Winterlong

Winterlong is a Swedish power/progressive metal band formed in the beginning of 1998. Before that, in 1995, Hussni Mörsare and Erik Tornberg decided to start playing guitar. And, as the interest in playing guitar grew, they met Thorbjörn Englund and thought that he was the coolest guitarist in their hometown. Thorbjorn was playing bass at the time with a band called Endomorph, formed by a guitarist named Per Kankanranta. Later on he decided to quit the band and start doing music with Hussni and Erik. Without a permanent drummer Hussni were forced into the drum position, as well as guitar and performing all vocals. Suddenly they remembered an old friend who played drums in another band, his name was Mikael Pekkonen. When Mikael entered the band they came up with the name Winterlong from an old rocker who once had a dream. Mikael played with the band for about one year, and then he left... ...The main reason was school. Winterlong now had to find a new drummer, and the only drummer capable of performing WL´s music, and the only one who came to meet their heavy demands was Toni Erkkilä, former drummer with Thorbjörn when they did Endomorph. This was the beginning of a new era for the band... Toni and Thorbjörn already knew each other since the schooldays, The band practiced like they were possessed and rehursed like crazy, then they took the music on the road for a few shows. The metal scene in the area in which they were living was not big though, so realized they had to break out of the cold north to survive. However, what happened was they went separate ways. Thorbjörn and Erik left town, also did Toni, and only Hussni remained. As time went by, and the guys didn´t hear from each other in a while, Hussni joined Per Kankanranta in a newly started project; Javelin. Erik and Thorbjörn began studying, yet they knew school was absolutely not the place for them. They spend all their time with their instruments instead, and recorded lots of material in Thorbjörns homestudio. They sent their material to record companies all over the world. Then suddenly, after achieving some contacts with rather small metal labels, mainly in the U.S, they recieved an E-mail from Lars Eric Mattson, president of LionMusic. He thought the material was good, and the only problem for him as he stated, was the lack of a real drummer. They had been using a drum machine for the percussion tracks! Well, that ignited the spark in their lives as they called up Hussni and Toni and told them what was going on. Hussni quit the Javelin-project immediatly, and Toni came up from the south of Sweden where he now lived, so once again they joined forces, only this time something magical was in the air... They signed their very first and well earned record contract!