Tourniquet released its first studio album, "Stop the Bleeding", in 1990. It was produced by Bill Metoyer of Metal Blade Records, and released by Intense Records. While it was mostly distributed to Christian bookstores, "Stop the Bleeding" gained some notoriety in the mainstream metal scene, and is considered a notable thrash metal album. Tourniquet's style broke new ground and quickly gained them fans all over the world. Musically, the album showcased elements of 1980's speed metal with its Mercyful Fate/King Diamond influences, notably the falsetto vocals. In this line up, Guy Ritter sang the melodic vocal parts while Gary Lenaire did the aggressive, thrash metal shouts. Session guitarist Mark Lewis played lead guitars on the album. The band was later rounded out with the addition of bassist Victor Macias and lead guitarist Erik Mendez. This version of the group is commonly known as the "classic" line up of Tourniquet. The band, including Macias and Mendez, filmed a music video for the song "Ark of Suffering". The video had some limited airplay on MTV, but it was quickly pulled by the network due to violent content portraying animal abuse. Because of the song and its subsequent video, the band became known for its stance on animal rights.