Fall of the Citadel

CITADEL: Undulating Band

Most people have never heard of Citadel. The band was never able to achieve widespread notoriety and was constantly beset by internal conflicts, lineup changes, and various other personnel problems.

The band was formed when bassist Daniel Jackson and aspiring drummer Colin Wilson got together to form a heavy metal band with ex-Peepshow guitarist Ryan Winguard. Naming itself “BludSpot,” the band originally recruited future PBA vocalist Carlos DeShazo to come up with song lyrics and handle vocal duties. There were problems from the start with song arrangements, lyrics, and with Winguard’s condescending attitude toward the other band members. DeShazo walked, and John Stewart was recruited to fill his position in the band. Jimmy Walker was added on keyboard, and quit two weeks later after an argument with Wilson. Kyle Whiddon, former keyboardist for Empty Silence, was brought in as his replacement. It was this lineup that convened to record the four-song EP Pipe Dream, which was released on Killing Teeth records in June 1998.

During a break between recording sessions for the EP, Stewart was arrested for several outstanding warrants and a misdemeanor drug charge. Jackson’s friend Julian Moore was brought in to complete the album, but failed to hit it off with Winguard. After a brawl between the two, Winguard quit the band and was replaced by DeShazo, who rejoined for a month on guitar before leaving with Wilson to form PBA. As Whiddon had already been fired after an earlier showdown with Wilson (Whiddon having classed Wilson’s drumming abilities as “piss-poor„), Moore recruited his girlfriend Faith Bradley on guitar, and it was she who changed the name of the group to Citadel. With the subsequent addition of Bradley’s half-brother Chase Farrin on vocals and guitar, and Pat Elliott on drums, the newly-christened Citadel opened for Screaming Mayhem’s first performance. The set was recorded and cassettes of it were distributed at the end of Citadel’s next show.

Citadel convened to the studio once again, with two successful shows now under its belt. Basic tracks for one song were recorded, but then another series of lineup changes rocked the group. After a violent fight with Moore, Bradley quit the band. This exacerbated the already festering hostility between Moore and Farrin (Moore having been jealous for some time over Farrin’s dual role as guitarist and vocalist), convincing Moore to quit as well. Farrin was subsequently arrested for marijuana possession, and Jackson, in an attempt to flesh out the now skeletal band, persuaded Walker to rejoin. Randy Miller was recruited on guitar after being fired by Screaming Mayhem’s Sarah Decker, and handled vocals for one show before quitting the band.

Citadel now consisted of a bassist, drummer, and keyboardist. After a short search, James Riley (late of Stolen Innocents and Murdered by Numbers) was brought in to handle guitar and vocals, but he and Walker were immediate adversaries. After Walker quit for the second time, Citadel finally managed to make it back into the studio to record two songs, both of which were featured on the EP Reverent Angel along with the earlier unfinished track (replete with James Riley vocals but not his guitar work) and two songs from the live opening for Screaming Mayhem. The EP was issued on Killing Teeth Records, which went bankrupt immediately afterward.

Fall of the Citadel Heather J. Furgason, head of small, up-and-coming local label APR Records, had attended several Citadel shows and had collected all of the band’s releases. After Killing Teeth folded, she proposed adding the band to the APR roster. Temple of Doom, Citadel’s only full-length release, was duly recorded and mixed by Bradford and engineer Rob Clements. Citadel insisted on handling all production work themselves, and the sessions nearly fell apart before Bradford judged there were enough tracks recorded to construct an album. After the album was completed, Riley decided to quit the band and moved in with his pregnant girlfriend. Vocals for the album were then re-recorded with new vocalist Jessie Quillen, but Riley’s original guitar work was left intact, leading him to seek and obtain an injunction against the sale of the record until disputes over royalty payments could be settled.

By the time Riley went to court to stop the album’s sale, however, local indie rock station KZZT had already begun featuring the first single, “River of Lost Souls,” in fairly regular rotation. Listeners, frustrated by their inability to buy copies of the album, turned instead to bootlegging it, and Temple of Doom bootlegs became so common that the band received virtually no royalties for the album even after the legal issues were resolved. This caused the situation to become untenable, and Quillen left the band. Elliott, Jackson, and guitarist Steve Craft (who had been brought in to replace James Riley) booked studio time to record new material, coaxing Ryan Winguard back into the band and adding new vocalist Brandon Risinger. But by this time fans had become disgusted with the constant lineup changes and increasingly inferior quality of the material, and total turnout for the debut of the newest Citadel incarnation was only fifteen. With the band unable to get bookings, and with other more popular (and stable) bands hogging the local limelight, Winguard quit. Jackson gave up rock music, and was found dead a year later inside a dumpster in downtown Dallas.

Still the band soldiered on. John Kaplan replaced Jackson on bass, and the lineup of Elliott, Kaplan, Craft, and Risinger actually recorded an entire album’s worth of material on a home 4-track machine. Of these recordings, only four songs were released on the entirely self-funded cassette EP Machine Head. Citadel opened for the about-to-break Killjoy Parade on August 6th, 1999, and afterward Craft and Kaplan quit to form Enemy Mine, which promptly broke up after one show. After losing Craft and Kaplan, Elliott attempted to form a new Citadel, but met with failure. He went back to school, and Risinger disappeared into oblivion.