Quo Vadis was a Canadian melodic death metal band from Montreal, Quebec, formed in 1992 by Bart Frydrychowicz, Yanic Bercier, and Arie Itman, named after the novel by Polish writer Henryk Sienkiewicz.

[1] Quo Vadis was formed in 1992 by guitarists and vocalists Bart Frydrychowicz and Arie Itman and drummer Yanic Bercier.

Bassist Remy Beauchamp was recruited as a permanent member after the band tried out 17 others[3] and soprano vocalist Sebrina Lipari performed on certain songs live.

[4] The Quo Vadis Demo was released on cassette on March 21, 1995, through VomiT Productions and helped the band establish themselves in the Montreal metal community.

[5] In early 1996, Quo Vadis headed back into the studio and recorded their debut album with Pierre Rémillard, who had previously worked with Cryptopsy, as producer.

Recorded at Victor Studios and produced again by Quo Vadis and Pierre Rémillard, Day into Night was released on March 30, 2000, in Canada.

Whereas the composing duties for Forever were credited to all members, a majority of the songs on the Day Into Night album were in fact written and recorded by Arie.

"[8] The sound of the album was notably different than Forever as the female vocals and violins had disappeared[9] and the band's focus had shifted away from melody towards more technicality and progressiveness, featuring more complex song structures and time signature changes.

The compilation album featured the entire Quo Vadis Demo, two live tracks, two remixes, one new song and the "Dysgenics" video.

Remy commented on the album, "The demo hasn't been available for over three years and many fans were asking for it so we decided we might as well do something special if we were to re-release it.

"[9] In 2002, Yanic Bercier relocated to Tennessee, United States for work but remained in the band, although not attending a single practice after August 2002.

"[10] He added, "...you see, back in 2002, we weren't expecting all this to happen a month before recording – and to have to write the other half of the album in 4 weeks... if there had been no changes at all, we would have had to deal with similar issues anyway.

By 2002, the song structures had been finalized and the drums were recorded in September 2002,[10] and the bass in August 2003 at Wildsound Studios with Pierre Rémillard as the sound engineer.

Bart elaborated, "Following the September sessions I went back to work out the harmonies and write a whole new set of guitars trying to see them from a different point of view.

"[10] The title of the album was initially "To the Bitter End" as the band intended to "record, or mix, or master until we're 100% happy and NOT settle for compromises".

Several guest musicians were featured on the DVD including the famous Quebec cellist Claude Lamothe, Alex Auburn of Cryptopsy fame, bassist Dominique "Forest" Lapointe of Augury/Atheretic/Negativa, and a classical choir and violinist.

In early 2006, William Seghers left the band in order to concentrate on Neuraxis and local progressive metal guitarist Marc-André Gingras of the MAG project was brought in to replace him.

In November 2007, Bart released a guitar and bass tabulature book for Defiant Imagination and was sponsored by German amp manufacturer, ENGL.

[12] After the September 6 show, with Stéphane, Yanic and Forest now gone and Bart unable to walk, rumors began to surface on the internet about Quo Vadis being disbanded entirely.

However, on September 15 Bart posted a video on YouTube confirming the departures and dismissing the rumors about the break-up, adding that "a new line-up is in place and we actually have some shows scheduled in October and November...

"[13] This changed line-up consisted of Patrice Hamelin (of Martyr) as drummer, Trevor Birnie (of Damascus & Annex Theory) as vocalist and Roxanne Constantin (of Negativa) as bassist and keyboardist.

The band was heavily inspired by Metallica and Megadeth,[2] since they started out by covering them, as well as Carcass,[2] Death, hard rock,[9] classical music,[9] thrash metal.

[14] For bass duties on Defiant Imagination, Bart had contacted Steve Di Giorgio who had played on Death's Individual Thought Patterns.