Hanker was formed in 1985 by Patrick Gravel, Pascal Cliche, Martin Jones and Jean-François Fillion. They performed in several places in the Quebec City area for about five years before the drummer, Luc Guay joined the band.

A first demo was recorded in 1991 and the album In Our World was released in 1994. Recorded at studio Séquence, it was Hanker's first professional studio recording experience.

Always playing in bars and different places, Hanker released in 1997 a second album called The Dead Ringer which is a concept album telling the stories pulled out from the diary of an old man who used to be ringing the church bells. They got a great response, especially from Germany, for both of their albums.

In November 1998, Denis Cossette has replaced Martin Jones on bass.

In 1999, they went to the famous Phase One studio in Toronto to record Snakes And Ladders. In November 2000, this album was released by Metal Disk Records.

They played for all these years in many bars, arenas and other venues, doing opening acts for bigger names such as Helloween, Gamma Ray, Edguy, Nightwish, Angra, Jag Panzer, Kataklysm, Martyr, Quo Vadis, Anvil, Lee Aaron, Big House, Slik Toxik and Soothsayer. Hanker has played more than 200 times since its formation.

Hanker also played in Europe (in Germany) for the very first time at the Headbangers Open Air festival, as one of the headliners on July 9, 2004 and at the Headbangers Ballroom on July 11, 2004.

In 2004, they record their fourth album Web Of Faith with Jean-François Dagenais (Kataklysm) as producer under the metal record label Skyscraper Music.

In 2005, Hanker made 2 major line-up changes: Laurent Imbeau on bass has replaced Denis Cossette while Sylvain Trembley on drums has replaced Luc Guay.

The Name:

The name Hanker was discovered on a Saturday afternoon during a brainstorming session. The meaning of the word seemed to describe the vision of the guys at the time, and it still does today.

Influences:

Hanker was influenced by the great metal kings. Let's start with Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Metallica, Metal Church, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple... They all were great influences but so were more progressive bands like Saga, Genesis, Rush, Styx, all of the great rock bands of the 80's are Hanker's main influence.

That's the Hanker history for now...