with his Lemmy-via-Cronos roar. Within a short time, the unit added drummer Stu Hetherwood, ditched covers for work on thrash metal demos that Gilliam was constructing and crystallized the creation of Blind Oath.

Blind Oath cites the iconoclastic era of early US heavy metal, chiefly, the wildly experimental and stalwart output of Cirith Ungol, and Brocas Helm, as inspiration, but most importantly, Wichita, Kansas' Manilla Road, and the riffs, drive, and wisdom of its guitarist, Mark “TheShark” Shelton as the principal influence in its formation (there are Easter eggs to Manilla Road hidden throughout the group’s lyrics). An impromptu meeting at the final edition of the Chaos in Tejas festival in Austin saw Mitch and Shark become legitimate friends, which Gilliam called “a wild thing for a boy from a small Oklahoma redneck town.” The two became online pen pals over shared interests in the occult/heavy metal, and Mitch would later book and host Manilla Roadin Tulsa; an instrumental moment leading Gilliam to realize, “Rob and I needed an original band to play our own songs–not covers--at shows alongside these legends.”

Blind Oath drilled down on its demos, sharpened them to a diamond point, and digitally-captured the tracks at a local studio. As fate would have it, the very night the group received its demo masters, and played them for friends at Tulsa’s Soundpony Lounge, short-lived jubilation would turn to sorrow as they received the news -at that moment- that Mark 'The Shark' had passed. 

A month later, Blind Oath played its very first show, opening for Night Demon and Blood Star, and closed its set by covering “Flaming Metal Systems” as a tribute to Shark. The band was anointed by the metal gods when Manilla Road vocalist Bryan Patrick, who was in attendance, joined Blind Oath on stage to belt the song for his fallen brother.

Imbued with inspiration, the heroes of metal’s genesis provided the propulsive push that launched Blind Oath on its quest to sharpen its swords, compete against the output of its inspiring peers, and forge heavy metal tradition for a new generation. Hundreds of shows, sharing the stage with acts like Haunt, Bewitcher, Nite, Hellfire, Seven Sisters, Silver Talon, High Spirits, Deceased, Intranced, Savage Master, and Vicious Rumors, solidified Blind Oath’s reputation as a live force.

The unit has built true metal friends from across the globe simply by adventuring, partying and appreciating the talents of others. A chance encounter in Norway found Gilliam traveling by train with Slough Feg bassist Adrian Maestas, to scope tiki bars in Bergen. Later, in Oslo, Fenriz called Gilliam “a hipster”, which the Darkthrone mastermind surmised “is a good thing in Norway”. On a separate occasion, Gilliam and Philomena Lynott (mother of Thin Lizzy frontman Phil Lynott) broke down crying in each other’s arms in her Dublin home when she said, “Thank you for loving my boy.” Wide-eyed at the memories of these encounters, Mitch offered, “A decade of accidentally meeting my heroes made me want to pick up the axe.”

‘Blind Oath’ was recorded at Captain’s Quarters studio in Ventura, California. Unbeknownst to the band, heavy metal legends Cirith Ungol were rehearsing next door to the studio, while the group was recording! Ungol frontman Tim Baker took interest in the blaring sessions and was swayed to record a vocal cameo (on the spot!) on the new Blind Oath song, “The Flame,” which is about the magick, strength, and beauty of heavy metal community. Baker’s surprise appearance, and the expert production of Anthony injected an extra dose of OOMPH to sessions, and the resulting record overflows with golden gallop, frenetic fret sorcery, and fist-pumping, adrenaline-triggering metal. Standout tracks like "Fascinatrix", "Spectral Attack", and the aforementioned “The Flame” reinforce the fact that Blind Oath plays music created BY fans of heavy metal FOR fans of heavy metal.