Every Time I Die formed in Buffalo, New York in 1998, built around brothers Keith Buckley on vocals and Jordan Buckley on guitar. The band was formed by vocalist Keith Buckley, guitarists Jordan Buckley and Andy Williams, bassist John McCarthy and drummer Mike "Ratboy" Novak. The band's debut EP, The Burial Plot Bidding War, was released in 2000 on Goodfellow Records as a CD, containing five tracks that introduced their raw, aggressive sound with influences from hardcore and metal. From the start, the group carved out a chaotic, technical corner of hardcore that would come to define their career, blending mathcore intensity with a distinctly Southern-tinged swagger.
The band's rise through the 2000s was built on relentless touring and a string of increasingly ambitious records on Ferret Music. In 2006, their song "The New Black" was featured as a bonus track in Guitar Hero 2 and also in the PlayStation 3 game MotorStorm, and the band performed the song "We'rewolf" live on the ABC late night talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live on Halloween of 2007. That same era saw them touring alongside major names in heavy music: from January to February 2008 they toured with Killswitch Engage, The Dillinger Escape Plan, and Parkway Drive, headlined the Take Action Tour alongside From First to Last, August Burns Red, The Bled, and The Human Abstract, and played the entire Warped Tour 2008. After spending the first decade of their career on the Ferret Music label, they signed with Epitaph Records in 2008 and remained there until their split in early 2022. Albums like New Junk Aesthetic cemented their reputation as one of the most technically dazzling and unpredictable bands in heavy music.
Across nearly a quarter century, Every Time I Die became known as much for their ferocious live shows as for their recorded output. For most of the band's career, the lineup was centered on brothers Keith and Jordan Buckley, as well as rhythm guitarist Andy Williams, with bassist Stephen Micciche also being in the band for a cumulative 15 of the band's 24 years. Every Time I Die released nine studio albums, with their final album Radical being released in October 2021. The band garnered acclaim for their energetic and intense live shows, as well as their constantly evolving sound, with Kerrang! noting that the band "shaped the cutting edge of modern metalcore." They also built a beloved hometown tradition, headlining several editions of their own hometown festival in Buffalo over the years.
The band's story ended abruptly and painfully. After 23 years as a band, Every Time I Die broke up, with Andy Williams, Jordan Buckley, Stephen Micciche and Clayton Holyoak releasing a statement detailing the split, with their final performances taking place during 'Tid The Season, the band's annual holiday show. The sudden news came just three months after the band's career and legacy hit a new high with the release of Radical, and one month before ETID were to begin a lengthy North American tour. In the aftermath, former members regrouped: Better Lovers, an American metalcore band from Buffalo, New York, formed in 2023 after the dissolution of Every Time I Die, consists of guitarists Jordan Buckley and Will Putney, bassist Stephen Micciche, and drummer Clayton Holyoak, signed to SharpTone Records. Meanwhile Keith Buckley formed the heavy metal project Many Eyes following the dissolution. Despite the contentious ending, the band's legacy as pioneers of a wilder, more unpredictable strain of metalcore remains firmly intact.
For this archive, Every Time I Die represents one of the countless bands Wayne Dennon captured in the raw, sweaty chaos of a live room, the kind of performance photography that defined his work from 2002 onward. Wayne photographed this band just once, at a show in 2007, but the encounter left a lasting mark on this collection: 39 photographs survive from that night, preserving the fury and unpredictability the band was already becoming known for. In the years since, archive visitors have returned to those images again and again, racking up 28,869 views, a quiet testament to how deeply this band's live legend continues to resonate with fans discovering Wayne's work today.
