 While he was working on the studio tracks for Face Down, Richard ran into former Mozes (death metal) band mates, Jonas Wigstad and Tomas Marklund, who were also very interested in the new band idea.Later that same year, they started playing together and writing songs.While Richard, Jonta and Tomas all were band mates in Mozes, and played individually in various melodic death metal bands, Richard felt more musically influenced by bands like Motörhead and Pantera.