Biography
from left to right: Marcel (Guitar), Sven (Bass), Theo (Vocals), Markus (Drums), Jens (Guitar)
The fire of Darkness Ablaze started to blaze back in 2002 when two childhood friends, Ali and Jens, decided to form a metal band in Jens’ parents’ garage. A short time later singer Theo joined the group. After the line-up was complete with bass, drums and lead guitar, the six guys quickly began to make a name for themselves in the local metal scene. The band gained greater notoriety in 2007 with the release of their self-titled debut album.
After a few lineup changes, Darkness Ablaze was signed by the German label Black Bards Entertainment and released their second album “Shadowreign” in 2010. In the meantime, the group had developed their own sound, mixing symphonic keyboards with melodic guitars and brutal vocals, resulting in a unique style of melodic death metal. The two albums were followed by tours with well-known bands such as Endstille, God Dethroned, Hollenthon and Thundra, as well as some festival appearances.
In 2011 Darkness Ablaze disbanded until further notice due to changes in the lives of many band members. The ember lay dormant until in 2018, founding member Jens realized it was finally time to re-ignite the flame, together with original singer Theo. Jens switched from keyboard to guitar and soon the new line-up was complete with drummer Markus, Marcel on lead guitar and Sven as bassist. The band was better than ever and ready to work on new material.
In October 2021 Darkness Ablaze had released their new EP “Creator”. The four songs contained on it combine driving riffs with melodic lead guitars and symphonic elements into a powerful melange that is sometimes melancholic, sometimes energetic and uplifting. Theo’s growls provide the necessary brutality to round out Darkness Ablaze’s captivating and versatile sound. The EP has been released on all known streaming platforms and can also be purchased as a CD in many popular music stores.
Theo Georgitsaros (Vocals)
Theo first came in touch with Rock and Metal music at the age of 14. During that time he used to spent a lot of time at the local basketball court where only Hip Hop and Rap sounded out of the ghettoblasters.
Some day Theo met Attila, who later became the first drummer of Darkness Ablaze, at the court. Beside the fact that they became good friends, Attila was the reason why Theo got into Rock and Metal music. Atti gave him a tape which included a few songs of Megadeth, The Offspring and Nirvana and Theo instantly fell in love with this uncommon sound.
A few years later Theo met Jens at a camping trip for the senior classes of the local school. Some dude brought a tape deck. Theo managed to conquer the tape deck and he played some Pantera what immediately grabbed Jens’ attention. They got into a conversation. Jens told Theo that he started a Black/Deathmetal Band and that they still needed a vocalist.
Jens: “Do you think you can scream and growl?”
Theo: “I can try!”
Jens Böhm (Guitar)
Jens’ musical career began at the age of 6 when he started to take piano lessons at the local music school. At the age of 16, Jens started to take interest in guitar playing, heavily influenced by his dad. He started to take additional lessons in classical guitar, and soon after, bought his first electric guitar. About the same time, Ali, bestie since the days of Kindergarden, came up with the idea of starting a metal band. Furtunately enough, Jens could borrow the keyboard of his grandpa, and soon Darkness Ablaze started to blast away in the garage of Jens’ parents.
Jens stayed the keyboard player and main songwriter of the band for many years. After two albums, Jens decided to leave Darkness Ablaze to focus on other aspects of his life and the band disbanded soon after.
Fast forward a few years. After a short excursion as keyboard player of Prog Rock band Park Avenue, Jens strongly felt it was time to “get the band together” again, this time with Jens on the guitar! Together with original Singer Theo, Darkness Ablaze began to conquer the stage once again!
Marcel Welte (Guitar)
Marcel was born on November 13th, 1988 and became interested in music when he was around 13 or 14 years old. He went to his first metal show in 2004, where he watched Kataklysm and Graveworm perform at the locally well-known Rockfabrik Ludwigsburg. Having attended his first outdoor metal festival (Summer Breeze) the coming year, he decided to start making music himself.
In 2005, he began playing bass guitar and was mostly self-taught. Even before that, he decided to found his first band together with some schoolmates and friends. He made his debut on stage with a yet unnamed band after only six months of musical experience.
The coming years, he played in several local punk and metal influenced bands: Bad Strip, Diving for Paradise and Acardiac. In the meantime, he was a founding member of his first real metal band called Halls of Oblivion and switched over to guitar. After graduating from high school, things got a little more difficult. Marcel had to change his home base a few times as he conducted studies in Germany, France, Sweden and England, and afterwards travelled through South America for several months.
Therefore, Halls of Oblivion was solely a home studio project within the first few years. But in 2015 things finally got more serious with the release of their first EP. After some local shows in the subsequent years, the first show abroad was played in 2019.
Moreover, three shows at the legendary Rockfabrik Ludwigsburg were played in 2018 and 2019 (where Marcel attended his first metal concert around 14 years before that), right before the club unfortunately had to shut down its doors forever. Marcel joined DARKNESS ABLAZE in January 2019, having found the way to the band through former Halls of Oblivion drummer Markus. He took the decision to play in two bands as he wanted to further improve his lead guitar playing and mostly joined Darkness Ablaze since he had known the band before and highly appreciated their previous work.
Sven Söllner (Bass)
Sven was born on September 28, 1980 and started with music at an early age. At the age of 6 he was allowed to try his hand at a keyboard for the first time and already then he realized that replaying songs was not his musical vein and began to compose his own children’s songs.
At the age of 12 he found interest in the guitar and also founded his first German punk band “United P. Suckers” shortly after. In 1998 Sven achieved his first musical success in the local music scene with his skatepunk band “INSECURE?”. In 2005 he joined the band “Sparklin’ Dawn” as bass player and later changed position within the band as lead guitarist. After some formation changes the band renamed itself to “Dread Cabinet”, which is still active today.
Furthermore, he was also a founding member of “Die Grüne Welle”, which has made a name for itself in the SKA and Raggae scene to date. Since 2019 Sven plays his bass in “DARKNESS ABLAZE” and is involved in a secondary project “THE AQUILA RIFT” as lead guitarist.
Supporting many other music projects is also a passion of him. This includes, for example, the implementation and recording of songs for advertising videos or to be available as a guest musician for smaller projects. Among other things, there was the opportunity to play bass for the nominated song “Ray of Hope” for “VOCAMOT” in the state finals of the Totto Lotto Music Awards or to record the guitar for a song by a very well-known artist (name may not be mentioned).
For Sven, music has always been like an anchor in life, which accompanied him through ups and downs and will therefore always remain an important part next to his small family.
Markus Weber (Drums)
Markus’ innate fire to play drums began as a young boy: he was banging on things before he could walk and took lessons at a young age. After a few years he took a break, but his passion was soon reignited when he discovered the fantastic world of metal with the In Flames classic “Clayman”.
In 2007, he joined Halls of Oblivion and quickly found interest in the band’s life. After some time, the band gained local recognition and approval, which allowed them, among other things, to play three times at the legendary Rockfabrik Ludwigsburg, including a gig on the big stage at Club 1!
When recording with Halls of Oblivion’s “Endtime Poetry” with Benjamin Hölle of Mindead, there was a poster hanging there from a past gig with Darkness Ablaze. Benjamin spoke very positively about it and when Markus saw a few months later on the internet that they were looking for a drummer, it was an easy decision to come to a rehearsal. From the first minute everything fit perfectly, both musically and humanly, and so he joined the band wholeheartedly to contribute his thunderous drumming.