Wage War is an American metalcore band from Ocala, Florida formed in 2010 under the name Empires. The band signed to Fearless Records in 2015. The band consists of vocalist Briton Bond, rhythm guitarist and clean vocalist Cody Quistad, lead guitarist Seth Blake, bassist Chris Gaylord, and drummer Stephen Kluesener.
Background
Wage War started in 2010 under the name Empires in Ocala, Florida. The band originally consisted of Briton Bond, Cody Quistad, Seth Blake, Jordan Pierce and David Rau. Rau quit the band to focus on teaching and is now residing as a teacher at West Port High School in the band’s hometown. The band changed their name to Wage War and hired on Chris Gaylord to replace Pierce and Stephen J. Kluesener to replace Rau. In 2015, the band signed to Fearless Records, with a Jeremy McKinnon/Andrew Wade-produced single. After being signed to Fearless, the band released their debut album, Blueprints. Their second albumDeadweight was released with Fearless Records on August 4, 2017. Wage War has done a number of tours, including playing on the entirety of the Vans Warped Tour in 2016, and A Day to Remember's Self Help Festival in 2017. The band has also opened for artists such as August Burns Red, Chelsea Grin, I Prevail, The Amity Affliction, Northlane, Every Time I Die, For Today and Of Mice & Men. The band played with Parkway Drive on their mini June 2017 tour. The band embarked on their first national headliner in the July of 2017, in support of their new album Deadweight. Gideon & Varials joined up as support. The second leg of the tour featured Gideon & Varials once again. Oceans ate Alaska & Loathe joined up as support. Wage War played on the final touring portion of the 2018 Vans Warped Tour. On January 9, 2019, the band released a single titled "Low" through their label Fearless Records. Six months later, on July 9, they released a second single, "Who I Am". Then later that month, on July 30, 2019, the band released two singles, "Prison" and "Me Against Myself". Upon doing this the band unveiled their plans for a third studio album, revealing the album's title, tracklist, and release date. Pressure, their third album, was released on August 30, 2019. On March 18, 2019, Wage War lost all of their MySpace content from 2016 and earlier in "a server migration gone wrong" from the Empires era. It was widely reported that over 50 million songs and 12 years worth of content was permanently lost, and there was no backup. Wage War played on the 25th Anniversary Vans Warped Tour in Atlantic City, New Jersey and in Mountain View, California. The band went on tour throughout the Fall of 2019, in support of their latest album Pressure. Like Moths to Flames, Polaris and Dayseeker joined up as support for the tour.
