Tampa, FL · post-hardcore · screamo

From First To Last

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Mid-2000s screamo whose most famous alumnus left to become a dubstep producer — 'Dear Diary' drama that still hits the scene's pleasure centers.

From First to Last formed in Tampa, Florida, in November 1999, founded by Matt Good, Scott Oord and Parker Nelms. The lineup shifted through several members before the band recorded its debut EP, Aesthetic, released in 2003 with vocalist Phillip Reardon, who left the group the following year over creative differences.

After signing with Epitaph Records, the band recruited Sonny Moore as vocalist and built a sound of shouted and sung vocal trade-offs, heavily processed guitars and pop structures buried under distortion. Its first two albums, Dear Diary, My Teen Angst Has a Bodycount (2004) and Heroine (2006), sold a combined 304,000 copies in the US by 2008 without radio airplay, helped by a MySpace following that logged over 20 million streams on the songs.

Moore left in February 2007 to start a solo career as Skrillex. Matt Manning joined on bass and Good moved to lead vocals and guitar. Signed to Suretone Records, the band released a self-titled third album in 2008 that drew mixed reviews and undersold despite a high-profile marketing push behind it.

The band moved to Rise Records in 2009. Guitarist Travis Richter left soon after, and a fourth album, Throne to the Wolves, came out in March 2010, followed by a hiatus that July.

From First to Last reformed in November 2013 with Periphery vocalist Spencer Sotelo fronting the group and Richter back in the lineup, releasing Dead Trees in 2015. Sotelo departed in 2016, and Sonny Moore rejoined in January 2017, part of the intermittent reunions that keep the band's early material a reference point for its era.

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