Biography /

THE SHORT VERSION

Rödsögården was founded in Ostrobothnia in the early 90's by four friends.

THE LONG ONE

"I don't wanna hear of you for the next two months" was the line that marked the end of the first 5 year era of the band then still known as In The Land Of Nod.  We had just played the last gig of a few gigs mini tour in the late 90's and we were facing the fact that all the guys had moved around the country and not all of the crew had the same drive as before.

I had formed the band a few years earlier in a small Ostrobothnian town called Kokkola. Starting out with some friends things changed into something more serious when I went to study at the Kaustinen College Of Music and met the guys that would rock my world. After several lineup changes and a few demos the band had started to resemble something we now know as Rödsögården, but the name came later - much later.

I graduated in -96 (those days the recession was still bad in Finland) and had nothing but the band. The other guys were a year younger so I stayed behind so we could rehearse. I lived in a condominium that was originally built for elderly people, but was now housed by dropouts like me. That place was called Rödsögården. The name followed us for years. It stood for something hard to describe: brotherhood, dreams, hopes, prospects.

So we had played the last gig and it was time for a change. I had moved to Jyväskylä (a university town in the middle of Finland) and after a while Antti and Turo followed. That was the band so the future didn't look that good. That time of confusion also included the mandatory military service every guy faces here in Finland. Realizing that more than anything the band needed a drummer Turo suggested his childhood friend Aku. From the first beats he hit I knew: This is it! But it was not the end of the struggle. Next stop my bad.

It was the year 2000 when Aku joined the band. I moved to the capital Helsinki, Aku lived in Turku, Antti and Turo in Jyväskylä. We had some distance between us oh yeah, but didn't let that bother. We made two demos and got good feedback. My friends Aki and Olli heard the tapes and wanted to help. I said no. We weren't ready. We needed to practice.

Aku and Turo moved to Helsinki so we could spank the best out of us, but Antti stayed behind. After a year of sleep deprived nights the three of us had taken our music to the street. We sounded more like White Stripes than the 80's synth pop bands that we, or at least I, wanted to sound like. So I called Antti to the rescue. When we were four we could take the pianos and synths back and go for a more atmospheric stadium-sound that's always been the target, from day one. A few rehearsals later we were ready to record a demo with which  we could finally come out. The year was 2003. The recording went fine and I was left with the vocal recordings and some final touches. Due to self-criticism and other nice events the completion of the demo changed from a week to months and finally it became self evident it would never be done. This would be it...

Antti and Skype to the rescue. In then late 2005 Antti contacted me about having rehearsals just for fun and old times´ sake. We talked for hours and changed idea files on Skype and in January 2006 we met as a group for the first time in 3 years. Keep in mind that these guys are my best friends... We hadn't lost the touch during the years and after a few sessions we came to the conclusion that something had to be done. We needed a closure. As the final chapter, we'd make an album containing special moments from over the years. Just for us. If someone else wanted to hear it -fine, if not -there's nothing we´d lose.

Remembering our weaknesses we really needed an outsider pushing us to get the album done. Somebody to say stop.
I asked Olli to help us as he'd already heard some of the songs years before and he (foolishly) accepted this mountain moving work. First session was in February 2007 and the album was mastered in April 2008. We really thought the day would never come.

During the sessions it became more and more obvious we couldn't leave this on its own. Aki and Olli felt the same and did an amazing job supporting and promoting us to the outcome that we were signed to Live Nation and Warner and our first album is to be released on August 19, 2009 !

The future. It's bright. Brighter than ever. We've got a great album done, great new songs for the following four albums. We're not going anywhere soon!

Yours,
Tony