This Will Destroy You

This Will Destroy You was formed by guitarists Chris King and Jeremy Galindo, bassist Raymond Brown and drummer Andrew Miller in San Marcos, Texas, in 2005. They had met through mutual friends, and played together in various different bands throughout high school, before the line-up was finalised by around 2002. Early iterations of the band experimented with vocals, sung by Galindo, but after recording some tracks they decided the results were “awful” and didn’t fit in with the rest of their music. The band then tried writing different tracks, one of which was instrumental. Chris King said in an interview with BBC Northern Ireland, “we were … writing different kinds of songs and we wrote one [instrumental] song, and we were like, that works, lets go for it!” The band took its name from an early song that they were originally going to call “This Will Destroy You”, but this was rejected for being too pretentious. The band found the name “hilarious”. When asked whether he wished the band had chosen a different name, King said to Rock Sound, “It’s supposed to be a little bit obnoxious. There’s something about people automatically hating you before you play that’s kind of endearing. It gets to the point where it’s over-the-top obnoxious. It’s an attention-grabber and people will check it out I guess. Even if they hate it.”

The band self-recorded and self-produced Young Mountain in 2005. This was intended to be a demo, and was sold as a CD-R after their concerts. The record was well received by critics, including being named one of the best instrumental releases of the year by The Silent Ballet. The band caught the attention of Magic Bullet Records, who re-packaged the record and re-released it in 2006. After recording their eponymous debut studio album, This Will Destroy You, in February 2007, the band’s tour schedule saw them play with such bands as 65daysofstatic. After the release of the album in January 2008, the band parted company with bassist Raymond Brown, who left in order to focus on his medical career, replacing him with Donovan Jones.

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