Fall of The Leafe

Vantage

Introduction
It is probably audible that Fall of the Leafe is rooted to extreme metal in one way or another. Besides the metallic taste, some may find flavors of strange 80's pop and rock there. Our music is largely guitar-driven, melodic, layered and in some people's opinion, horrible. In general, it is somewhat faithful to the heritage of rock music. It is, however, not much of my business to describe our music here. There are samples available at this website and also, your local record retailer will be happy to sell you our records.

Location
Members live scattered around the southern parts of Finland. More specifically, in the cities of Turku and Helsinki and the small town named Naantali. A cold, warehouse serves as a place to rehearse at. In consequence of the distance between the band members and the mentioned warehouse, a mass-migration of rockers precedes each rehearsal or jam session.

The Beginning
Fall of the Leafe dates back to some earlier century, when people used to address a season that way. In 1996 the particular term was not in use anymore, especially in the southwest corner of Finland where they speak mostly Finnish. Jussi Hänninen, Marko Hyytiä and Juha Kouhi were, at that time, occasionally jamming some of Jussi's riffs and song ideas together. Because the material seemed slightly difficult for such a narrow combo to perform, Kaj Gustafsson somehow appeared to play the other guitar. Only a vocalist was missing, and then Jani Lindström was linked to the group. As far as I know, he was the one who came up with the silly idea to unite these fellows under a common title, Fall of the Leafe. >>

>> Five new songs were recorded at the first recording session at the local Crusell Studio in 1996. The resulting demo-tape, Storm of the Autumnfall, was distributed shamelessly among the worldwide metal press, friends, mothers and some record companies. Somehow, perhaps through myself as I was staying in the U.S. at the time, the demo reached Defiled Records in Colorado. One thing leads to another, and Fall of the Leafe signed a recording contract.

Evanescent, Everfading was recorded at Tico-Tico Studios in 1997. They say that the album was recorded almost live, or at least in very few takes during no more than 5 days. Another story tells about the eventful roadtrip up north to Kemi and a third one about the band's bachelor life there, but I am going to save the details for some other context. Due to financial problems and what not, the eventual release of this CD did not take place until the next year.

I believe that the Evanescent-sessions were a good lesson, if nothing more remarkable. First of all, the band seemingly realized in the studio that they cannot play the keyboard very well. Therefore Petri Hannuniemi joined soon after to do the job properly. At the same time, Jani Lindström left. For the band's misfortune, I was still associated with some of the members around the time and somehow ended up impersonating Elvis at some rehearsals. Of course I had zero prior experience, but they don't always shoot every bird that don't sing beautiful, do they? They should have.

I am under the impression that after I showed up, the smooth rock n' roll song and dance party-hula-hula was over. It did not take very long until we had to carry our things out of the house where we rehearsed at. Seems that people around here like to have all kinds of culture to enjoy, loathe and consume, but they dislike it being rehearsed anywhere. This may have been our problem at the time. The next place was across the street from the fire station, but this fact did little to help the building from being burnt to crisp after a couple of months. Although it has to be mentioned in defense of the fire department that some bastards first broke into our band house, took most of our equipment and then played with fire. The entire event was quite disappointing, really. Despite the setback, we were planning to record a new album later that year (1998). The studio time was in fact scheduled already, when Defiled Records called it quits. Soon after, Kaj joined his motivation somewhere as far from Fall of the Leafe as possible.

Fermina

In January 2001 we hauled our stuff over to Popstudio again, which had moved further away since our previous visit. Haapasalo had re-built his studio into a goddamned old cowshed but seemingly hadn't bothered to build a toilet. I don't know if it was this fundamental deficiency that caused it, but everyone seemed slightly nervous and nothing went very smoothly. For example, Jussi malfunctioned quite seriously and was hospitalized. At the mixing stage, nobody was honestly surprised by our failure to meet the planned schedule by some three months. After the mixing, we took Fermina's remains over to Finnvox Studios for Mika Jussila to rescue whatever could be rescued. Fermina was finally released in January 2002.

In April 2002, founding member drummer Marko Hyytiä left the band. Until further notice, the rhythm department continues with the rock 'n' roll animal Matias Aaltonen [Voodoo].

Volvere

It has now been two years since I last wrote on this page. I am not much of a mathematician but it seems we have now kept this band going for eight years. To be honest, my faith in Fall of the Leafe has been tested many times during the years but every single time she has built my faith back again. It has felt to me as if this band was so fragile and while at the same time there still existed a curious cohesion that kept it together. I believe that recently an important part of this cohesion has definitely been Matias. Last time I informed you people that he would fill in on a session basis the gap left by Marko´s departure but it seems he has become more or less a full time member. Maybe this was a natural development. Afterall, Kaj and Matias have been very good friends since little kids. They have also jammed together since little arrogant juveniles but only now are they actually performing seriously in a real band. Their stronger role has built us an entirely new kind of chemistry and this in turn has made us, I think, more determined to see what Fall of the Leafe is really cabable of. Allright. Enough of this crap. Next I am going to write about things that have really made a difference.
One of these things was the fact that we were systematically shot down by all major labels after our time with Icarus had ended. This was rather depressing, really. All our good new songs and everything. Then, out of nowhere, the British label Rage of Achilles dropped some e-mail, gently asking about when our next album would come out:

Rage of Achilles: ”When is your next album coming out?”
Fall of the Leafe: ”It's not going to come out.”
Rage of Achilles: ”Oh yeah, why?”
Fall of the Leafe: ”Because we don't have a record deal.”

This probably just the answer they were anticipating because they decided to offer us the deal we were missing. After carefully weighing all the options that we really didn't have, we chose to accept their offer. And goddamn. It felt brilliant to get some serious action again. Then, one crispy fall morning in 2003, I was driving a small van to Mika Haapasalo's Popstudio once again. A too small a van it turned out. First off, my passengers Kaj and Matias were sitting much too close to me in the vehicle - and just in case this wasn't uncomfortable enough, these two lunatics sang their bloody hearts out and played snare drum rolls in the van ALL the way to the studio. I tell you, I was this close to calling it quits in this fucking band. The recording process itself was much easier than the preceding trip over. In comparison to the Fermina sessions, we had more beer, were much more relaxed and none of us needed medical attention. If there is a causality here, I don't know. In any case, we came out of the studio with our fourth album Volvere. It was later mastered at Finnvox by Mika Jussila. Unlike last time, he did not come up with funny euphemisms about how he actually had some real work to do. Maybe he had no reason because Volvere really does sound pretty good. Check it out for yourself.

A Section Title

So reality came along in 1998. In the last days of that year, we recorded three songs in the glorious Crusell Studio, with their awesome 12-track system. Besides the overall sound being seriously underground, I learned that I personally still have a long way to reach the same level of musicianship as the rest of the band. The result of this studio experience was the Promo 1999, which is nothing short of sheer fucking crap. Despite being so horrible, it was mailed all over the place and we did, surprisingly, get some feedback too. Some of this feedback came from the Argentinian record company called Icarus. While the world was still short of breath in consequence of this disastrous tape, there were things happening at the personnel department. Mika Rostedt filled the gap left by Kaj. It had already been a pain in the buttocks to play with only one guitarist. Then, this same problem changed its shape when Kouhi left, leaving us with very little or no low frequencies. .>>

>> In 1999 we signed a two album deal with Icarus. A good part of that summer was spent nicely, locked up in Mika Haapasalo's Popstudio. In the absence of a permanent bass player, Jussi laid down the bass lines himself – with a humongous blister on his finger. In the end, August Wernicke came out of the studio as a death metal album of some sort. Whatever it is that you want to call it, the album still serves as the best example of what Fall of the Leafe sounded like in 1999. The artwork for the album was dramatically delayed, which is probably my fault. The entire album was released about seven months behind schedule. This one too can be traced back to me.

The rest of that year and most of the one after were just all round lame. People* (allright fellows all of them) were coming and going, only the girls were still nowhere to be found. Perhaps this fact, combined with Mika's disguised interest in The Scorpions was behind his decision to leave. All the line-up changes were exhausting especially because small towns usually just swarm with virtuoso musicians. Then, at some point, Juha Kouhi joined back in after spending a year somewhere else. And wouldn't you know that.

The album itself

Under normal circumstances, there are only 2 or at best 3 songs on an album, that you think is better than the rest of the good songs.

The Finnish band Fall of The Leafe is very extraordinary in that field. All songs on this album seem to be hits and that is something you rarely see. At least they appeal to me in a way I have not sensed before. Fall of The Leafe is not your average metal band, or average in any other genre for that matter. The style is atmospheric and very melodic as well and from time to time with a little detour into a universe of dark tranquillity and intense reflection on such major issues like life and death.

Fall of The Leafe reminds me a lot about The Mission and Fields of The Nephilim, which are two of my favourite goth/alt.rock bands. When it comes to the very remarkable and impressive vocal of Toumas Touminen, only The Pearl Jam vocalist Eric Vedder comes to my mind, in spite of a lot of great vocalists’ out there.

Fall of The Leafe is a unique band in many ways. Not only because they sound like they do, but also because they are so goddamn good at generating attention from me. I do listen to a lot of music every week. It is often very different bands representing a lot of genres. The major part of the music is pretty cool, and from time to time, there’s this band that just glow a little brighter or reach out further than the rest. Never mind the explanation. I guess you have a pretty good idea about what I mean. The music from Fall of The Leafe is already very special to me, and I am sure they will be to you too. This is music for connaisseurs. Fall of The Leafe is high-end atmospheric goth/alt rock from start to end. And I feel pretty convinced that they will appeal to a wide audience through out the world. So far, there are not live dates set in order to support this release, but hopefully Fall of The Leafe will embark upon the road in the coming year.

http://www.falloftheleafe.com/

http://www.firebox.fi/