WEEK 128 – ARCHED FIRE

My HeadBangers, welcome from Lapland, Finland the Heavy Speed Metal Band:

ARCHED FIRE

“Remote Controlled End – 2021”

“Wormhole”

My HeadBangers you all know I love a band with history, a story, and this band has a great one, taken from their site let’s see how it all began:

Remote Control, Arched Fire’s debut album, has some history. It is where the past meets the present.  “We’ve only been doing this for a couple of years, but there was a thirty-year gap in between,” explains Ari, the rhythm guitar player.

Formed in the small town of Kemijärvi in Finnish Lapland in 1989 by Aslak Purojärvi (drums), Mika Rytilahti (bass), Janne Särkelä (guitar) and Ari Väntänen (guitar), Arched Fire started from scratch.   “We were 14, 15 years old and had no idea what we were doing, but we did it all in the right order:  1) formed a band,  2) bought the instruments, and 3) learned to play.  And we always wrote our own songs.”

Having started as a heavy rock band, they soon steered towards harder and darker metal, inspired by American and Finnish speed/thrash bands.  “If our generation had a punk revolution, this was it. Speed/thrash was a real game-changer.”

Meanwhile, the global metal scene started to take shape – not that the guys knew anything about it. “There was no metal scene whatsoever in the middle of nowhere. We played a handful of gigs with local pop and rock bands that sounded nothing like us. A radio DJ called us ‘heavy speed’ because he didn’t know what our genre was called, which we thought was hilarious. But it was all great; we even got to play live on the air twice and didn’t even think it was a big deal or anything!”

Along with some live and rehearsal recordings, Arched Fire made a four-track demo. When it was (favourably) reviewed in Soundi magazine in late 1990, the band had already split up. “It was our first real band, and we were just teenagers. Things changed fast and life went on, and all we really needed was someone to buy us some beers. But although we went our separate ways, we never forgot Arched Fire.”

As life happened, they lost touch with each other, but not with music. They all kept on playing in different bands, from power pop to black metal, from prog fusion to folk music. Decades flew by until the time felt right to get back together. “We listened to our old recordings and began wondering what we would have sounded like, had we known what we were doing. We decided to find out, just for the fun of it.”

That required some serious work. They kept their old, simple, energetic riffs, but completely re-arranged the song structures and wrote some new parts where needed.  “We realized the vocal lines had to be totally re-written. Back in the turn of the 90s, we talked about finding a singer and a front-man. We never did, because there simply weren’t any in our tiny home town. But now, we all lived in different cities and knew a lot of musicians.”

Soon, Kristian Herkman–an old band mate of Rytilahti’s–joined the band. “As soon as he sent us his first demo version of ‘Escape’, he just felt right. He sounds the part and writes fantastic vocal lines. He really took the band on a whole new level.”

Adding a couple of new songs among the old material, the re-born band started to work on an album. “We wanted to keep the songs simple like they used to be, but with the know-how we have now. Production-wise, we wanted it to sound old-school, but with present-day standards. The plan was to make our teenage kicks meet our present skills as musicians, and it was a lot of fun.”

As soon as the first video single ”Remote-Controlled End” was released, the band got signed: Wormholedeath Records wanted to release Arched Fire’s debut album ”Remote Control” worldwide. A deal was done, and the record will be out in 2021.

And when it came to coming up with a genre, it turned out it had been there since 1989. “We used to joke about the silly ‘heavy speed’ moniker that the radio dj came up with ages ago, but it’s actually an apt description of what Arched Fire sounds like; heavy metal meets speed metal. So, a heavy speed band we are!”

Arched Fire has a really great bio, that goes back to when they started as kids.  Because of space I can’t put it all down but go to their site  archedfire.com  and read it, is so worth it. 

Now let’s meet the band:

Just run your mouse over their pic and you’ll get their info.

My thoughts:

Well my HeadBangers what do you think of these Northern Metal Men.  Did you know that:

Lapland is Finland’s northernmost region, a sparsely populated area bordering Sweden, Norway, Russia and the Baltic Sea. It’s known for its vast subarctic wilderness, ski resorts and natural phenomena including the midnight sun and the Northern Lights. Capital Rovaniemi is the gateway to the region. The homeland of the indigenous Sami people, which extends into neighboring countries, centers on the far north.  I really am hoping someday I can see those Northern Lights and not on TV.

These guys have so much history, and you know I love it.  Not to mention that fire in their music.  It is like a incredible rush listening to their music.  I know we will be hearing more from them in the future.  They truly are a heavy/speed/lil Thrash maybe mixed in there, metal band and I’m so glad they found me.  I would love to see them live, you can imagine the adrenaline rush they would give you.  I hope to hear more from them soon, and it was my pleasure to make them part of our metal family.  Once your in you never get out.

Well my HeadBangers that’s it for this week.  Join me next week for another band and another song.  Until then don’t stand to close to the fire if you can’t handle the burn…..