Poets of the Fall are an independent rock band from Helsinki, Finland that was founded by Marko Saaresto and Olli Tukiainen in 2003. The members are Marko "Mark" Saaresto, (lead vocals/guitar), Olli Tukiainen (guitar), and Markus "Captain" Kaarlonen (producer/keyboards); during concerts, they are accompanied by a bassist, a rhythm guitarist and a drummer.
The Poets released the singles Late Goodbye and Lift before releasing their full-length debut album Signs of Life in Finland. The album was certified gold in May 2005 and 7 of 2005, and stayed on the list for more than a year (56 weeks), which makes it one of the most successful self-produced and self-distributed albums in the history of Finnish music.
The song Late Goodbye should be mentioned as the beginning of the band's popularity since it is featured in Max Payne 2 as the game's ending song, as well as a recurring theme in the game. The second single, Lift, is featured in the computer benchmarking program 3DMark 05 by Futuremark which has close ties with Remedy Entertainment, the developers of Max Payne 2.
The band has won several awards which include the 2004 Game Audio Network Guild (G.A.N.G.) Award in the "Best Original Vocal Song - Pop" category for Late Goodbye, "Best Finnish Newcomer" in YleX's "Best of 2004", "Newcomer of '05" during Musiikki & Media Events, two Emma Awards for "Best Newcomer of the Year" and "Best Debut Album of the Year" and also the "Best Finnish Act" at the 2006 MTV Europe Music Awards.
Poets of the Fall performed live for the first time ever outside Finland in Berlin during Popkomm 2005 and released Signs of Life in selected countries. The second album, Carnival of Rust, was released in Sweden in September 2006, In March 2007 the band supported Sunrise Avenue on four gigs in Germany.
The Poets are currently working on their third album which is supposed to be released in spring 2008. They ended their Carnival of Rust tour with a gig at the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur on October 27, 2007.
Band history
2003
As stated above, Poets of the Fall were founded in 2003 with the collaboration of Mark and Olli. After a small amount of time, Captain came aboard. This brought three different worlds together to form POTF: a rock singer, a jazz guitarist, and an "industrial-machine-trance-man".
It is also known that Marko was forced to move into his parents' basement when he couldn't keep a place of his own any longer. The Poets built a studio of their own in Captain's living room and kept an office in Olli's old car.
In 2003, Sami Järvi, a scriptwriter of Remedy Entertainment asked Mark to write a song for their upcoming game, Max Payne 2. When the game was released, interest in Poets skyrocketed all around the world. Shortly after, Late Goodbye won first place at the annual G.A.N.G. awards in San Jose, California. The ceremony was televised on MTV International and G4TV, but the Poets were unable to attend due to arrangements elsewhere.
Since then, Late Goodbye has spread worldwide on over two million sold copies of Max Payne 2.
2004
On June 30, 2004, the Late Goodbye single was released in Finland. It contained different variations of the title track (including the radio edit, album edition, unplugged edition, and piano instrumental), along with a bonus track called Everything Fades which can also be found on the band's debut album Signs of Life.
On September 9 2004, Poets' second single ''Lift'' was released, continuing to stay true to the band's style. Just like ''Late Goodbye'', ''Lift'' too got a considerable amount of exposure as it appeared with Futuremark's computer benchmarking program, 3DMark05. The software spread ''Lift'' around the world in over eleven million downloads.
The additional track that was included with the ''Lift'' single, ''The Beautiful Ones'' kept the band's poetic style. In all of their work, they have presented a sense of style that carries over into their albums.
Fans from all over the world log onto the Poets of the Fall website everyday. Most of them are from Finland, U.S.A., Germany, the UK, and other European countries.
POTF was voted as the fresh newcomer of the year 2004 in Finland. ''Lift'' won second place in the best song of the year category, ''Late Goodbye'' reached rank 7.
The Poets started their ''Signs of Life''-tour on October 22, 2004 with a concert in Tampere, Finland.
On December 18 2004, the Poets released a net download single entitled ''Maybe Tomorrow is a Better Day'' for about three weeks. After the song's release, the number of visitors of their website was over 20 times higher than on average days. It is still available for download at POTFmedia.com.
"''Maybe Tomorrow is a Better Day''..."
2005
''Signs of Life'', the Poets' first album, had been sought after, receiving more preorders than what was expected. On January 17, 2005, it was announced that the album had been selected as the "Album of the Week" on the Finnish national radio channel YleX. After being released on January 19, 2005, it went up to number one in its first week on the official Finnish TOP 40album chart. It was certified gold on May 24, 2005, platinum on April 26, 2006 and has spent 56 weeks on the list. This makes ''Signs of Life'' one of the most successful albums in Finland released in 2005.
Also included with the album is a link to a password-protected secret page on the website. On the page, a remixed version of ''Lift'' (entitled ''Dramadance Remix'') can be found along with several wallpapers from the album book artwork.
The album was awarded the Emma Award for the "Best Debut Album of the Year 2005" and the band was awarded in the "Best Newcomer of the Year" category. An Emma Award is Finland's equivalent to a Grammy. ''Signs of Life'' has also been released in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Australia, New Zealand, Ukraine and South Africa.
On 13 August, 2005, POTF's second music video ''Lift'' was released for Finnish television airing. From this point forward, ''Signs of Life'' has been released on iTunes in the countries of Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. It went straight to number one in the Finnish iTunes-charts. On October 1, 2005, the ''Lift''-video was made available for online-viewing at the Poets' official website.
On November 9, 2005 the Poets ended their ''Signs of Life''-tour with a concert in Stockholm, Sweden.
2006
On January 19, 2006, POTF won at the NRJ radio awards, they were selected by voters as the "Best Finnish Breakthrough".
On February 9, 2006, POTF made an announcement of their upcoming single to be released on March 22, 2007. ''Carnival of Rust'' included two versions of the title track (a radio edit and album edition), along with an exclusive live recording of ''Don't Mess With Me''. The live recording took place at Rockperry Festival, Vaasa, Finland on July 15 2005. The single was released in Germany on December 1, 2006.
On March 12, 2006, the Poets' announced their tour dates of the "Carnival of Rust" tour. It was also brought to the fans' attention that their drummer, Tapio left the band to pursue his career in photography. Taking his place is Jari. They remain close to their former drummer and wish him the best of luck in his chosen career.
On March 30, 2006, the ''Carnival of Rust'' music video was released for viewing on The Voice and MTV Finland.The director from ''Lift'', Tuomas "Stobe" Harju, continued to work with them for this project.
The Poets' second album ''Carnival of Rust'' was released in Finland on April 12, 2006, after being delayed from its original release date, April 5. It includes 11 new songs, a remastered version of ''Maybe Tomorrow is a Better Day'', as well as the music video to the title track .
The album went straight to the top on Finnish radio channel YleX due to fan votes and was recognized as "Album of the Week" after remaining number one for three weeks straight.
''Carnival of Rust'' followed in its predecessor's footsteps on April 19, 2006 when the Top40 show announced that the Poets would have two albums on their list. After a week on store shelves, the album went straight to number one on the Finnish charts.
On May 10, 2006, ''Signs of Life'' was dropped from the Top40 list, where ''Carnival of Rust'' continued to reside on the higher end of the list. It was certified gold only three weeks after being released and platinum on December 11, 2006. The album has been released in Sweden on September 12, 2006. It was selected as one of the best albums 2006 by Finland's largest newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat.
On December 30, 2006 has been announced that 'Carnival of Rust' has been voted the best Finnish music video of all time in Musiikki-TV's competition. CoR received 21,2% of all votes, almost seven times the votes of the runner-up.
2007
According to statistics by Gramex, Poets of the Fall's song Carnival of Rust was the most played domestic song in Finnish radios during 2006.
According to the Finnish music book Sisältää Hitin, Poets of the Fall's song Carnival of Rust was the 2nd biggest hit of 2006 in Finland, losing only to Lordi. The hit list is compiled from album, single and radio charts.
In 2007 the Poets continued their ''Carnival of Rust''-tour, playing 55 gigs in 7 countries. The tour ended on October 27, 2007 with the band's first concert in Asia at the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur.
On January 20, 2007 they were awarded the "Best Finnish Band"-Award at the 2007 NRJ Radio Awards.
On March 7, 2007 the band's official webshop opened. It ships merchandise as well as singles and albums worldwide.
On April 20, 2007 the ''Carnival of Rust''-album was released in Germany.
On May 5, 2007 it was announced that the Poets' ''Carnival of Rust''-video had won the "Bronze Muuvi Award", as well as the "Muuvi People's Choice Award", having received 71 percent of all votes.
On September 16, 2007 the Poets announced that their third, yet untitled, album is going to be released in spring 2008.
2008
On January 9, 2008 has been announced that the brand new POTF single titled The Ultimate Fling from the upcoming third album will hit shops on the 6th of February. It will contain two rocking versions of the title song, plus a cool alternate acoustic version. In addition to these three tracks, there will also be a live recording of Fire from Carnival of Rust, recorded at the 2007 Ankkarock festival.
Thanks to Virginradio.co.uk and the POTF Official Site
