Mobile hard-rock outfit Hourstruck brought a lineup pieced together from some of the area’s best-remembered metal bands to the Alabama Music Box stage in December 2010.
Built from Mobile’s Metal Lineage
The band took shape in October 2009 around New Orleans native Brad Milliken, formerly of Apathy Ensues, a defunct metalcore act with Mobile roots. He recruited former Apathy Ensues guitarist Jeff Reigns of Saraland, followed by guitarist Craig Penix, who had played with Ashes of Scorn. After a string of exacting tryouts, the vocal spot went to Ash Rester — another Ashes of Scorn veteran — who joined in February 2010.
The final piece came by way of an unlikely source: the band’s photographer, Lindsey Milton, recommended drummer Geoff Prill, a prodigy out of Lucedale, Mississippi. When Reigns departed that August, Todd Arrington of the defunct band Hafnium stepped in as the newest member.
Hometown Stage
For a young band barely a year old, the Alabama Music Box date put Hourstruck on one of Dauphin Street’s central stages, in front of the downtown crowd that had watched its members come up through Apathy Ensues and Ashes of Scorn. The show marked the Arrington era’s first run of hometown dates as the group settled its final lineup.