History

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. The four “core” members of the band were already there as they still are: Ari Virtanen on rhythm guitar, Tuomo Kuusi on vocals, Antti Lönnblad on bass and Markus Koskinen on drums. The complicated Flannelmouth song writing concept was also there, with Ari providing the lyrics and the basic concept of the song, then proceeding to collaborate on the music with Tuomo, his keen sense of melody bringing the rough ideas to life, and finally the talents of all five band members fusing together in the arrangements. A pattern was also established early on for lead guitarists to spend two to four years in the band before being replaced.

This system took its time to perfect. The early shows and demo cassettes sounded fairly bizarre with songs ranging from loud, “funky” rock tunes to simply weird songs and even the odd instrumental “disco” song, sometimes laced with a silly drum or bass solo. There may have been promise, buried deep underneath the flailing about and goofy stage manoeuvres, but one would have been hard put to notice. Despite artistic intentions, the band was mostly a lot of fun, and that was all. However, with years of gigging and recording demos, development was inevitable.

In early 2002, the band backpacked their way to Stockholm, Sweden, to record 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 wholesome vintage rock sound created by producer Tom Hakava may have sounded surprisingly mellow to some, with acoustic guitars, analog keyboards and even a touch of Mellotron setting the tone, but the band felt the new-found intimate sound gave their deeply emotional music more room to breathe and hence a greater sense of presence and depth than the large, echoey sounds of earlier outings. The classic pop song “Collection” became a new favorite, alongside the alarmingly cheerful failed-suicide anthem “Dead Moody” and new versions of previous year’s “Last Exit” and “Lost And Found”.

In September 2002 the band finally received some recognition (besides flattering reviews) for their persistent efforts to reach audiences abroad. The jury of the In The City music business convention deemed the EP good enough to invite Flannelmouth to play at the event 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. Although no immediate record deals ensued, some eager ears were caught and many phone numbers and emails exchanged.

In the year 2004 Flannelmouth finally scored their first full-length compact disc extravaganza. 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” (both releases came out on the Gridrecords label). Again produced by Tom Hakava, the full-sounding 10 song album featured matured versions of favourite songs from the 2002 EP and a number of previously unreleased songs, not to mention yet another lead guitarist.

Debut album released and live shows cooking, the five-piece band became a sextet with the inclusion of keyboardist Marko Korhonen in 2005. Things appeared finally to be looking up for the 10-year-old band. The album, however, turned out to be more of a state secret than a household nsme, and co-operation with Gridrecords terminated, leaving the band asking itself some difficult questions about financing the next album. More rain was to fall inside the band as lead guitarist Mikko Kapanen left us in 2006, to be replaced by Jeppe Cavonius.

The second album finally began to take form in late 2007 as the band recorded demos of songs to be included on the album. Ville Särmä (of Helsinki band Kevin) was hired to preproduce songs during spring 2008 and countless hot summer days were spent underground, recording tracks for what was to be a more daring and versatile, less retro-sounding album than the debut.