OUTLOUD began with Greek guitar player Tony Kash taking lessons from Firewind's Bob Katsionis. They started to write songs together and in late 2007/ early 2008, and solidified these ideas into an album format and eventually got in touch with NYC-based singer Chandler Mogel, who Bob had met previously on a Firewind tour of the States. Chandler was flown to Athens and Tony contracted his friend Jason Mercury to play bass, and in turn Bob brought on board Mark Cross, also from the band Firewind at the time, to play drums. The five of them started to jam over the existing ideas and added the final arrangements and finishing touch to Outloud's music and in September 2008 the band entered Basement Studio in Athens and recorded their debut album. Mixed and mastered by none other than Tommy Hansen (Helloween, TNT, Pretty Maids), the album was described by the press as "a mixture of Riot's Fire Down Under, Skid Row's debut album and TNT's Tell No Tales with some Foreigner melodic elements." The album was released in August 2009 to rave reviews worldwide and ended up on many top ten lists by year's end, and the album was voted "Best Album of the Year" in BW&BK/Bravewords.com. Sverd T. Soth (Bare Infinity) replaced Jason Mercury on bass shortly after the release.