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Spirit Disease Chronology

1991 - September 2002


Pre-Spirit Disease years

Some riffs and other bits and pieces are composed and recorded by Sallanen, but never used by his bands/projects playing more traditional styles of metal. For instance the main riff for Sadistic Belated Abortion (later released on Redemption Denied) was written back in 1991 already, and a rough demo of a song featuring the riff was also made at home with crap guitar/bass, a drum machine and a 4-tracker. From the same period comes also more stuff later used by Spirit Disease. The idea of a totally different band is born at around the same time, but all his other activities prevent the actual forming of a new extreme metal band until September 2002.

September - December 2002


The beginning

Finally the old idea materializes in the formation of a yet unnamed band. Old bandmate Koskinen is Sallanen's first and only choice for the open guitar player spot and he agrees to try the shit out after a drinking session. Another old "on-and-off" kind of bandmate Tenetz is approached next and he says 'yes' with no hesitation. Maybe he should have said 'no' instead, since his stay in the band turned out to be not a long one. With one more position in the band still open, Sallanen's friend Laukkanen is more or less forced to join the embryonic band because he'd been telling all these stories about how he had been a singer in an unnamed Death Metal band. Not really a very good reason to get someone in a band, but this band was supposed to be just a quick project thing and an excuse to drink beer and have a few laughs. That was about to change soon.

Tenetz out - Mattila in

After realizing the fact that playing really fast requires besides regular band rehearsals some extra rehearsing at home too (none of the members hadn't played such fast stuff for years), the first weeks of rehearsals went well. Some early stuff was written and rehearsed by the band (now called Spirit Disease - yes, the name was taken from the old At The Gates album title), but it soon becomes obvious that Tenetz's drum playing is not good enough for the band. He actually is quite a good drummer, but the tempos used by SD seem to be a bit too much for him to control. Sallanen called yet another old bandmate of his, Mattila, to join SD "for a jam" one Friday night, when Tenetz was not available for that night's rehearsal. Things went 'click' instantly. Mattila is a lot better with the fast stuff and it's obvious that here's the drummer that Spirit Disease needs. Too bad that Sallanen doesn't inform this to Tenetz instantly - the drummer finds out that he's fired a week later by accident. To say that he was pissed off is the understatement of the year to say the least... anyway, despite the first line-up change, it was business as usual at camp SD. Just having a bit of fun with a bunch of friends.

Laukkanen leaves the band

SD Mark 2 turned out to be a very short lived one too. Only a few weeks after the Tenetz incident Laukkanen informed the rest of the guys that he wanted to quit the band immediately. His son had just been born and he obviously wanted to concentrate on his family stuff from then on. There were no hard feelings because of his decision and after a huge boozing session the band was left without a singer and Spirit Disease Mark 3 was born. Sallanen took over the lead singer's position temporarily. The rehearsing and song writing continued as if nothing had happened, but pretty soon things started getting serious with all the new, much better songs that the guys wrote together. Sallanen decided that a new lead singer was needed for the new songs because he didn't want to do all the screaming and growling by himself anymore. A certain fellow from eastern Finland with a shaved head was contacted by e-mail at the end of the year. Much to the surprise of everyone involved, he was interested.

January - August 2003


The road to first demo sessions

When contacted, Taskula had shown some interest in joining the band, but he wanted to hear some of the songs first. Heavy rehearsal schedule went on for the first five months of 2003, and in June a rehearsal demo was made at the band's rehearsal place with crap gear. Sallanen did the lead vocals completely for the first and last time in the history of Spirit Disease. A crappy website was made and the entire demo with a horrible fuzzy sound was uploaded there for Taskula and perhaps some other people to check out. For some entirely fucked up reason Taskula liked the stuff and informed the rest of the guys that as soon as he would return to Finland he would join SD (he was working in South Africa at the time). Other people soon found about the demo too, and some of them really loved it. SD had gotten its first fans and a new lead singer was on his way too! The trio was very confused about it - how could they like such horrible sounding shit? During the summer it was decided that for the next recording sessions a proper studio would be used.

August 2003 - December 2003

The new beginning - Enter mr Taskula!

On 22 August Taskula showed up for his first rehearsal with the band. Just like with Mattila, things just went 'click' once again. Everyone could see and hear that "this is it, now we are really getting good!". Spirit Disease mark 4 was born. The new line-up rehearsed all the old stuff and some new songs were also written. In October it was decided that a new demo should be recorded as soon as possible. It still took a few months of serious rehearsing and songwriting before they felt ready enough to book some time in a studio.

January 2004 - May 2004

Redemption Denied sessions, compilation album and line-up expansion

Year 2004 started out really well for Spirit Disease. After hearing the old rehearsal demo Violent Journey Records contacted the band and wanted to include them on a compilation CD they were putting together. It was agreed that if SD could deliver some new stuff before the deadline, they would be featured on the compilation. There was also some other label interest at that time too. A new Spirit Disease logo was designed by their former lead singer Laukkanen in February. In early March SD entered the D-Studio. It was an unforgettable experience to everyone involved and it's an easy thing to hear that when one is listening to what the band achieved in the few days they could afford to spend in the studio. The new demo sounded heavier than they had even imagined and the quality just exceeded their wildest expectations. Finally Spirit Disease had something to be proud of. It was decided that they would not release the demo 'officially' at all, but instead of that they started to search for a record label willing to release it as a mini-CD/EP. The song Sadistic Belated Abortion was given to VJR and on 24th of March the compilation album Demonstration Of Penetration was released and the response was overwhelming. All of a sudden lots of underground-minded people got interested in Spirit Disease. A pile of home-made versions of Redemption Denied was sent to record labels around the world, and some of them got interested in the band. The negotiations for possible recording contracts went on until the summer. Before they signed a contract, a new member joined the band. After the trip to D-studio it had become obvious that a second guitar player would be needed in order to play live. A guy called Riikonen was called and he agreed to help SD out whenever needed. He rehearsed with the band for a couple of months and became an official member in the end of May. Enter Spirit Disease mark 5!

May 2004 - December 2004

The recording contract,the CD-ROM,delayed releasing date and all that crap

In June Spirit Disease signed a recording contract with Vortex Motions Records and it was announced in July. The news was seen on several websites and magazines and the name of the band got known by even more people. Unfortunately the mini-CD release got delayed several times due to some bureaucrats in the Finnish copyright protection organisation. To hell with them. In July a CD-ROM called Rautatie featuring all kinds of stuff about the Finnish Metal scene was released. Spirit Disease was featured on that one too, thanks to the owner of the D-Studio. After a huge delay Redemption Denied was finally released in early October 2004 and it got excellent reviews in the media. Spirit Disease was also interviewed by most of the major metal magazines in Finland and also made a couple of radio interviews. First few gigs were also played between October and December.

January 2005 - May 2005

Change is inevitable

Songwriting for the next CD continued as usual and new good songs were written, but during the spring it started to seem quite obvious that Taskula didn't simply have enough time for Spirit Disease anymore due to personal reasons. On 2nd of May he finally quit the band. No fighting or anything like that - he and the rest of the band are still friends. After a surprisingly short search for a replacement the four-piece SD found Tuberculosis, an experienced screamer who had been playing in several bands before joining SD in the end of May. The songwriting and rehearsing continued, but Taskula's departure was not to be the last Spirit Disease line-up change of 2005.

June 2005 - August 2005

Shit hits the fan

Mattila had had his slight health problems earlier but they just got worse during the summer. In the early August he decided to quit drumming forever after discussing his health with his doctor. So once again Spirit Disease was drummerless. Mattila agreed to help with some demo recordings, so that his replacement would have an easier job learning all the new Spirit Disease songs.

September 2005 - February 2006

A new drummer, demo recording sessions and other weird shit

On 1st of September Mattila recorded his drum tracks for the pre-production demo, and sold all his drum gear a few days after that. The rest of the band had already a replacement in mind and 10 days later a new drummer called Toivonen was found. For the following couple of months the band rehearsed constantly in order to get ready to record the SD debut full length. In December a compilation CD called Miasma CD vol.3 was released with a Spirit Disease song from the pre-production demo. Never mind the crappy sound, this was still an important release for Spirit Disease: it was the first appearance of Tuberculosis as the lead singer and the last appearance of Mattila as a drummer.

March 2006 - June 2006

Recording sessions and getting signed again

Between 10 and 24 March the SD troops were gathered at the D-Studio again. A full-length album Annihilation was recorded. 12 songs out of the 14 recorded were chosen to be on the album - the rest might see the light of the day later. Former drummer Mattila was at the studio with the band and shouted a few backing vocals as part of The Choir Of Wankers. In May a compilation CD called Demonstration of Penetration 2 was released with an unmastered version of Delusions Of Grandeur from Annihilation. Finally in early June Spirit Disease signed with Twisted Face.

July 2006 - December 2006

Album released and popularity rising, playing gigs... and then back to usual bullshit!

In July the band played it's first gig with the new line-up and then on August 8th the album was released. Slowly the reviews started coming in and the majority of them were really positive and praising the album and the band. Distribution problems probably harmed the early sales, but that was solved quickly too. Several interviews in major metal magazines were made and all kinds of noise was made about the band. In the meantime, they played a few gigs here and there until Toivonen started having problems with his health... dejá vu, anyone? There was really no other solution - a temporary replacement had to be found ASAP, and so mister Tuomikanto ended up sitting on the SD drum stool. To end the year in style, an Internet only single What's God Got To Do With It?/Jokainen ihminen on luodin arvoinen was released, featuring one of the two previously unreleased tracks from the Annihilation sessions.

January 2007 - May 2007

Gigs and business as usual

In January yet another compilation album was released featuring one SD track. The spring was spent rehearsing and writing new songs and of course playing a few gigs with the new replacement drummer. Some excellent gigs were played and it started to look like the band had found a small core fan base. In April Tuomikanto played his last gig with the band and Toivonen returned since he had recovered from his injury. So it was time to go back to the rehearsal place and try to get everything together again with the old drummer.

June 2007 - December 2007

Heading for yet another disaster

Rehearsals for the next SD album continued and the overall feeling was really positive. The band was planning to enter the studio in early spring 2008. Some of the new songs were tested on gigs in October, but then all of a sudden the band was drummerless AGAIN! Toivonen left the group for personal reasons and so once again thing just ground to a halt. The remaining four members considered their options and decided that one guy leaving the band shouldn't prevent the rest of the band continuing. So the search for a drummer began. Several potential guys got in touch with the band and some auditions were held. Pretty soon it became obvious that they had found the guy they needed...

January 2008

One of the many new beginnings

Mohkis was announced as the band's new drummer in early January and the band began rehearsing again and started getting ready to play a few gigs.