Ice Fortress formed in August 2004 when Peyton Gregory and Ben Rictor began writing songs. They soon found a bassist, James Cho and vocalist Jon Richards. After a lack of effort toward the band James was asked to leave the band. Soon after, Jonathan Fay joined the band as second guitarist, after several days of practice with John they came to the conclusion that Johns style of playing did not fit the band. Up until this point the bands music was melodic death metal (influences: The Black Dahlia Murder, Cattle Decapitation, Decrepit Birth, Cephalic Carnage, Arsis, Behemoth)
Then Peyton asked long time friend Billy Price if he wanted to jam with the band, Billy joined the band after one jam session. Days later Peyton called up an old friend and fellow metal head Tom Mason. Tom liked the music as well and joined the band.
At this point, Jon began missing practices and with no hesitation Ben kicked Jon out of the band. From there on Peyton became the singer as well as lead guitar player. Ice Fortress has had many different names but some how everyone seemed to agree on Ice Fortress except for Peyton, but his vote was over ruled by the other band members. The band then released a 5 song demo titled Hammer of thor. It was a mix between the sound of thrash metal and sloppy power metal.
At that point the bands style of music completely changed. Peyton began spending days composing music, often late into the night then sleeping the next day in school. The songs were much more complex and had a more of an Epic Power Metal sound but with harsher vocals. All of these songs included keyboard. After months of searching they found a keyboardist, Scotty Paparone.
Less then a month after Scotty joining, Billy was force to leave the band due to too many other activities he was involved in. Billy was immediately replaced by Patrick Williams. Weeks later Ben Rictor was replaced by Evan Phillips because he was not putting enough effort into the band. Weeks after that Patrick was kicked out because he was too focused on his other band, which went no where by the way. Kelan Hudson replaced him. And with the bands horrible luck, 2 shows later Tom Mason, the only other original member had to leave for college and at the same time Scotty Paparone's parents wanted him to focus more in school and forced him the leave the band. Fortunately they were able to find another bassist, Jon Zerbonia, very fast.
After 1 year of having a solid line-up of, Peyton Gregory (Lead Guitar/Vocals), Kelan Hudson (Rhythm Guitar), Jon Zerbonia (Bass), and Evan Phillips (Drums). Jon Zerbonia was forces to leave the band to go to college. Luckily he was quickly replaced by Jon Ransom, a long friend of Peyton. Soon after Kelan Huson left the band to join Jon Zerbonia at college. He was replaced By Sten, guitarist of Silvans.