Fiakra was originally formed under the name Hexen in late 2000 by Kenneth Allen Burdge III on vocals/lead guitar. Wanting to bring back the old school style of heavy metal popular in the 80's. While there was still a large fan base in Europe for traditional metal, it was virtually ignored by American pop culture at the time. Kenneth put together a lineup featuring John Catalano on bass, Scott Gregory on guitar, and Eric Silsby on drums. This lineup lasted roughly a year, however the band members didn't fully get along and a change was in order.
Greg Guarini (Blackboots) joined the band on drums in 2003, followed by Sal Terregino, and Thomas Luke on guitar, Jai Randon on bass, and Kenneth switched to just performing vocals. Progress was slow for the next few years as the band members finished up high school and building up their chops and songwriting skills. In 2005 Thomas Luke left the band, and Kenneth again took up guitar and vocals. Now the band had started playing shows and released their first demo titled "spring 2005 demo" including three tracks: "Sever The Wicked", "Never Tempt a God", and "Korax".
The band continued playing local shows for the next year until we recorded our first E.P. entitled "A New Age" containing 4 tracks: "Rebirth", "A New Age", "J.A.I.", and “Requiem". The band released the E.P. locally in a very limited run. This was also the first release under Kenneth's personal record label called "Eternal War Records". It was during this time I changed my stage name to "The Warlord". The band’s lyrics were moving more and more towards battle and warfare. The band decided to have their stage show match their lyrics, and started designing stage costumes of medieval/dark age’s armor. Unfortunately this lineup played its last show in January 2007 at the stone pony in Asbury Park New Jersey, Sal and Jai both left the band shortly after.
The next year was spent as just myself & Greg writing songs, and finishing the recording of the bands first full length. During that time Andy Sherman (Stage name - Wulfhere the skull splitter), and Matt Wheeler, both of New Jersey's "Endless Lament" joined hexen on guitar, and bass respectively. It was with this lineup that the band finally embraced the dark age’s themed stage show. Playing on stage dressed in full armor, swords and battle axes. The songs and lyrics started moving more and more towards dark, epic power metal with hints of thrash and death metal. The debut album was finally released on Eternal War Records in October 2008 locally and online.
In 2009, Hexen was unfortunately required to change our name, seeing as there was already a band called Hexen based in California. Our new name "Fiakra"- an alternate spelling of the ancient Irish word for raven. Fiakra started recording our second album with five songs being released as a demo. They are currently searching for a record label to release our next album worldwide and continue our quest.