Thomas Gabriel Fischer (born July 19, 1963), earlier known by his stage name of "Tom Gabriel Warrior", is a Swiss singer and guitarist. He is considered to be one of the pioneers of the death metal style of singing or growling.[citation needed] Together with Bruce Day and Steve Warrior he formed the seminal metal band Hellhammer in 1982. In late 1983, bassist and songwriter Martin Eric Ain joined Hellhammer and the line-up of Fischer, Ain and Day recorded an EP, "Apocalyptic Raids", as well as a series of demos for the German label Noise Records before disbanding in May 1984.
Fischer and Ain joined forces once again and formed Celtic Frost, an influential avant-garde metal trio, in June 1984.
In 1985, Fischer was asked to co-produce and sing on the first demo, titled Death Cult, by fellow Swiss group Coroner. Fischer also wrote the lyrics for the recorded songs. Two of the members of Coroner formed part of Celtic Frost's road crew until 1986.
Fischer also formed the EBM/industrial rock project Apollyon Sun in 1994.
In 2000 Fischer's book "Are You Morbid?: Into the Pandemonium of Celtic Frost"[1] received many favourable reviews, including this from Record Collector: "Intelligent, humble, questioning, insightful - the cultured side of extreme metal."
Fischer also performed in Probot, Dave Grohl's collaborative project with various metal artists, on the song "Big Sky" in 2003.
In 2005, Tom produced vocal (performed by Martin Eric Ain) and guitar tracks (Erol Unala) for a "gothicized" version of Slayer's classic "Black Magic" recorded by Los Angeles based gothrock band Hatesex. The track appeared on their debut album entitled "Unwant".
Due to the 'internal conflict' within Celtic Frost, Tom left the band in May 2008, and has launched a new band named Triptykon.[2]
In 2008 he played guitars and bass for the cover song "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun" from the 1349 album Revelations of the Black Flame and also co-mixed the album. In 2009 he co-produced their album Demonoir.
In 2010, he was awarded the Metal Hammer Golden Gods award for Inspiration.[3]