Defused is a progressive rock band from Southern Illinois. Defused started off as a “one man band” in early 2006 by founder Michael Hicks. For the next three years he would spend time writing three demo CDs worth of material, some of which would find its way on to popular underground websites, thus starting Defused’s strong internet fan base early on. In 2008 Michael was joined by drummer Brock Baltzell. Together they would write and record the majority of Defused’s first proper release “The Point of Beginning”. A few months after Brock joined the project guitarist Connor Burge and bassist Derek Burwell joined to finally make Defused a full band. Brock summed up the recording of the album on a radio interview a couple of months after the album’s release, “We just took the whole thing as a joke, just to make music for fun. We didn’t know it was going to explode into something we wanted to pursue.” Defused soon experienced massive exposure when their songs “Tonight, It Ends” and “Time” were played on a number of underground radio stations across the world. From having their email inbox flooded each day from fans when the CD was first released to beating out signed bands like Foo Fighters, Paramore and Lostprophets in radio play charts the band set their goals even higher. Hoping to please the listener’s expectations, they returned to the studio soon after the release of “The Point of Beginning” in 2009 to record the follow-up. The band spent around seven months recording “An End to Corruption”. “The album is a lot darker and touches a wide variety of subjects dealing with corruption” stated Michael during the recording process. Throughout the recording sessions Michael mentioned that he had been largely influenced by electronic artists and looking at the end result, it defiantly shows. From the epic opener “Cheating Sin” to the electronic ballad “Hiding in Shadows” the band manages to bring in a fresh new sound while keeping musical formulas that brought Defused to the attention of thousands of listeners worldwide.