Through the Darkness officially started in 2009 at the Gathercoal household with only Kristopher and Tyler at the helm. Soon after multiple songs were written, they realized that they were in need of a vocalist, so why not ask “little brother Drew”, right? Andrew was only 15 years old when Kris approached him, threw the “The Zen of Screaming II” DVD into his lap and said, “we need you to scream.”

Fast forward to 2012, TTD gained a bassist named, Joe Swanson and lead guitarist, Matt Corrigan. They just played their first shows in Jefferson at the Prairie Blue, a cornfield at the Eberle Farm, the Carroll Armory, and People’s Court in downtown Des Moines.

But you see, not all their songs were heavy. The majority of TTD listened to slower, acoustic songs. They decided it was then time to bring on a clean vocalist. So in early 2013, they got in touch with Cameron Stevens and found the voice they were looking for.

Through the Darkness had some line-up changes in the following years; with Matt deciding to leave came the resurgence of Justin Saffell in 2013, and with the departure of Joe came the welcoming of Chaz Wessels in 2014.

Things started to get serious…

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February 2014

Samantha Knight, a radio personality at Lazer 103.3, shouted into her microphone: “Give it up for Through the Darkness!” She stood before a crowd of hundreds. It was February 2014, and Through the Darkness had fought their way to the Final Four in Lazerfest’s Battle of the Bands. Winning meant playing the annual festival hosted by Lazer 103.3, aptly named Lazerfest—an outdoor rock show of tens of thousands.

That night would change our lives forever.

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Four years earlier, some members of Through the Darkness had attended the biggest Lazerfest of all time; A festival of 25,000 people, two stages, and big-name bands. Eric Davidson’s voice echoed from huge speakers over a field where a line of thousands waited to get inside. At that moment in 2010, our desire to play the Lazerfest began. It never crossed our minds that four years later we’d be going toe to toe with past winner, Dead Horse Trauma in the 2014 Battle of the Bands at Wooly’s.

“DHT! DHT!!” Fans of Dead Horse Trauma chanted as the band finished their set in the 2014 Battle of the Bands. “DHT! DHT”

We in Through the Darkness were backstage, nervous yet excited. Up to this point, our largest show to date had been the first round of Battle of the Bands. Mostly, we played small bars and venues that were hardly venues at all. But here we were, at Wooly’s in Des Moines for the third time in a month.

We could scarcely hear a faint chant from a few dozen people amongst the crowd of hundreds: “TTD... TTD...” It grew louder as more joined. Finally, their voices exploded and replaced the DHT chant entirely. Wooly’s had come alive—and they’d done so for us.

“TTD! TTD!” In our circle we stood, still backstage, still nervous, but our smiles became confident, our fear melted to thrill. Hundreds of people were there, chanting our name; we made it.

As we prepared to take the stage, Eric Davidson of Dead Horse Trauma passed by. “You guys must have a lot of friends,” he said. “Good luck.”

By the time we got on stage, our anxieties had evaporated. We were now only excited, and we performed our best set at our biggest show of the time.

And there were many more to come..

The following year (2015) we had won the Battle of the Bands and earned the right to open at the last official Lazerfest held at the Seven Flags Event Center in Clive.

We've since reached the ears of over a million people with our songs. “Wonderwall,” a cover song originally by Oasis, was released in December of 2016. It quickly became our most popular song with almost 25,000 views in 24 hours. For the first time, we had commercial success on the radio and became one of Lazer 103.3's five most requested songs for six weeks straight, which put our name alongside bands such as Breaking Benjamin, A Day to Remember, Avenged Sevenfold, Metallica, Beartooth, and more.

On January 13th, 2017, we released our most popular song to date. Fragile has garnered almost 600,000 streams on Spotify and has inspired toasts dedicated to soldiers deployed overseas and messages from individuals expressing how deeply they connect with the song. Fragile was written for friends who'd left the world too soon, and its message resonates with all who understand the complexities of mental health and suicide awareness.

Defiance, released on October 8th, 2017, is our most viewed video to date and was regarded as our best production at the time. The music video competed in the Iowa Independent Film Festival in Mason City, further expanding which creative outlets the band has begun to explore.  

October 2018, we released a cover of A Great Big World's “Say Something” while announcing that we would be taking a break from music, shows, and the band as a whole. But in February of 2022, just over three years later, our hiatus ended with a reimagined release of our first ever single, The Falling of a Dream.

Notable Achievements & Shows:

Winner of the 2015 Lazerfest Battle of the Bands

Opened Lazerfest 2015 at the Seven Flags Event Center

The following artists and bands are in no particular order,

Performed alongside the following national acts: Five Finger Death Punch, Falling in Reverse, American Hitmen, Alien Ant Farm, Ayla Brown, Black Tide, Threat Signal, Hatchet, Eyes Set to Kill, Relapse Symphony, Devour the Day, Mushroomhead, Angel Vivaldi, Puddle of Mudd, Saliva, Index Case, I Prevail, Smile Empty Soul, For Today, Fit for a King, The Plot In You, Like Moths to Flames, Stray from the Path, Whitechapel, Carnifex, Entheos, Rings of Saturn, Born of Osiris, Black Tusk, The Desolate, Sleep Signals, Pangaea, Blue Felix, Dead Horse Trauma, Devil in the Details, Monuments

Performed alongside local & unsigned acts: Growing, Stitch Nine, Intentions, Fall of Kings, Edenforge, Still Chyld, Under Paris, Indocile, From Myth & Legend, More Than Blood, Stories Through Storms, Zeale, From the Arc, Balefire, Stone Park Ritual, Beauty Killed the Beast, Goodbye Old Friend, Chasing Silence, Patient Zero, Switchblade Saturdays, Slyde, Section Hate, Fatal Addiction, Further South, Street Thieves, Ashes Armada, Journey’s End, Screaming for Silence, The Matador, Beyond the Silence, Ancient Elm, Ignore the Script, Of Kings and Beasts, Bordeaux, Shatter, Rehtek, Lake of Fat Kids, Ghost Riders, One Cold July, Apathy Syndrome, The Curse of Hail, What Lies Within, Arborists, As For You, Sinister Theory, They Will Repent, Desecrate Ethereal, Green Death, Absolute Power, Agrinex, Grit, Dire Wake