Demon Hunter is a Christian metal band from Seattle. Brothers Ryan and Don Clark started it in 2000 as a side project. Both had played in the hardcore band Training for Utopia, and Ryan had played guitar in Focal Point as a teenager.
A masked start
The first Demon Hunter song anyone heard was a demo of "Through the Black" on the 2002 compilation This Is Solid State Vol. 3. The self-titled debut followed on Solid State on 22 October 2002. The brothers wrote the songs and played most of the instruments, with Ryan singing. Jesse Sprinkle, formerly of Poor Old Lu, played drums.
At first they hid their faces in photos and kept their names out of the press. That ended with their first tour, alongside Norwegian Christian metal band Extol and The Agony Scene. By then the live band included Sprinkle, bassist Jon Dunn and lead guitarist Kris McCaddon.
Summer of Darkness and the Solid State years
Summer of Darkness came out on 4 May 2004. The video for "Not Ready to Die" ran on MTV2's Headbangers Ball and Fuse, and "My Heartstrings Come Undone" landed on the Resident Evil: Apocalypse soundtrack. The guest singers included Howard Jones of Killswitch Engage and Trevor McNevan of Thousand Foot Krutch.
Timothy "Yogi" Watts took over on drums for The Triptych in 2005, with Ethan Luck on lead guitar. It sold more than twice as many copies in its first week as Summer of Darkness had. In December 2006 Revolver put Ryan Clark on a cover about Christian metal, alongside Underoath's Spencer Chamberlain, As I Lay Dying's Tim Lambesis and Norma Jean's Cory Brandan. Storm the Gates of Hell followed on 6 November 2007, with Living Sacrifice's Bruce Fitzhugh guesting on "Sixteen."
Ryan Clark's band
Don Clark left in August 2009 to focus on his graphic design career and his family. That left Ryan as the only original member. Ethan Luck left too, because he couldn't keep up with his other band, Relient K, and Patrick Judge took over on lead guitar.
The 2010s were the band's best decade on the charts. The World Is a Thorn (2010) debuted at No. 39 on the Billboard 200, True Defiance (2012) at No. 36 and Extremist (2014) at No. 16, their highest debut. Outlive came out in 2017. In 2019 they put out two albums on the same day, War and Peace. Exile followed in 2022 on the band's own label, Weapons MFG, with a guest solo from Judas Priest's Richie Faulkner. There Was a Light Here came out in 2025. By the 2010s the band had sold more than 600,000 albums.
Faith
Demon Hunter has never been shy about what it believes. Ryan Clark said that when the band officially started, they wanted to be "very bold about it." In 2008 the band's website said they were "absolutely" a Christian band and that the members were all "Bible believing followers of Jesus Christ."
Where they sit in the scene
Plenty of bands in this scene drifted away from the Christian label. Demon Hunter stayed put. They pair heavy, groove-driven metal with big sung choruses. And they've spent two decades showing that an openly Christian band can chart on the Billboard 200 and tour with secular metal acts like In Flames.
