Cryonic Temple was first formed in the end of 1996, with founding members from Lex Credo (progressive hardrock) and Troopers (Iron Maiden cover band) when these bands decided to quit.
The Line-up: Johan Johansson - Vocals and Rhythmguitars Esa "Freewheeler" Ahonen - Lead and Rhythmguitars Andreas Cromnow - Keyboards/Synth Mika Nyyssölä - Bass Mikael Eriksson - Drums
The sound was mostly progressive, symphonic and gothic stuff in the vein of Marillion, Rush, Mission, Tiamat "Wilhoney", Queensruche "Operation Mindcrime" and Iron Maiden's "Seventh Son of the Seventh Son". As time went by we started to get more and more interested in adding Heavy Metal into the songs.
By the summer of 1997, our drummer left and during the summer our friend David Kangasniemi was the temporally drummer until we found a fulltime drummer in Kim Lundh.
The Line-up: Johan Johansson - Vocals and Rhythmguitars Esa "Freewheeler" Ahonen - Lead and Rhythmguitars Andreas Cromnow - Keyboards/Synth Mika Nyyssölä - Bass Kim Lundh - Drums
We did a demo tape that was entitled "Seasons in Hell", and this demo consisted of 4 songs.
Three of them was featured on the compilation "Nerve" album but the title track of the demo didn't make it!! The Demo tape and the compilation "Nerve" CD was passed out to many record companies and we actually hooked up with Sten Hårdbåge and Fred Estby (drummer of Dismember) of Hardbow Productions. Sten owns a recording studio and a label (Roach Powder released their debut album on this label). He liked the demo very much, so we got a chance to record a new demo with Fred Estby as an producer at Sten's studios called "Before the End".
Sten Hårdbåge passed out some of these demos to some labels, and a few showed some interest but in the end nothing happened. Meanwhile the demo sold well.
In fall 1998 we added a second guitar player by the name Leif Collin. We got offered a deal from a Belgium label but the parts of the deal weren't anything to rely on when it came to marketing and media so we declined. We continued to play more shows and record some stuff spring/summer 1999 but during these times we had some differences in the band of which kind of music we would like to develop. We therefore had to change the line-up when the keyboard player quitted.
The Line-up: Johan Johansson - Vocals Esa "Freewheeler" Ahonen - Lead and Rhythmguitars Leif Collin - Lead and Rhythmguitars Janne Söderlund - Keyboards/Synth and backing vocals Mika Nyyssölä - Bass Kim Lundh - Drums
We decided to once and for all make a VERY hot release/demo so we recorded various tracks to our WARSONG demo between fall 1999 to summer 2000 and from these tracks we choose 5 tracks. More shows and great response which led to more rehearsals and more time focused onto the band, but for some members it got hard to adjust and concentrate that much on the band due to different reasons (such as work, different musical values and time priorities etc.) This led to that the drummer left the band in summer of 2000 who got replaced by Johan's brother (he is a wiz kid behind the drum skins). In late fall 2000 our cofounder and bass player Mika Nyyssölä left due to other interests in life. He was replaced by Jan J Cederlund and Jan is mean, cool and tall as hell and most certainly rock!
Meanwhile we collected the best tracks and released the WARSONG demo. This led to several record labels that contacted us. After discussing with some of these labels we decided to sign with Maurizio Chiarello's label Underground Symphony. Even after we signed the deal some other labels still sends us requests for discussing a deal.
Through Underground Symphony we are going to release our debut album "Chapter I".
The album will be released worldwide January 2002.
Current Line-up: Johan Johansson - Vocals Esa "Freewheeler" Ahonen - Lead and Rhythmguitars Leif Collin - Lead and Rhythmguitars Janne Söderlund - Keyboards/Synth and backing vocals Jan J Cederlund - Bass Sebastian "Zeb O" Olsson - Drums
While Sebastian studied classical, afro-american and latino percussion at a musicians institute in Piteå (in the VERY north of Sweden), Lasse Bäcke, a friend of us, stepped in and helped us rehearse and performed with us when needed. However now is Sebastian back (he has a one year school-break).
This is the current situation and hope that you've learned something from our Biography section!
