Element Eighty is a nu metal band that formed in May 2000 and quickly established themselves as an up-and-coming hard rock and metal act, performing throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex region, Oklahoma, and across the state of Texas . Hailing from Tyler, Texas, the band's name carried a clever double meaning, as singer David Galloway recalled checking the periodic table for the heaviest metal, finding it was mercury, the 80th element, which is how they became Element Eighty . In 2001, they entered the studio with Denton-based producer Eric Delegard and recorded their debut album, Mercuric, which was self-released on June 23, 2001 through Pale Star Records , with the album's title serving as a direct nod to that same periodic-table origin story.
The band's breakthrough came after two years of relentless touring behind Mercuric, during which the album spawned a hit single, "Echo Song," which entered regular rotation and became a top-requested song on Dallas radio station KEGL 97.1 The Eagle . That local momentum led to bigger opportunities, and in April 2003 the band signed a deal with Universal/Republic Records, releasing their self-titled album on October 28, 2003 . The standout track from that record, "Broken Promises," became the band's signature song after it was featured on the Need for Speed: Underground video game soundtrack and peaked at number 36 on the U.S. mainstream rock charts . During this period the classic lineup, David Galloway on vocals, Matt Woods on guitar, Roon on bass, and Ryan Carroll on drums , took the band's sound to a national audience, and they toured with acts such as Sevendust, Mudvayne, 3 Doors Down, Slipknot, Shinedown, Korn, Hellyeah, Ill Niño, Flaw, 40 Below Summer and Mushroomhead .
Despite the exposure from the soundtrack placement and touring, the major label relationship soured, as the band could see that their label had no interest in pushing them, with no music video or promotion behind the record , and Element Eighty would later split with Universal/Republic in late 2004 . The lineup shifted around this time when original bassist Roon left the band to attend college and pursue graduate study in biomedical research, and was replaced by Zack Bates, formerly of Bullet Ant and Serosia . Taking control of their own career, the band released their third album, The Bear, on November 5, 2005 via their own label, Texas Cries Records, made available only through their website, at shows, and on iTunes . The strain of years of touring and label struggles eventually caught up with the group, and Element Eighty faced a hiatus by 2007 and full disbandment in 2010 without completing or releasing any new material during that period , though they had briefly come back together once before, as after reluctantly disbanding in December 2006, they reunited as of May 2007 .
Element Eighty's story did not end with the 2010 breakup. According to Wikipedia's summary of the band's activity, their years active are listed as 2000 to 2006, 2007 to 2010, and 2021 to the present, indicating a more recent reformation. The band's brief but potent run in the early 2000s left a mark on the nu metal and alternative metal scene of that era, with "Broken Promises" in particular remembered as a genre touchstone; one member of the band Tallah has even cited it as his introduction to extreme vocals, a small but telling testament to the song's reach among a younger generation of metal musicians.
For this archive, Element Eighty represents a snapshot of the raw, hard-touring nu metal circuit of the mid-2000s that Wayne Dennon so often turned his lens toward. Wayne photographed this band across two shows in 2004, capturing them in two different cities in two different states, right in the thick of the "Broken Promises" era when the band was crisscrossing the country on package tours. The 44 photographs from those nights remain in the collection today, and with 34,691 views logged over the years, they stand as one of the more quietly beloved corners of this memorial archive, a reminder of a band that burned hot, fought hard against industry indifference, and found new fans decades later.
