Stone of Tears Bio

1996-2001

The band was originally formed in 1996 in Jerusalem when two young guitarists (Igor Semchenko and Yevgeny Bazarsky) decided to play together some songs by bands like Black sabbath, Iron Maiden,Metallica etc.....

After a while they where joined by a bass player named Roman Goldin (Regy) and max on drums. At the time they werenÂ't really a band because they didnÂ't have a name for the group, decent instruments a rehearsal space and most importantly no original material, so after six months the group broke up......... until 1999 when Igor decided he wants to play in a band again and started looking for musicians who have similar musical tastes to his own.

the new line up was Mike Jee and Vulcan. The group had more experience and started writing there own material which they recorded at Midikol (a local studio in Jerusalem) in January 2000.The first demo included 5 songs with the following line up: Igor - vocals and all guitars, Mike Jee - bass and Vulcan - drums. The sound of the band was heavily influenced by the great and mighty MEGADETH!!!(Which all the members of the band still greatly admire).This line up was active until June 2001 when Mike Jee and Vulcan decided they donÂ't want to be in the band anymore..........



2001(June)-2002(July)

Igor started to look for people to form a new band with, again. This time he decides to have a second guitarist in the band which he met at Effect where Igor worked selling musical instruments. This was the one non Russian guy in the band ("sir" Jonathan Harold from England who unfortunately got stuck in Israel with a band of Russians) As a result the bands sound became more melodic. A little bit later they found a totally nuts guy who is even more Russian than imaginable -GIDI SVARTZ on drums!!! And finally on the bass guitar Shahar (the Israeli Steve Harris).The new line up was stronger musically and personally which wrote new material in a relatively short time, the new musical direction was European melodic power metal influenced by Helloween, Iron Maiden etc..... Unfortunately after nine months Shahar quite the band because of his studies in university and Mike Jee returned to the band but he also didnÂ't stay with the band for long...



2002(August) - Present day

After the mysterious disappearance of Mike Jee came home Regy (welcome home man!!!).Three days later the band played at two large festivals and another open air show in JerusalemÂ's city center. The band played many shows across Israel some of which were organized by the band. At the time the Israeli metal scene was totally underground with hardly anywhere to have shows, bad equipment and no advertising, but "Stone of Tears" did not disappear and played anywhere they could including places with six square feet sized stage and only two lights as a stage light system. Some of the shows to audiences of only five to twenty people. From February to March 2003 the band built a new rehearsal studio. In May 2003 the band decided to bring in a fifth person to do the vocals (Yochai Davidoff) after which they had a series of very successful shows playing an Iron Maiden tribute. In the same summer Jonathan decided to take a break from the band for three months and as his replacement came Shlome Yachin from "Blood Shot Eye"...October 2003: playing to biggest audience yet, 1200 people. After Jonathan's return the band got sick of YochaiÂ's bad attitude and kicked him out and brings in Alex "Kir" Krizevez. The band took part in a contest on TV who's winners would get to warm up the famous Scottish band Nazareth (even though they didnÂ't win taking part was the important thing).At this time the band is in the process of recording there second demo and working on a new set list for shows