The band was formed by Tommy Dee in spring 2000. The guys were found by internet and magazine advertising. Quite soon we found the training place to start proper training and in summer 2000 we debuted on stage at Nummirock metal festival. Next spring we released our first promo called Valley of Misery which right away reached top positions at MP3.COM metal charts. Since then we have released two promos and thrown quite a few gigs including the finalist spot on Finnish Rock Championships in spring 2002. Right now we are looking for a record deal and a distributor to release our very first LP. More detailed history is presented below.
Summer 2000
"Since year 1997, out of frustration I felt towards earlier band mates, I have had no band at all, and the name Holochaust was just a personal brand. In winter 2000 I finally started feeling ready to form a new generation of Holochaust but my foremost thought was that this time I've just got to make it work! I also had already forgotten all the last fragments of that "current" line-up, I had finished mixing all the songs to LP "Ultimate Metal Trademark", the CD was full, it was enjoying a huge underground success... Only thing that I was missing was the band. So I started putting ads on the net and Risto (the solo guitarist) called me 2 hours after the first ad! Jukka (the bassist) called me two days after Risto and also Toni was found soon after testing 2 other drummers. And after having to digitally do drums on few tracks on U.M.T. I thought that no drummer could ever play (some of) those songs, but luckily I was proven clearly wrong. Toni is such a great drummer and his playing style fits perfectly in Holochaust, he really gives us something to play along and blows a whole new dimension into our otherwise good material."
-Tommy Dee
Risto happened to have one little training room he had earlier played in with his earlier bands. It was in old factory called Kaapelitehdas in Ruoholahti, Helsinki. That was just perfect since it is very difficult to find a training place in Helsinki. We started playing there just a three of us (me, Risto and Jukka) and as I said we tried a couple of drummers but as they didn't please us, we carried on searching the "right one". When Toni came to play with us for the first time, I immediately knew he would be the man. We played Seek and Destroy and it just rocked! We had found our drummer and the band was finally ready to rumble! The only "difficulty" was that Toni also had another band and his drums were at totally different place. So we had to find a mutual place to train since we are not the kind of assholes starting to make any demands for our favour. Fortunately my collague had a better place where his band was training so we joined the roster. The price was low and it was really decent place at a nice neighbourhood near downtown.
Only having played for 1½ months together we managed to get booking on the Nummirock 2000 festival and played there for an hour (23.6.2000). In winter 2001 Holochaust was signed to booking agency Siniset Sienet but because of the lack of mutual interest the co-operation ended quite soon. We noticed that a more effective way to get gigs is to pick up the phone and call to the clubs and festivals yourself.
Autumn 2002
After Nummirock Holochaust started planning their first release which was going to be the promo CD Valley of Misery which included three songs: Beyond the Violence, Valley of Misery and I Wanna Lie. The promo was recorded and mixed in a very tight schedule at MD-studios, which is a cheap analog studio for local (Helsinki area) bands. Afterwards this proved to be a mistake since the later release (promo: PanDEMOnium) had much better soundscape and production. This was due to the mixing and recording that was done in our home studio with lots of time and care. Only the drums were recorded at a digital studio named Studio 303 and the drums were actually transferred to my PC via CD-R disks. That is, I used my PC and its software to record and mix the rest of the stuff. Eventually we decided to re-record the drums to Valley of Misery on the same session where we recorded PanDEMOnium's drums, so the current official version of Valley of Misery is NOT the original MD-studio version, much better thou. After all the song is our hit song to date, so it definitely deserved to be produced properly. Hopefully someday we'll be able to produce it professionally, into a real LP.
Also to date Holochaust has thrown a few gigs. Different kinds of venues including small and bit bigger festivals and a club gigs, with and without other bands. The one to mention is of course the nomination as a finalist on Finnish Rock Championships in May, 2002. We didn't win, but hey, the chance to appear on such a forum is a victory as itself!
What comes to our training place, we finally got rid of the band that was basically terrorizing the whole place. There were 3 bands playing in one room, that is. After one broken Marshall amp, one PA, a PA box etc. we now have bands that can trust each other, so we totally revamped the room. It looks like a living room now with clean floors and all, so when we get our PA from the repair shop, we can finally have our first session on our "new" place.
Currently, the new promo "Survivors of the Holochaust" (briefly S.o.t.H) is under construction and will be released quite soon, hopefully during October 2002. The method of making this promo is quite similar to making of PanDEMOnium except that the vocals are now recorded with a condenser microphone and the rhythm guitars and part of melody guitars are recorded with real Marshall Valvestate I amplifier instead of a ZOOM effects module that was used on PanDEMOnium. The sound will thereby be quite different and hopefully better to your taste also.
Also Hofu has started bass and music theory lessons. This is not because as if he were a bad bassist. On the contrary, he just wants to be even better and personally I think that's the real spirit! I hope I could have the motivation to do the same. Anyway, as a rhythm guitarist I think I'm quite competent and can live up to Holochaust's standards, and I willingly let Rizzto do the harder solo parts:)
The new name to the band is also settled within the inner circle and we'll let the big secret out in the open with the release of the next promo S.o.t.H.
To be continued...
