ARTCH was founded in Jan.-83 by Cato and myself (Bernt).We were 16 and 17 years old at the time. One year later we changed the line up. We teamed up with another local heavy metal group called "Oxygen" which featured Geir and Jørn.

We made a couple of demos, and made a (extremely) low budget video in mai-85. The song "Metal Life" was actually one of those songs. Until then, we had problems finding the right singer for the band. We needed a singer with a powerful voice and attitude. The singer we had at the time, Lars Fladeby, didn't quite fill those standards.

During summer -85, we did find a dude called Espen Hoff. He seemed to fit the band "like hand in glove". But this was never meant to be. Espen was tragically killed in a motorcycle-accident on his way to an ARTCH rehearsal in Oct.-85