Juan Garcia

Juan Garcia (born November 24, 1963), also known as Juan of the Dead, is a Cuban-American guitarist. He is perhaps best known as the guitarist for the thrash metal bands Agent Steel and Evildead and the power metal/speed metal band Abattoir. Garcia is also the rhythm guitarist of Body Count. Biography In 1982, Garcia joined the newly formed heavy metal band Abattoir along with bassist Mel Sanchez, guitarist Mark Caro, drummer Ron Gonzales, and vocalist Chris Maleki. He played on the band's early demos 'Abattoir (1983)' and 'Demo 1984' (1984); He also performed on the debut Abattoir 'Vicious Attack' Lp released on Combat Records before leaving the band in October 1984 to join Agent Steel. He recorded on two classic albums with Agent Steel 'Skeptics Apocalypse' (1985) and 'Unstoppable Force' (1987) as well as their EP 'Mad Locust Rising' (1986). After leaving Agent Steel in 1987, Garcia reunited with Mel Sanchez to form Evildead, with the intention to write heavy music with more hardcore and thrash metal elements; more so than their previous bands; EvilDead's debut show was at Fender's Ballroom in Long Beach, California along with Possessed, Dark Angel, and Cryptic Slaughter. The band's name was inspired from the Sam Raimi horror film 'The Evil Dead'. Their lyrics focused on exploring political and social themes mixed with horror and nuclear war topics. During their initial career, Evildead released two albums, a live recording and an EP all on SPV/Steamhammer Records. After several lineup changes and an attempt to make a third album, the band broke up in 1995. After Evildead folded, Garcia, along with his former bandmates Karlos Medina, Dan Flores and Jon Dette ( replaced by Eddie Livingston and later Rigo Amezcua ) formed a new band, Terror (not to be confused with the hardcore punk band with the same name). This band would follow the same vein as Evildead, but with lyrics and vocals in Spanish. After managing to release their debut album 'Hijos de Los Cometas' on BMG/Culebra (now out of print) in 1997 and a self-titled EP in 1998; Terror split up and Garcia returned to Agent Steel to record co-write and record the comeback album 'Omega Conspiracy'. He was also contributed guitars on the Killing Machine 'Metalmorphosis' second release which featured James Rivera (Helstar) on vocals, and David Ellefson (Megadeth) on bass.