History

In Vain began with a bunch of childhood friends (Daniel Cordón, Pablo Fernández and Alejandro Sastre). At high school their music likings moved to Hard Rock and Heavy Metal, and so Dani started to play the guitar, and soon, Álex joined him. Around this time they met Usama A. Kheder, a high school mate who joined them playing the guitar too, but later he would leave it to play the bass.

These were hard times, no place to practice, no drums and bad quality instruments. Then in Rivas, their home town, the city council built rehearsal premises, where they could practice as a band at least once a week. A name was needed for the band, so N.G., a name which came out from a joke, was temporally chosen, integrated by Dani and Álex playing the guitars, Usama playing the bass and Pablo (who actually played the keyboards) as the drummer, still with no vocalist.

In 2002, Álex left the band for studying reasons, and David Hurtado, guitar player from the band “Profecía”, was the one who replaced him. Later Álex rejoined the band and, with Dani as guitar player and provisional vocalist, David and Álex playing the guitar, Usama playing the bass and Pablo as the drummer, a first complete formation was established, so they started playing live, and at the same time, each one started taking music lessons.

At the end of 2003, in one of their shows they met Teo Seoane (drummer of the Punk Rock band “Preaching in Pants”), and he became the new drummer of the still called N.G. formation, so Pablo moved to keyboards at last. Now with six members, the name changed to In Vain, and Dani became the vocalist permanently. Since then they played several live shows and recorded their first demo, “Spirit of Earth”, with their first four songs.

In 2005, the band continued practising, playing live and composed new songs, being its style classic heavy metal, as the one played in the 80’s by great bands like Iron Maiden or Running Wild. In September they participated in the 8th Rivas Vaciamadrid Pop-Rock Contest, with more than 100 bands, winning the price for the best local band.

During 2006, some changes occurs in the band's mentality. They introduce new elements in the compositions, mainly thrash, and they play live for larger audiences, playing even near Paris along some local bands. All this make the In Vain project a serious reality, always trying to get further.

After this year of evolution, new successes arrived in 2007. They publish their second demo, 'Dawn of Misery', with a professional booklet and a much better sound with respect to 'Spirit of Earth'. With this demo, the band wins again the prize for the best local band in the PopRock contest of Rivas, the third prize in the Popzuelo contest and they win at Moralrock'07, in which besides the cash prize, In Vain plays live for more than 500 people in a concert in which the head band is Rosendo Mercado. Moreover, the demo has very good reviews and is well sold, so the band is thinking to record an album in studio in 2008.

While recording the first album, Alejandro Sastre and David Hurtado left the band, but Daniel B. Martín joined it as lead guitar. After a long recording process, on November 2009 'Of Gods and Men' was released, with eight brand new tracks where the band continue evolving through a harder sound and its own style starts to be defined. The album is distributed in Spain and, in a lower scale, in Europe.

During the following 2 years, the band is dedicated to play concerts around Spain, and the album not only reaches Europe, but even Japan. At the same time, the second album is being composed, but another member leaves the band, Usama. His position is temporary filled for the concerts and for the recording of this album, In Death We Trust, which is released at January 2012, just when a new bass player arrives at the band, Mario Arredondo.

With the line-up once again complete and a new album, In Vain faces the future with renewed hopes, and a sound proposal that increasingly includes more elements of thrash and speed metal to the band's original power and classic heavy metal. During the presentation concerts of 'In Death We Trust' In Vain supports great bands such as Axxis at the Granito Rock festival, Steelwing or Freedom Call, increasing their fan base significantly. The first official video clip for the song 'In Death We Trust' is also filmed, another small step in the growth of the band.

During this tour, Pablo Fernández, keyboardist and founding member of the band, leaves the formation. Although some temporary replacement is found, the evolution of the band's sound and the failure to find suitable keyboardists forces the band to make a decision of great importance for the future: In Vain is definitively formed as a quartet and keyboards disappear forever. Moreover, this happens in the middle of the songwriting process for the third album, which means having to discard several ideas and start over almost from scratch with the new sound approach.

In 2014 'The Little Things That Matter' was released, a big step in the group's future in so many ways. Improved production, definitively more aggressive compositions and an absolute prominence of the guitars are the main characteristics of the new release. The live presentation has fewer concerts than on previous occasions, but it is accompanied by some international band such as Astral Doors and, above all, worldwide distribution of the CD is achieved through Pure Steel Records, selling all copies of it in just one year. To promote this album, two video clips were filmed for the songs 'No Future For The World' and 'King In The North'.

During 2016 the band decides to take a 6-month break for various personal reasons, which will delay the release of the fourth album 'IV' until October 2017. With the presentation of the video single 'Blood & Steel' a month before, they break all the records of reach and public success both musically and visually, receiving excellent reviews and gaining a multitude of international fans. The band shares the stage with great bands such as RAM or Brainstorm and begins to compose their next release.

Arriving at 2020, while the band is still presenting 'IV', two hard blows are received: the coronavirus pandemic that causes a year and a half break in all activity other than composition and the announcement of Daniel B. Martín to his colleagues that he is leaving the band at the end of 2021. With this very negative situation, In Vain finishes composing and recording his fifth album 'All Hope is Gone', conceived with the real possibility that it would be the last one to be released. It is published in October 2021 on CD and digital and a few months later a vinyl edition is released for the first time in the history of In Vain, and after several presentation concerts that reactivate the illusion of the rest of the components and a great reception from the album by the media and fans, the band replaces Dani after his departure at the end of the year and recovers all its activity looking to the future. Julio Abadía is counted on to take over the lead guitar, and after a brief period of adjustments, the new formation hits the road to present their fifth album, and at the same time they are composing what will be their sixth album.

History continues...