History

Flannelmouth are an institution, if only in the tiny circles of English-language indie in Helsinki, Finland. Active since 1997, the band celebrate their 15th anniversary in 2012 quietly working on a third album to be released next year. Here’s a few words on what has happened so far.

A classic five-piece guitar band: bass, drums, two guitars and a singer. That was the concept from the very start, as Flannelmouth first crawled ashore from the dark depths of the icy Baltic Sea in the late nineties. Three of the original members still remain from the very start: Ari Virtanen on rhythm guitar, Tuomo Kuusi on vocals, Antti Lönnblad on bass. Other members have come and gone; the Fellowship of Former Flannelmouth Members is now probably about twenty strong.

There’s little to be said about the early years of Flannelmouth. Lots of drive, lots of fun, lots of nights spent driving home from shows played to maybe 10 people, 500 km from home. The stuff of being young, the stuff of learning how to write better songs. Somewhere along the way the band became more serious about its music. In early 2002, the band recorded yet another self-financed four song EP. Titled I’ve Seen Nothing Yet, the EP marked the beginning of a band who finally knew who they were and where they were going. The eerily beautiful pop song “Collection” became a new favorite and is still featured on gigs from time to time. In September that year, the band were invited to the In The City music business convention in Manchester, UK, as one of 54 bands chosen from among the over 5000 that applied, making Flannelmouth the first Finnish act ever to participate in their unsigned band category. Nothing much ever came of it, however, besides the bragging rights.

In 2004 Flannelmouth finally managed to sign a record contract for their first album. Titled Rain Inside, the end-of-December debut was preceded by the seven inch vinyl release of the band’s new favourite “Comeback” along with b-side rocker “Bravado”. Things appeared finally to be looking up for the 10-year-old band. Despite positive reviews, however, the album turned out to be more of a state secret than a household name, and co-operation with the Gridrecords label terminated, leaving the band asking itself some difficult questions about financing the next album.

It took 9 years from the very earliest beginnings of the band in 1995 to their first album. The second album, The Heart Cannot Hold, was faster: only six years passed this time. Released on Helsinki-based Jäänsärkijä label, this one was darker, more refined, again critically acclaimed, and again received precious little attention. Currently the band is writing songs for another album, planned for release in 2013. That would once again be three years faster than the previous album. Does this mean the fourth album will be released immediately after the third? And will the paradoxically time-machine-assisted fifth album actually have already been released three years before? Only time will tell; or actually, come to think of it, time would already have told. Damn, this shit’s tricky.