The man with the mask. The enigma. The legend. Banished Beyond began his reign with the release of his first video on September 12, 2008. 

Now, nearly 10 years later, we remember the icon that brought you the famous "Lion King Lick." 

The Beginning Of It All

Getting his start by making silly drum corps-style audition videos, Banished Beyond started small. His first-ever video was his rendition of The Cavaliers' 2008 snare break, donning the infamous "Scream" mask that characterizes each of his voiceless videos. 

He quickly progressed through many other corps audition videos, only to end each clip with the one term every drum corps auditionee dreads: "[CUT]."

The Rise

His popularity really began to blossom with his Blue Devils audition video, which poked fun at one of the corps' lower-body visuals during its snare break in 2008.

By this time, around December of 2008, he was really starting to gain some steam. He released the so-called "Lion King Lick," an original piece that echoed throughout the indoor and outdoor marching arts community as one of the most popular snare licks to hit the space at the time.

Banished Beyond opens the video by playing the piano part to "Circle of Life" from "The Lion King," with some hilarious camera shots mixed in. He then transitioned to his own original writing of a part to accompany the hyper-dramatic ending written in the style of The Cadets' percussion arranger and caption head (at the time), Tom Aungst.

Pulse Percussion from California liked his full arrangement (including the bass and tenor parts) so much that they ended up making it a staple for the warmup lot in 2010. 

Meanwhile, Shadow Indoor Percussion went on to design a show about the Youtube phenomenon called "[CUT] - The Legend of Banished Beyond." The show featured a "Scream" masked performer getting cut from each section of the ensemble.

Moving On Up

Eventually, his success and popularity were picked up by the drum/drumstick manufacturing companies, which led to him receiving sponsorship and free merchandise. 

The first to catch on was Dave Lauder of Offworld Percussion, who sent him an Offworld V2 drumpad offering to be "the last drumpad you'll have to buy." A four-minute video of the masked man soon followed, highlighting the pad's features and design. 

Rudy Gowern, with Pearl Drums at the time, would be next to reach out to Banished Beyond. He offered a Pearl snare drum to be featured and promoted on the channel's videos from then on out. A video called "Banished Beyond Gets A Callback" soon followed, which became an obvious landmark of his otherwise rejection-laden drumming career. 

Nick Phillips from Innovative Percussion followed in pursuit of the enigmatic YouTuber, spawning the Banished Beyond's channel's most-viewed video, which was on display at the Innovative Percussion booth for the 2009 WGI World Championships.

In April 2009, Banished Beyond made his only public appearance in person, mask and all, at the WGI Percussion World Championships at the University of Dayton Arena in Dayton, Ohio.

Videos surfaced from the warm-up lot including the most widespread video of Banished Beyond to hit the internet: a drum battle against the world-renowned percussion instructor Mike McIntosh.

Where In The World?

Where is Banished Beyond now? What has he been up to since rising to popularity at the turn of the decade?

A few videos have popped up, one highlighting Broken City 2016 and another most recently highlighting Pulse's snare break from 2017.

An inside source tells us that he has been in attendance at every WGI World Championship since 2006 and MAY be making a reappearance at the 2019 WGI World Championships. Is the comeback inevitable, or is it a lost cause? Time will only tell if he'll be [CUT] or if he can dance his way into yet another callback—and possibly even a contract.