Deuteronomium - Biography
This band's profile is 'invisible', meaning that it's much less prominent on the site - either because it's incomplete, or maybe doesn't entirely fit MS format.
Biography
1993-1994
Deuteronomium was born in 1993, when brothers Manu (bass, vocals) and Jarno Lehtinen (drums) started making extreme death metal with christian lyrics. The name of the band is the name of the fifth book of Moses, and as some may know, also three other of them have been used as a band name: Genesis, Exodus and Leviticus. The actual reason for picking that name for the band was, however, not so glamorous: it just looked like a perfect name for a death metal -band: it was long, cool and difficult.
Well, two men usually don't make a band, so brothers started looking for some guitarists for the band. Quite soon they'd got two of 'em: Miika Partala and Tapio Laakso . With this lineup they started rehearsing the songs that Manu had made, and in the autumn of 1993 they went into studio recording their first demo tape. The demo, Paths Of Righteousness , was released in December, a bit after their first gig in Laukaa, the home county of the brothers on December 3.
The first lineup-changes took place in early 1994 when Jarno moved to another part of Finland because of his studies. At this point also Tapio left the band. The remaining members, Manu and Miika, have become the heart of the band in time. In this time guitarist Kalle Paju also joined the band for the first time. They played one gig with Miika in the drums and his friend Ali Hassinen as a session guitarist in the other guitar on May 31. Unfortunately Deuteronomium lost their rehearsal place, and as they couldn't find another one, the band sort of fell asleep for a while.
1995-1997
In the late 1995 Manu and Miika decided to activate the band again, and also agreed that Miika would handle the lead vocals. They decided to record some new songs and asked Jarno to help them with the drums. As a result, the second demo tape Crosshope was released in early 1996. During the same year they got Johnny Pesonen as a session drummer and Jari Mantour joined the band as the second guitarist. With this lineup they played two gigs in their hometown Jyvaskyla. After them Jari left the band, and Deuteronomium played two more gigs as a trio.
In January 1997 the band went into Studio Watercastle in Jyvaskyla, to record their first EP. This 4-song CD, Tribal Eagle, was released in early summer. It was the first CD-release from a christian metal band in Finland, soon becoming a classic release in the scene, and also gaining the first foreign fans for the band.
During the time Tribal Eagle was released, Kalle Paju re-joined and drummer Janne-Jussi Kontoniemi joined the band, and the lineup settled into the current form. During 1997 Deuteronomium played 8 gigs with bands like Dust Eater Dogs, Terapia, Dark Liturgy and No Man's Band.
1998
In March 1998 the band went into studio again to record their debut album. The album Street Corner Queen was released on May 20 in Lutakko , the biggest rock club in their hometown, under Manu's and Miika's new record label, Little Rose Productions . As a curiosity: on the album release show Manu's sister Meira jumped onto the stage during the song III and cut off Manu's long hair! So he started the gig as long-haired and ended it as bald. Both the other members of the band and the audience were quite shocked to see that happen?
Street Corner Queen was very diverse album musically, and because of that some loved it, some hated it. However, it sold pretty well and during years, three different versions of it has been released.
During that year they played 9 gigs and also spent a lot time writing, composing, arranging and rehearsing songs for the following album.
1999
In January and February was spent recording and mixing the new album. From the midst of the recordings they were offered a chance to support Sentenced in Lutakko, which they gladly accepted. In early spring they released single ?To Die And Gain to promote the new album. The album itself, Here To Stay , was released in April and supported with a mini-tour and some separate gigs around Finland. Musically the new album differs from the debut like day differs from the night. Whereas SCQ was a mixture of many musical styles, HTS was very solid package of tractor pulling death'n roll, sounding a bit like Entombed with death metal vocals. And again, the album split opinions. Some liked it more than SCQ, some were disappointed in Deuteronomium's new style.
In late June the band played their first gigs outside of Finland as they travelled to Holland to play two shows there. On the second one they supported christian metal legends Mortification at Nighttown -club in Rotterdam. Only a few days later they played with Mortification again, this time in Finland. Little Rose Productions had organized the gig to Pakkahuone -club in Tampere, where the bands performed for around 500 people.
In November Deuteronomium played in front of almost 1000 people at Maata Nakyvissa -festivals in Turku.
In 1999 also the sold out Tribal Eagle -ep and Street Corner Queen -album were released as a digipak-album with a cover song Red River, originally recorded by american punk-thrash band One Bad Pig .
2000
The new millenium started under bad signs, since Miika decided to leave the band because of some difficulties and disagreements that the band hadn't been able to solve. However, he agreed to play the upcoming gigs that were already booked, so in late March the band played at Bobfest in Stockholm, Sweden with bands like Antestor, Veni Domine, Crimson Moonlight etc. In early summer also J-J decided to leave the band for the same reasons than Miika. Also he agreed to play the remaining gigs, and in June Deuteronomium returned to Holland, where they played at De Baroeg -club in Rotterdam on June 30 - as the first christian band that has ever played at that metal club. The next day they performed on the main stage at Seaside -festival in Norway , right before Narnia .
At the end of July the band made their last trip at that time, which took them to Germany , where they played three gigs: in Oelsnitz at Heavy Und Biker -club on July 20, and the next day in Stuttgart, Che -club with Sacrificium. Their last gig was played at Freakstock -festival at Gotha.
Paradoxically, that was propably also their best live performance ever.
Markus "Black Raven" Vainionpaa wins air guitar world championship with Deuteronomium's song Crosshope .
2001
Deuteronomium announced on their website that the band is officially dead. The band members continued making music with other bands and project, some more actively, some more as a hobby.
2006
Deuteronomium came back together for one re-union show at OHM-Fest in Keuruu in June 2006. They were the main act at the festival and played around 90 minutes for more than 500 people. The show was recorded and filmed with plans of a live-DVD release. Maanalainen Levykauppa released a new version of Street Corner Queen -album with the same bonus tracks that were found on the digipak-version.
Well, the gig went very well and while rehearsing for it, the band members solved out all the old disagreements and everyone enjoyed playing together again, so?
On December 24 they gave their fans and friend a Christmas present on their website by announcing that the band is alive and kicking again!
2007
On May 19, Deuteronomium played their first gig after the comeback at Immortal Metal Fest in Nokia .
The next show at True Attitude -fest in Heinola on August 17 proved that the band is really back: For the first time in 8 years they played a new song, Fields Of War .
During the year they also worked with songs for their next album, which is shceduled to be recorded in spring 2008.
On November 16 Deuteronomium played at Maata Nakyvissa -festivals again, and the setlist included a new song again, 3:16 .
2008
The band started the new year with pre-production of their comeback album. In January they recorded a demo of 12 songs to help with the final arrangements of the songs.
On March 10 they entered the studio again, starting the recordings of the new album. After 5 days of hard work at Drumforest Studio, Viitasaari, on March 14 all the drums and some of the bass tracks were recorded. The recordings continued on April 1 at Studio Watercastle with two-week sessions. After finishing the recordings, Deuteronomium played their first-ever show in Switzerland, at the Elements of Rock -festival on April 26. The album was mixed between April-June, 2008 at Watercastle, and then mastered at Chartmakers by Svante ForsbДck.
During the summer of 2008 Deuteronomium played a couple of shows, one in Finland in June, and two more in August: Freakstock in Germany and Flevo in Holland, both bringing many new friends for their music.
9 out of the 12 recorded songs ended up to the album that got named "From the Midst of the Battle". It was released on Bullroser Records on August 13 as two different versions: a normal CD in super jewel box and 12-page full color booklet, and a special edition CD+DVD digibook. This handnumbered edition is strictly limited to 500 copies, and besides the album, it includes totally different artwork compared to the normal version, 20-page full color booklet, and a bonus DVD featuring a full gig plus studio diary and documentary from the band's trip to Switzerland. This one is a real collector's item!
After it's first week in stores, FTMOTB made it to #11 on Finnish top40 album list on week 34. The official album release show took place on August 23 in Ristirock, Tampere.
In the end of the year Deuteronomium played 14 gigs around Europe, starting from their home field in Helsinki, continuing at Nordic Fest in Oslo, Norway three days later. And in December they headed for their first real European tour together with another finnish melodic death metal band Immortal Souls. 14 days with 12 gigs in 7 countries: Denmark, Czech Republic, Germany, Holland, France, Belgium and Switzerland. The experience was really great, and their bandwagon, Manu's old Chevy Van rolled 11,000 km around Europe within two and a half weeks! With tons of unforgettable experiences gained, new fans and friends made, lots of old ones met, we would call this tour a success!
2009
The new year started for Deuteronomium in February with a Helsinki Metal Meeting -gig at legendary rock club Tavastia in Helsinki, in a concert that was part of the Finnish Metal Expo. A couple of months later the band played at Immortal Metal Fest in Nokia, Finland. That gig was supposed to be the release show for their new vinyl-EP "Retaliatory Strike", but since the things didn't work out as planned (how surprising!), they could release the EP only as digital downloads on that date. It turned out to be a couple of months more before the vinyls really came out from the czech factory? But after all the EP turned out to both look good and sound great, so it was worth waiting for.
The main focus for this year was to concentrate on writing new material for the band, and the plan was also to record the new album during 2009. However, due to some hard situations in the personal lives of some band members, the making of new album had to be postponed. The material for the new album, however, got written during 2009, so now it would only be a question of finding the right time to record the new album.
During the summer 2009 Deuteronomium played only 2 gigs, but they were very special ones:
in the beginning of June they played at a big finnish metal festival Sauna Open Air, along with such bands as Motley Crüe, Nightwish, Apocalyptica, Amorphis, Stratovarius etc. And in early August they played at another big finnish rock festival DBTL in Turku, with some of the most popular finnish rock bands like Maj Karma, Viikate, Kotiteollisuus, Apulanta, CMX etc.
During the autumn they played a couple more gigs in Finland, as well as Brainstorm festival in Holland. And in the end of the year they got to fulfill one of their dreams as they headed for their first tour outside of Europe: they played 9 shows around Mexico in November 2009! The experience was very exotic, exciting and interesting! And the mexican fans were really great! A perfect way to end this year when it comes to band activities?
2010
For Deuteronomium, the year started with a band meeting in January, and as a result of that, J-J decided to take a year-off from the band activities in order to concentrate more on other things in his life. Due to this, the band would need to find a session drummer to play the drums for their 4th studio album. After spending some time wondering who would be a perfect guy for the job, they decided to ask if a really great musician, the original drummer for the christian metal legends Mortification; Jayson Sherlock would be interested. It turned out that Jayson was very interested in doing the job, so now it was time for the band to record decent demos of the songs for him?
Well, as you may know, things don't always work out as planned. That's just how it went with the plan to record the new album with Jayson. He just couldn't get it fit into his calendar after all, so the recordings of the new album just had to be delayed for a while?
Meanwhile, Deuteronomium played a couple of gigs in the fall, one at Night of Metal in Assen, Netherlands, and another one in Finland.
2011
Another year has started, and it's finally the time to seriously get into the making of the new album. During the first two months of the year the band is making the final arrangements for the songs and rehearsing them. In March it's the time to hit the studio and start the recordings. Good news is that J-J is still in the row and will be playing the drums for the new album after all!
Deuteronomium was born in 1993, when brothers Manu (bass, vocals) and Jarno Lehtinen (drums) started making extreme death metal with christian lyrics. The name of the band is the name of the fifth book of Moses, and as some may know, also three other of them have been used as a band name: Genesis, Exodus and Leviticus. The actual reason for picking that name for the band was, however, not so glamorous: it just looked like a perfect name for a death metal -band: it was long, cool and difficult.
Well, two men usually don't make a band, so brothers started looking for some guitarists for the band. Quite soon they'd got two of 'em: Miika Partala and Tapio Laakso . With this lineup they started rehearsing the songs that Manu had made, and in the autumn of 1993 they went into studio recording their first demo tape. The demo, Paths Of Righteousness , was released in December, a bit after their first gig in Laukaa, the home county of the brothers on December 3.
The first lineup-changes took place in early 1994 when Jarno moved to another part of Finland because of his studies. At this point also Tapio left the band. The remaining members, Manu and Miika, have become the heart of the band in time. In this time guitarist Kalle Paju also joined the band for the first time. They played one gig with Miika in the drums and his friend Ali Hassinen as a session guitarist in the other guitar on May 31. Unfortunately Deuteronomium lost their rehearsal place, and as they couldn't find another one, the band sort of fell asleep for a while.
1995-1997
In the late 1995 Manu and Miika decided to activate the band again, and also agreed that Miika would handle the lead vocals. They decided to record some new songs and asked Jarno to help them with the drums. As a result, the second demo tape Crosshope was released in early 1996. During the same year they got Johnny Pesonen as a session drummer and Jari Mantour joined the band as the second guitarist. With this lineup they played two gigs in their hometown Jyvaskyla. After them Jari left the band, and Deuteronomium played two more gigs as a trio.
In January 1997 the band went into Studio Watercastle in Jyvaskyla, to record their first EP. This 4-song CD, Tribal Eagle, was released in early summer. It was the first CD-release from a christian metal band in Finland, soon becoming a classic release in the scene, and also gaining the first foreign fans for the band.
During the time Tribal Eagle was released, Kalle Paju re-joined and drummer Janne-Jussi Kontoniemi joined the band, and the lineup settled into the current form. During 1997 Deuteronomium played 8 gigs with bands like Dust Eater Dogs, Terapia, Dark Liturgy and No Man's Band.
1998
In March 1998 the band went into studio again to record their debut album. The album Street Corner Queen was released on May 20 in Lutakko , the biggest rock club in their hometown, under Manu's and Miika's new record label, Little Rose Productions . As a curiosity: on the album release show Manu's sister Meira jumped onto the stage during the song III and cut off Manu's long hair! So he started the gig as long-haired and ended it as bald. Both the other members of the band and the audience were quite shocked to see that happen?
Street Corner Queen was very diverse album musically, and because of that some loved it, some hated it. However, it sold pretty well and during years, three different versions of it has been released.
During that year they played 9 gigs and also spent a lot time writing, composing, arranging and rehearsing songs for the following album.
1999
In January and February was spent recording and mixing the new album. From the midst of the recordings they were offered a chance to support Sentenced in Lutakko, which they gladly accepted. In early spring they released single ?To Die And Gain to promote the new album. The album itself, Here To Stay , was released in April and supported with a mini-tour and some separate gigs around Finland. Musically the new album differs from the debut like day differs from the night. Whereas SCQ was a mixture of many musical styles, HTS was very solid package of tractor pulling death'n roll, sounding a bit like Entombed with death metal vocals. And again, the album split opinions. Some liked it more than SCQ, some were disappointed in Deuteronomium's new style.
In late June the band played their first gigs outside of Finland as they travelled to Holland to play two shows there. On the second one they supported christian metal legends Mortification at Nighttown -club in Rotterdam. Only a few days later they played with Mortification again, this time in Finland. Little Rose Productions had organized the gig to Pakkahuone -club in Tampere, where the bands performed for around 500 people.
In November Deuteronomium played in front of almost 1000 people at Maata Nakyvissa -festivals in Turku.
In 1999 also the sold out Tribal Eagle -ep and Street Corner Queen -album were released as a digipak-album with a cover song Red River, originally recorded by american punk-thrash band One Bad Pig .
2000
The new millenium started under bad signs, since Miika decided to leave the band because of some difficulties and disagreements that the band hadn't been able to solve. However, he agreed to play the upcoming gigs that were already booked, so in late March the band played at Bobfest in Stockholm, Sweden with bands like Antestor, Veni Domine, Crimson Moonlight etc. In early summer also J-J decided to leave the band for the same reasons than Miika. Also he agreed to play the remaining gigs, and in June Deuteronomium returned to Holland, where they played at De Baroeg -club in Rotterdam on June 30 - as the first christian band that has ever played at that metal club. The next day they performed on the main stage at Seaside -festival in Norway , right before Narnia .
At the end of July the band made their last trip at that time, which took them to Germany , where they played three gigs: in Oelsnitz at Heavy Und Biker -club on July 20, and the next day in Stuttgart, Che -club with Sacrificium. Their last gig was played at Freakstock -festival at Gotha.
Paradoxically, that was propably also their best live performance ever.
Markus "Black Raven" Vainionpaa wins air guitar world championship with Deuteronomium's song Crosshope .
2001
Deuteronomium announced on their website that the band is officially dead. The band members continued making music with other bands and project, some more actively, some more as a hobby.
2006
Deuteronomium came back together for one re-union show at OHM-Fest in Keuruu in June 2006. They were the main act at the festival and played around 90 minutes for more than 500 people. The show was recorded and filmed with plans of a live-DVD release. Maanalainen Levykauppa released a new version of Street Corner Queen -album with the same bonus tracks that were found on the digipak-version.
Well, the gig went very well and while rehearsing for it, the band members solved out all the old disagreements and everyone enjoyed playing together again, so?
On December 24 they gave their fans and friend a Christmas present on their website by announcing that the band is alive and kicking again!
2007
On May 19, Deuteronomium played their first gig after the comeback at Immortal Metal Fest in Nokia .
The next show at True Attitude -fest in Heinola on August 17 proved that the band is really back: For the first time in 8 years they played a new song, Fields Of War .
During the year they also worked with songs for their next album, which is shceduled to be recorded in spring 2008.
On November 16 Deuteronomium played at Maata Nakyvissa -festivals again, and the setlist included a new song again, 3:16 .
2008
The band started the new year with pre-production of their comeback album. In January they recorded a demo of 12 songs to help with the final arrangements of the songs.
On March 10 they entered the studio again, starting the recordings of the new album. After 5 days of hard work at Drumforest Studio, Viitasaari, on March 14 all the drums and some of the bass tracks were recorded. The recordings continued on April 1 at Studio Watercastle with two-week sessions. After finishing the recordings, Deuteronomium played their first-ever show in Switzerland, at the Elements of Rock -festival on April 26. The album was mixed between April-June, 2008 at Watercastle, and then mastered at Chartmakers by Svante ForsbДck.
During the summer of 2008 Deuteronomium played a couple of shows, one in Finland in June, and two more in August: Freakstock in Germany and Flevo in Holland, both bringing many new friends for their music.
9 out of the 12 recorded songs ended up to the album that got named "From the Midst of the Battle". It was released on Bullroser Records on August 13 as two different versions: a normal CD in super jewel box and 12-page full color booklet, and a special edition CD+DVD digibook. This handnumbered edition is strictly limited to 500 copies, and besides the album, it includes totally different artwork compared to the normal version, 20-page full color booklet, and a bonus DVD featuring a full gig plus studio diary and documentary from the band's trip to Switzerland. This one is a real collector's item!
After it's first week in stores, FTMOTB made it to #11 on Finnish top40 album list on week 34. The official album release show took place on August 23 in Ristirock, Tampere.
In the end of the year Deuteronomium played 14 gigs around Europe, starting from their home field in Helsinki, continuing at Nordic Fest in Oslo, Norway three days later. And in December they headed for their first real European tour together with another finnish melodic death metal band Immortal Souls. 14 days with 12 gigs in 7 countries: Denmark, Czech Republic, Germany, Holland, France, Belgium and Switzerland. The experience was really great, and their bandwagon, Manu's old Chevy Van rolled 11,000 km around Europe within two and a half weeks! With tons of unforgettable experiences gained, new fans and friends made, lots of old ones met, we would call this tour a success!
2009
The new year started for Deuteronomium in February with a Helsinki Metal Meeting -gig at legendary rock club Tavastia in Helsinki, in a concert that was part of the Finnish Metal Expo. A couple of months later the band played at Immortal Metal Fest in Nokia, Finland. That gig was supposed to be the release show for their new vinyl-EP "Retaliatory Strike", but since the things didn't work out as planned (how surprising!), they could release the EP only as digital downloads on that date. It turned out to be a couple of months more before the vinyls really came out from the czech factory? But after all the EP turned out to both look good and sound great, so it was worth waiting for.
The main focus for this year was to concentrate on writing new material for the band, and the plan was also to record the new album during 2009. However, due to some hard situations in the personal lives of some band members, the making of new album had to be postponed. The material for the new album, however, got written during 2009, so now it would only be a question of finding the right time to record the new album.
During the summer 2009 Deuteronomium played only 2 gigs, but they were very special ones:
in the beginning of June they played at a big finnish metal festival Sauna Open Air, along with such bands as Motley Crüe, Nightwish, Apocalyptica, Amorphis, Stratovarius etc. And in early August they played at another big finnish rock festival DBTL in Turku, with some of the most popular finnish rock bands like Maj Karma, Viikate, Kotiteollisuus, Apulanta, CMX etc.
During the autumn they played a couple more gigs in Finland, as well as Brainstorm festival in Holland. And in the end of the year they got to fulfill one of their dreams as they headed for their first tour outside of Europe: they played 9 shows around Mexico in November 2009! The experience was very exotic, exciting and interesting! And the mexican fans were really great! A perfect way to end this year when it comes to band activities?
2010
For Deuteronomium, the year started with a band meeting in January, and as a result of that, J-J decided to take a year-off from the band activities in order to concentrate more on other things in his life. Due to this, the band would need to find a session drummer to play the drums for their 4th studio album. After spending some time wondering who would be a perfect guy for the job, they decided to ask if a really great musician, the original drummer for the christian metal legends Mortification; Jayson Sherlock would be interested. It turned out that Jayson was very interested in doing the job, so now it was time for the band to record decent demos of the songs for him?
Well, as you may know, things don't always work out as planned. That's just how it went with the plan to record the new album with Jayson. He just couldn't get it fit into his calendar after all, so the recordings of the new album just had to be delayed for a while?
Meanwhile, Deuteronomium played a couple of gigs in the fall, one at Night of Metal in Assen, Netherlands, and another one in Finland.
2011
Another year has started, and it's finally the time to seriously get into the making of the new album. During the first two months of the year the band is making the final arrangements for the songs and rehearsing them. In March it's the time to hit the studio and start the recordings. Good news is that J-J is still in the row and will be playing the drums for the new album after all!