Ensiferum Biography
Ensiferum is a Viking / Folk Metal band from Helsinki, Finland. In 1995 Markus Toivonen played guitar with some friends in a band called ”Dark Reflections”, which played mainly covers of certain heavy metal bands including Megadeth, Pantera and many others. Later on, Markus felt that the band in which he was playing offered him very little inspiration and wanted to play something different. Markus was hugely inspired by folk music and also found himself fascinated with melodic death metal bands like Amorphis and Dark Tranquillity. Then one day Markus asked the band’s drummer, Kimmo Miettinen, if he wanted to play heroic folk ’death’ metal with him. Kimmo agreed. Next Markus and Kimmo asked their friend Sauli Savolainen, if he wanted to come and play the bass. Fortunately, he said yes. Now they had a band. Only trouble was that the band had no name at the time. One day Markus was visiting Sauli at his home, when he found a book; a Latin Dictionary. Markus casually opened the book. And from the first randomly picked page he glanced at a word. Ensiferum. Markus found the word fascinating and the translation "sword-bearing" excited him. In year 1996 Ensiferum started its training in January 1996 at the Pasila Youthcenter in Helsinki (the same place their earlier band, Dark Reflections, had their rehearsals). Markus begun writing songs in 1995, which he finished in 1996. The songs were ”Knighthood”, ”Old Man (Väinämöinen)” and ”Frost”. Later in the same year, Markus convinced Jari Mäenpää (at the time a member of the band Immemorial, and an experienced solo artist) to join his band as a singer and second guitarist. Jari came aboard with some great skills and excellent musical ideas. Thus the band was no longer a trio, but a quartet. Jari proved to be a skillful lyricist and wrote the lyrics to ”Old Man”. The two other songs required no new lyrics, because Markus had done the original lyrics for ”Knighthood” and Sauli for ”Frost”. So Jari just improved them. Ensiferum had their first concert at Pasila Youthcenter in December 1996. Ironically, they performed just one song, ”Old Man”, which was the only song with finished lyrics. 1997 Jari joined the army in January and the band's progress was halted. The other members used this spare time to improve their playing skills. Ensiferum had two unofficial gigs in Pasila (one in the Youthcenter and one outside of it) with a strange line-up… Jari finished his military service in the fall of 1997 and Ensiferum started training heavily for the first demo, which was recorded at Kivi-Studios in November. The demo included three songs, ”Frost”, ”Old Man” and ”Knighthood”, and spread almost 300 copies in the following year. 1998 After the release of the demo Ensiferum did two more concerts in Pasila. New songs were finished, including ”Little Dreamer (Väinämöinen II)”. But Ensiferum had to take a little breather. Things didn’t get any easier because Kimmo Miettinen left to join the band ArthemesiA, and Sauli Savolainen concentrated on his job and school. That year Oliver Fokin had quit playing drums in ArthemesiA and had a few short jamming sessions with Markus in an old bomb shelter in Munkkiniemi, Helsinki. One thing led to another and Oliver agreed to play drums in the band. Essentially, Ensiferum and ArthemesiA switched drummers. Around the same time Sauli was fresh out of the enthusiasm towards Ensiferum and was replaced by Kimmo Miettinen’s little brother, Jukka-Pekka Miettinen. Funnily, at the time he started to play bass in Ensiferum he was only fourteen years old. Now there was a new line-up ready to face the challenges of the second demo. And they had a new training facility: the bomb shelter in Munkkiniemi. 1999 The second demo was recorded in January 1999 at MD-Studios. The demo included 4 songs: ”The Dreamer’s Prelude”, ”Little Dreamer (Väinämöinen II)”, ”Warrior’s Quest” and ”White Storm”. The second demo was technically evolved and although it didn't score a record deal for Ensiferum, it gave them confidence. They gained more experience in a local band contest and after that they started to record their third and final demo in November 1999 once again at MD-Studios with the help of Janne Joutsenniemi (a member of Stone and Sub-Urban Tribe) who recorded and mixed the demo in a very short studio session. The demo included 5 songs: ”Intro”, ”Hero In A Dream”, ”Eternal Wait”, ”Battle Song” and a bonus song ”Guardians Of Fate”, which was recorded at Jari’s home with a drum machine. ”Eternal Wait” had a guest female vocalist Johanna Vakkuri, a friend of the band. The demo was released with a new band logo, which was designed and conceived by Tuomas Tahvanainen, the designer of the previous logos. 2000 The third demo had great reviews and was recognized as on of the top demos of the month by several different publishers. It also got the eagerly awaited attention of the record labels. Once Spinefarm, a record company, got hold of the demo they contacted Ensiferum immediately and started negotiating about the possibility of a record deal. In the meantime, Ensiferum participated in a local band contest and was among the top finalists of that year. Roughly the same time a record deal was finally made with Spinefarm. Ensiferum recorded their debut album in November 2000 at Sundi-Coop Studios in Savonlinna with Tuomo Valtonen (studio engineerer). The album featured such guest musicians as Trollhorn (keyboards), Johanna Vakkuri (guest female vocals) and Marita Toivonen (kantele). In the spring of 2001 the debut album was mixed by Tuomo Valtonen in his studio. Tuomo Valtonen made the record edgy, as he always does. At similar times Ensiferum had a new addition to its line-up: a keyboard player. Meiju Enho joined Ensiferum and so the band became a quintet. Debut album ”Ensiferum” was released in July 2001 and the feedback was tremendously positive. Between years 2003 and 2004 to record "Iron" Ensiferum traveled all the way to
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