The Birthday Massacre

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The Birthday Massacre is a synthrock band, based in Toronto, Canada. The band was officially formed in 1999, known at that time as Imagica, a name taken from a novel by Clive Barker.

The group originated in London, Ontario under the name Imagica. The group's original line-up consisted of: Chibi (vocals), Rainbow (guitar and programming), Michael Falcore (guitar), and J. Aslan (bass). Dank played live keyboards and O.E. joined the group on live drums. A seven-song limited edition demo was released.

In 2001, Dank left the group, and the others relocated from London to Toronto, Ontario, to begin recording. There, they recorded another limited edition demo, this time with five songs.

Shortly thereafter, the band adopted the name The Birthday Massacre. In July 2002, The Birthday Massacre independently released a limited edition CD entitled "Nothing and Nowhere." In 2003, Adm joined the band on live keyboards and Rhim on drums. On July 20, 2004, The Birthday Massacre released a nine song EP entitled "Violet," and at the end of the year, re-released "Nothing and Nowhere" with new sleeve artwork. Adm soon left thereafter to explore his own projects. In the fall of 2004, the band was signed to Repo Records in Germany, and released a remastered and expanded version of "Violet" in Europe, including updated album art in a digipak case.

In 2005 the band signed to Metropolis Records and released "Violet" in the U.S.A., Canada, United Kingdom, and most of South America. O-en joined on live keyboards and in August, the band began a series of international tours taking them to Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Belgium. Also in August, a DVD consisting of a video for the song "Blue" was released. It also included behind-the-scenes footage, interviews, a studio performance of "Nevermind," as well as live performances of "Violet" and "Video Kid." The centerpiece of the DVD was the Dan Ouellette-directed video for "Blue".

In early 2006, the Birthday Massacre toured North America, playing across Canada, the United States and Mexico on their "Broken Minds" tour. They also played Europe in the summer of 2006.

In June 2007, it was announced that the band was working on a new record with Canadian producer/engineer Dave "Rave" Ogilvie and that bass player Aslan had left the band for his own project. Aslan has been replaced on bass by former drummer O.E. The demo version of the song "Kill the Lights" was released on Vampirefreaks and MySpace for streaming on January 1, 2007. "Looking Glass" (another single from "Walking with Strangers") was released for streaming on August 1, 2007 for Vampirefreaks and MySpace.

On September 11, 2007 the band released "Walking with Strangers" in North America, entering at #10 on the Billboard "Top Heatseekers" chart for September 29.

The album was released in Europe on September 21 and in the UK on 22 October.

In May 2008 they released the "Looking Glass" EP, the second single taken from the album
which they will be promoting on tour with Mindless Self Indulgence, Fake Shark - Real Zombie! and Combichrist. Starting June 17, they began a tour with Mindless Self Indulgence and Julien-K.

While on tour, in an interview with "DeathWish" from the Vampirefreaks website the band mentioned that they are writing new material for an upcoming album.

On January 1, 2009, they announced through a MySpace bulletin that they would be releasing their new album in Fall of 2009, as well as a live DVD of the Walking with Strangers tour.

Chibi and Rainbow were apparently both friends and neighbors when they were much younger, as said in an appearance on FearNET.com's "Interrogation Room".