Crimson Tears
There are multiple artists who go by the name "Crimson Tears"
The bands are listed in the order of claimed/known dates of formation. Descriptions for both bands are below in said order.
1. Crimson Tears - Gothic Metal from Finland: http://www.crimsontears.net
2. Crimson Tears - Operatic Symphonic Power Metal fromo the United Kingdom: http://www.crimson-tears.co.uk - see Crimson Tears UK
1. Crimson Tears - Gothic Metal from Finland:
The band was originally put together by Matti Rahkonen and Jussi Peltonen in 1997. The bands these guys had played in earlier had fallen apart, and it was time to start a new project. Soon Jarkko Yli-Kiikka joined the group as a singer, and shortly after that drummer Mika Toivari and a local guitar hero Ville Leppänen came in. The basis was now formed, but something was still missing. That something was a female vocalist and keyboard/violin player Niina Kärppä, who joined the band in 1999.
In spring 2000 the group released their first EP, Snowfall. It included five songs: Snowfall, Tears Will Vanish, Season of Floods, Bending the Truth and All the Memories.
Things seemed pretty well, but some trouble came up when Jarkko Yli-Kiikka suddenly decided to leave the band for personal reasons. The band was now without a main vocalist. However, the members considered this only as a minor setback.
After few sessions with some "test subjects", Ville Leppänen found a promising new talent, Kari Skyttä. Kari had some previous band experience and he joined the group still in the autumn of 2000. With this line-up, the group made several gigs and worked with new material.
The band released their second EP named Cold just before Christmas on 2002. There were three songs on the cd: Cold, Dreamland and Forever Dawn. Unlike the first EP, Cold was recorded and mixed by the group themselves at their training facilities. This gave some good experience to the band in forming their own sound and in the end, turned out to be the main purpose of the EP.
Still in search for their own thing, band made several concerts and wrote again new songs. In 2004 the group started recording a demo, which was finished in spring 2005. Five songs in all were recorded, but only three of them ended up on the EP Dead Silence. At the same time, group decided to change their name to Crimson Tears, as they felt that the musical style they were after was finally created. Another reason for the name-change was that Satyron gave people some wrong ideas about the band and their music.
Soon after the release of "Dead Silence", Kari Skyttä decided that it was time for him to retire. Again the group had to search for a new lead vocalist. Kari annonced his departure only a week before the concert on Räyhärock 2005 festival, so the situation was difficult. The members of the group knew, that there was only one man who could do the job and learn all the songs within one week: The first vocalist of Satyron, Jarkko Yli-Kiikka.
Jarkko took the challenge and gave an excellent performance on stage. After pulling through succesfully on Räyhärock, the biggest panic was over. It was time to scan the southern Finland for talented vocalists. A few were found, but one was clearly above the rest. Tommi Kemilä (familiarly known as "Kemmi") was spotted from Räyhärock, where he performed with an act called Burnhill Experience. All the members of Crimson Tears were stunned by Kemmi's strong voice and charismatic personality, so it was not a difficult decision to ask him to join in.
2. Crimson Tears - Operatic Symphonic Power Metal:
Origins
Back in October 2003, guitarist Dave Miller had the driving idea of forming a metal band with a difference. His desire was to develop an Operatic Symphonic Power Metal band that really rocked but that had that commercial element, Heavy hooks and memorable riffs. He wanted to base it on one of his favourite bands Nightwish but add in elements of all the other bands he loved.
The idea of bringing together opera, symphonic sound and metal was not going to be an easy project to undertake. Finding musicians who all wanted to play this kind of music was going to be even harder.
Formation
Dave knew immediately of one person who would be up for this type of project. A quick phone call to long time friend and Scarab bass player, Steve Taylor fused the beginnings.
And Steve begat Steve! This new Steve was a drummer from a prior band and he had the necessary experience and was up for it. Now all he needed was a keyboard player and some bird to warble! Even though Dave was able to play some keyboards, he could not be in two places at once and so a keyboard player would be the next essential. But where would you find one who was unique, extremely talented and versatile? When he saw an advert for a Grade 8 pianist and keyboard player called Marcus, into Ozzy, HIM and Iron Maiden, he phoned him immediately.
Now to find that singer! Well trying to find a female classical/opera singer to play in a Metal band was not going be easy, in fact almost damn right impossible........
.........well we're still searching so if you know any one who wouldd be up for giving this thing a go, let us know. Sorry Gina! In actual fact Gina is the singing coach Steve first went to in order to find a singer! and she has been in the band ever since!
He had asked for a Charlotte Church meets Megadeth! And that is what he got! However that wasn't quite what he needed! So two auditions later, he got the actual bloody coach!
Over the course of the following year Dave, Marcus and Gina start writing and are so happy with the results that they book into Thin Ice studios (famous for Threshold, Arena and DragonForce) for December 2004.
By now it had become apparent that Drummer Steve could not commit to recording and subsequently the band, due to family pressures and already being the Drummer for 3SD!
So it was eight weeks before the recording date and no drummer!
Luckily Marcus found Mike, who was ready, willing and able as well as being really interested in both the band and recording. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.
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