The dude trying to burn the house down is the most high school party thing ever🤣

I just love this format Fix This Band.. I was always interested in what makes a live band sound great and what a good live show is about. Please keep 'em coming!

“I must go back in time to fix my tone…” Lmao 😂😂😂

Underrated part of the journey was hearing Al's vocals improving over time. OR at least the newer recordings did him more favors

How the hell were you a teenager in the late 80s but you still appear to be like 30 years old in 2024?!

I think all young guitarist learn what good tone is as we age. I never used mids at all when I was young, just cranked bass n trebble to ten.

Your original songs actually sounds super badass. I was expecting more of a metallica ripoff sound but that felt much more original. Would have totally banged my head at that in my teens

your drummer's growth and better care of his kit was evident as well

Awesome showing the changes over time. As a teenager starting a band this is kind of inspiring

I've volunteered in the local live music association since mid 90s, promoting and supporting local young bands and i've seen this progress happen. It is really great when you see kids taking it seriously and really putting in the effort. You see them getting more and more relaxed each gig, and the band sound transforms completely. We were on hiatus for years, re-activated last year, i did over 20 bands last year, and it is still the same: first gig is just.. fumbling and everyone being scared stiff, and then you see the same band few months later and they act like veterans... the whole process is smoother, and they always sound SO much better. That is why we are doing it, there is absolutely no other way to learn how to play than playing live. It is just very difficult for 15-18 year old kids getting gigs, we focus on metal and other heavier stuff. I never thought i was going to be the old guy behind the sound console, yelling at kids but.. it is very rewarding.

The insane thing that somebody pointed out to me recently is that yeah, you and the band were really young here (better than some older bands I've seen for sure) but Metallica themselves were just a couple years older than this when they released their first album on Megaforce, they were all maybe 17. So imagine you see these guys from the video get up on stage, then they play the entirety of Kill Em All perfectly because they're actually Metallica and it's 1983, and they wrote it. No wonder they got so huge.

I'm loving seeing the progression as you guys got better.

I am LOVING this series. I wish we had this kind of easily accessible professional critique 20 years ago.

Seeing how your band improved was so inspring. Playing on a stage like the one in clip at 14:20 would be a dream come true for me. After exams I wanna form a band and just play, play, play as much as possible and keep growing.

You guys were playing prog rock and doing harmonizing guitars in jr high? We could barely get through a song in my jr high band lol, that's really cool. I love how wholesome and constructive your channel is

Yess please keep these videos coming! This series is what brought me to your channel, I hope for many many more fix this bands!

just been on binge watching sanctus videos here on youtube, perfect timing!!

Mike, it’s amazing that you took a honest hard look at your own band. It can be so tough to look inwards, but you handled it with humility and humor. Great job man! This was my fave episode in the new series!

I’m loving this series so much lol. It’s such a unique and creative one. Instead of sitting there making fun of people and bad bands, I love how you turn it into a learning experience even for yourself.

Loving this series. Hopefully the bands you’ve reviewed will send more footage back of future gigs to show their progress.

Mike. Are you my spirit animal? Your love for your first band is outstanding and all your comments make me relive my passion for my first band and there are so many similarities on the live shows and lessons to learn. Love it.

Love the fact that you are willing to show even your own embarrassing moments. That way we all know you really are just trying to help bands out. Mistakes will always be made, and you doing this video tells me you’re a humble man. 👍🏼

Have you guys considered making new, professional recordings of the old songs? And maybe a new song or two, nudge nudge hint hint?

I love this series. Every time I see a new episode pop up in my KZfaq feed, I know I'm in for some great viewing.

@TheArtofGuitar Yesss!! Been waiting for this! Congrats on 853k Subscribers🤘🏻🔥 Sanctus freakin' rules! I just love that footage of you guys playing Incomplete, not only does it sound freakin' awesome (quite possibly my fave song after Swords of Sadness) but the camera moving up and down with you all makes me feel like i'm in the room jumping up and down with everyone else, real atmosphere to that clip for me :-) I did put my Charvel Avenger V up for sale, but nobody wanted it or gave horribly lowball offers. I've decided to keep it and fix it up, get the chipped horns repaired and painted white🤘🏻

Thanks for sharing this! It's so cool to see the growth from a duo starting out in the basement to a full band playing 1st Ave main stage!

The golden years! It’s amazing when you look back and see how far you’ve gone to get where you are now.

Loving these episodes! Please do more of these. You guys were really good in the end! I would have really enjoyed your shows!! ♥

Keep doing the Fix Your Band series. I'm enjoying it and learning from it. Eventually, my band will need to take video. Right now we're doing sound only to help tighten things up and make small changes so our singer isn't struggling singing in a key that doesnt work for her range.

I’ve been watching your channel for a long time and the quality of your videos has grown so much. You make really good videos. Loved the vid where your old metal band played the first song you ever wrote. You were absolutely ripping!

Love this channel! So real and underrated!

I absolutely love this series and this video especially. I played drums in a metal band in high school right around the same time as you were, playing the same songs. I'm still good friends with a couple of the guys from the band today, but for the most part, we all stopped playing a couple years after high school. I always wonder what would have happened if I kept at it.

Love this! Me and some friends started a band a little over a year ago and a lot of this is super relatable!!

Kudos for posting these and even including your own band! Let's be honest, most of us suck when we start out playing but you keep at it and keep gigging to work out the bugs. Eventually you get there but it takes time and lots of mistakes. Not to mention even if you play perfectly, others in the band might not on any given night (tech issues, just having an off night...). Nice to see even the pros screw up from time to time.

Awesome video! It's so cool you have all that footage to document the improvement.

Love this series mike, keep it up!

Great walk down memory lane. I’m still terrible but when I hear our first few shows it’s amazing anyone put up with us. So fun though.

As someone who is recently reformed the band starting to make new material and getting ready to want to play shows this video series has been on been helpful. I just love it I appreciate this I mean it’s something that us younger musicians who may not have these develop skills don’t have knowledge of and I just appreciate that it’s making the stress of trying to book our first show and if everything‘s gonna go right so much more maintainable because I know we’re going to make mistakes and stuff like that but I know that they could be rebound or if we just keep taking helpful tips Maybe we can try to eliminate some of those things❤❤❤❤❤❤

Just found your channel. Good explanations for each avenue. I just started learning with my cousin now that we are old men retired with nothing to do. Our first show will be in August at a "Music on the Porch" local gig. I will be watching for more.

This was a great episode. This series is great. I liked your breakdown of the recent solo you did where you showed what it should sound like vs what it did. Might be cool if you can show some of that too. LIke that one run in the solo from Sweet child of mine of few episodes ago. Love hearing where people can make improvements and things to watch out for when learning another song

This such a great series and so epic so see your progress as a band. Love it!

I live in the Twin Cities and just to be clear, getting a gig at First Ave main stage is huge. I remember seeing Prince and Steve Vai live at First Ave. What a great video. Thanks for being humble enough to share everything. Keep these coming. Great series.

Loved this video! Great to see your progress.

Great video! Love seeing the progression of your band. You guys rock!

Wow.... thank you for this video.... for no other reason than to find out you're a Twin Cities person! KZfaq algorithms suggested your videos, and I just recently started watching. You've had some great topic and the fix-the-band has been fun. I was going to just come here to say kudo's to the self-inflection on your own band, as that proves you're not above your own mistakes and learnings. But then to find out your in my neck of the woods? Super cool! Another subscriber added!

I love that your willing to show how awkward your band used to be,but also show that with practice and hard work you can improve. Can't wait for more of this series.

This was awesome. I'm definitely here for more Sanctus stuff!

It was great watching a band evolve. Great content.

Absolutely awesome - kudos for being willing to share the progression! Not my genre but total respect for the journey!!!

Cool video! Brought back fun memories...you guys really rocked. Rock n roll Unlimited was fun opening slot for Sanctus

Awesome vid and the progression was impressive. Solid state amps all sound absolutely grotesque. My high school amp was a Peavy Combo with chorus and reverb.. great clean tone but dirty tone got thinner the louder it got.. when I got the first gen 100 watt Engl head it was a complete game changer.

You are either taller than i thought or your band is really short lol. It was a cool ride watching you guys become a real band. I respect how you stayed on a stage throughout your entire growth. It’s hard not to give up or change members sometimes.

This was extremely cool to watch, and it's amazing how much was caught on film! I get sooo many flashbacks to my own first band back in the very late 80s and early 90s. We also played Metallica covers for quite a while, and since my best buddy had a real talent for lead playing, I ended up as "the guy who makes throat noises into a microphone". I may not have been the greatest rhythm guitarist, but at least I had some idea of what I was doing on the guitar, which is more than I can say about my "singing". I didn't even realize I sang eveything one octave lower than James, but I was made aware of that fact when we auditioned a really good bass player and he asked if there was any particular reason behind my guttural wheezing. 😂 Despite my obvious vocal shortcomings I ended up singing for a while, simply because no one else wanted the job. I think we had a total of two shows (partially) filmed during all those years, but I don't have access to any of that material today. It's most likely lost forever, and maybe that's a good thing. I'm not sure I'll EVER be ready to relive our 1988 school auditorium massacre of Fade to Black, Master of Puppets and The Four Horsemen, but I remember that we managed to impress at least one guy in the audience. He volunteered to help us carry the equipment after the show, and we gladly accepted.

dude now I wish I could see your band live, those shows looked awesome

Man I fucking love the archive of videos you have, it'd be great if you posted them all.

So cool to see the evolution of the band!

Funny, I should do this to my high school band. I have a VHS tape of us playing the talent show. We had a VH-style keyboard malfunction where the keyboard was tuned 1/2 step higher than everybody else.

Love seeing this evolution

Love this new series!!!

currently in a high school band, would love to be like these guys one day. I already got the hair now though lol P.S i'm the drummer

@The-Art-of-Guitar Mike, This was really fun to watch. Spent a lot of time at Mirage, Iron Horse, 1st Ave, etc. back in the day. Was Sanctus part of the Twin Cities Battle of the Bands that happened back around '89-'90? My band, Destiny, participated so our paths may have crossed. Great work! Keep it up!

this reminds me so much of my journey as a teenager to my early 20s. Great vid man! \m/

My favorite video of yours thus far

Best fix this band yet! Great info for all musicians but especially young aspiring bands!🎸 SANCTUS ROCKS

Every kid musician went through these same growing pains.

I love this series. I wish you would go a little more in-depth on the suggested fixes, like the boost pedal was new to me etc. Thank you!

Have you ever listened to Johnny Winter , he would crank the mids and trebs , but would turn the bass all the way down on his amp . He made it work extremely well.

I don't think it's that bad for being a beginner band. And you guys definitely progressed beyond beginners. Makes me remember my youth and the parties lol.

Nothing says high school party like Fade to Black. A song about contemplating suicide. 😊

Mirage! LOL! I've played there many times!! Earl Root would be proud of ya!! With love from Richfield!

You had a Budweiser banner; I had Budweiser Converse shoes. What a time to be alive…and underage.

Soup of Sonic Sadness...been there! Great series, man. Giggers of all ages can learn from this - I certainly am.

Hey man, thanks for sharing your bands journey. My band's early gigs could easily have ended up in one of these videos. Shit, they may even one day lol. It is really inspiring to see this though, definitely does give hope and I've found it really inspiring. Now I want to pick up my guitar and practice, unfortunately I gotta work lol. One of the problems my band faces is we don't gig consistently enough to really build on the skills. We have definitely come on a lot since we started though.

Hey Mike, my name is Dan Glime. I'm from St Paul Minnesota. I now live in Jacksonville Florida. We moved down here about 10 years ago. I've been watching your videos for years and just realized that I've done shows with your band Sanctus at Ryan's Corner in St Paul. I was the lead guitar player in the band Battle Cry. I don't know if you remember us or not but we did shows with you guys around September October or November of 1992. I remember your band, we did at least two shows together. I really like your videos keep up the good work!

Great display of improvements and kudos to you for choosing yourself and your old band as the topic for this episode! Hats off to you for humility! Longer hair = better performance Is that the "Sampson Effect"? 😆

Good job. You're so mellow talking... one would never imagine you jumping around and head banging on stage like that

That snare sound at the first avenue gig was so dope.

When you got better and wrote original's, i was really liking your songs. Found you demo tape on youtube. Its pretty good.

“Sonic Sadness” = killer band name. Love the series, Mike. Cory needs to bring those baggy jeans back 🤣

The Mirage. Man, that takes me back. Best show I saw there was Fight. That was rockin. How about King’s Machine? Seen them there back in the day too. What year were those Mirage & First Avenue shows? Did you play with any other local bands at the time? I was involved in the Twin Cities band scene from 1995-2007. 21st Century Sin, Seventh Calling, Cold Colours to name a few. Played lots of shows at Ryan’s/Station 4 in St Paul. Also played a lot at Sharkys in Columbia Heights. Got to play The Quest too a few times. We played a lot of shows & went on tour with Impaler as well. Great guys.

Great video and story! 🎸

That's totally cool! Growth in a band is a good thing thanks for sharing! :)

Definitely relate to a lot of what's said in this video. Especially the curly hair that seems to be just growing inwards!

Awesome video. Thank you for sharing your footage. 👍🏻😎👍🏻

What I've felt my whole life is how fortunate young bands are to have a place to practice - a big kudos to the parents and neighbors who allow that to happen, unless you are lucky enough to have a sound proof room in your house. Anyway awesome retrospective video!

Great video.

Sounds like you guys are playing a little fast on the fade to black intro. I also love when you guys end the song and he just goes”whatever”!😂

I never had this progression. I was the new guy in my first band who had like a decade of experience together. So the critque was right there in practice and on stage. It really made my overall growth accelerate. Tone ? Terrible day one pretty good day 2 because the other guitarist fix it. Movement on stage stiff as a post day 1 but within a few shows improved ( with almost a choreographic approach) . Playing improved by being pushed outside my comfort every practice. My first show opening song me on acoustic with no one else playing (big risk) , I played well enough but I felt like I ran a marathon after first song.

Great stuff Mike…I remember I played part if the solo to “texas flood” in the wrong key cuz I couldn’t really hear myself in the mix…so embarrassing…hahaha

Your early shows were still way better than the bands you find for this series. BTW, watching all the footage you have really makes me wish that my old band would've taped more of our shows.

Fade to black intro in double time! We have all been there, muh guy. This actually brings back memories of my first band, Parasite (we may have liked KISS a bit).

Very cool that you played First Avenue.

The drummer has his drums set up Lars style from the late 80's early 90's

KEEP EM COMING!!! 🍿

I still have audio tapes from the mid 80s of our band practises. I had that lead guitar tone too. Probably sounded better out of the amp than the 3" speaker on a stereo cassette.

Another thing is is with our first show upcoming soon. I would love to get it recorded and send it to you and maybe you can use it in this series. We are a pretty new band a bunch of dudes in their 20s all our self taught on our own instruments attempting to learn music theory 😅

I remember hearing about sanctus in Lakeville high school. I was at that nuclear assault at Ryan's bar what a great time to be alive. St paul Minneapolis wasn't a very good place to try to get noticed. Prince Dylan and soul asylum are the only 3 that I know of. Bass player from vixen was from st paul too.

Golden lessons ✨️

Man for as well as i can date the videos (i graduated HS in 93, noticed the transition from tighter to baggy pants 😅) you're looking pretty good!

ahhhh this takes me back! It's a beautifully painful journey of deliverance!! haha This stage of discovery was the late 80's/early 90's for me...woah! that's a while back now. Murdering Guns n Roses tracks at school concerts. LOVED it but thankfully no video evidence :P although would be cool to see how bad we were back then and how far (hopefully) my tone has improved