Ash’s love of playing the guitar came quite by accident, as his brother was bought a cheapo acoustic for his birthday. After the guitar got dicarded in a corner by a thoroughly unimpressed 9 year old, he took to playing around with it creating more noise than actual notes. Fast forward a couple of months and while watching a Dire Straits live VHS, decided that playing the guitar was something he absolutely had to do and bought a crap Encore Strat copy and began taking lessons. Whilst taking lessons he joined a Metallica tribute band in about 1998 with some friends which never really amounted to much, mainly drinking beer, listening to Metallica and Pantera whilst failing miserably trying to play it. In 2000 he formed a band with some of the friends from the tribute band and formed nu-metal band Nikita who gigged fairly regularly and recorded one EP. After it was clear that Nikita was going nowhere, he got together with a vocalist friend of his and hunted for a bassist and drummer. The result of this was grindcore band Nekkrosis, who recorded one EP and one full length album, and supported many bands including Napalm Death, Trigger The Bloodshed, Origin, The Rotted, Raging Speedhorn and more, and a UK tour with The Berzerker, of which Jon Quantrill was the tour sound engineer. The band established themselves as local heroes alongside Dom’s band Deadeye, and played many shows together. Due to lack of interest between members and other factors it was clear that Nekkrosis had run its course. Having decided that a change of direction was in order, and long time talks about starting a band, he met with Dom and over several pints Stormbringer was formed.