Driven tape (pre-Blood Has Been Shed)

In the mid '90s I was a regular on the alt.music.hardcore newsgroup and did a hardcore newsletter with a friend of mine. I got sent a few demo's and records every now and again because of that. This was one such instance. A band called Driven from Connecticut. I'd not heard of the band before the tape landed in my mailbox and they didn't go anywhere afterwards. At least not with the bandname Driven...

Here's a small biography taken from their old website (courtesy of the Wayback Machine):

We started in Ohio in 93 as Release. After around two years of playing in the midwest we decided to move to the East Coast. Some of us in the band grew up in Ct. so it there was some connection to moving out here. Once we got out here we changed the name to Driven on account of a band named Release getting signed. We played as Driven until December 96, as of January 97 we were in search of a new drummer. After going through a bunch of drummers we decided to form Veiled where John the bassist from Driven played drums. At first we thought we would keep Veiled and Driven seperate and played as Veiled for the summer and fall of 97. In the late fall of 97 we decided to get Driven back on the road and work some Veiled material into the set. We didn't feel funny playing Veiled music in the Driven set since the core of the band was in Driven anyways and Veiled was an extension of Driven we started to keep involved with the scene. About the name, after running into other bands with the name Driven we decided to change to Blood has been Shed. The new name for us represents what we see around us.

Driven was definitely way more of a heavy rock/metal oriented band than BHBS, the core can be hard to find on here. Howard employs a softer and way more dramatic-sounding vocal style and musically it's less aggressive and in your face as BHBS. That doesn't mean this is all bad though, it's just ... different. I find myself torn between parts where I cringe and parts where I am bobbing my head. Either way, if you are into Blood Has Been Shed, this is a tape you need to hear, hehe, even if only for the vocals...

Random piece of trivia: soon after they changed their name to BHBS, they released a 7-song CD called 'I Dwell On Thoughts Of You'. It still lists the Driven email-address and website URL as their contact-address.

Driven self-titled tape