Band

Excalion was born at December 2000 in Konnevesi, central Finland. Keyboard player Jarmo �Jappe� Myllyvirta had written some melodic power metal-style songs and began looking for a group to play his ideas aloud. So it happened that four people gathered in a tiny rehearsal room: Jappe, drummer Henri Pirkkalainen, bassist Timo Sahlberg and guitarist Tero Vaaja. After some playing, some chatting and some playing again, those four people realized that they had a band. For reasons that have partly escaped everyone, the band was named Excalion. The next obvious task was to find someone to sing the songs. Solution was near. Jarmo Pääkkönen was a guy known of his big voice; Jarmo´s former band had recently split up, so he was available to join the band. Excalion played its first gig ever in spring 2001 at Työväentalo, Konnevesi. Apart from Excalion´s own songs, the setlist included Stratovarius covers and some Nightwish songs without vocals (!) Soon after this Excalion acquired its full line-up when Kimmo Hänninen, who had played together with Jarmo before, joined the band as guitarist. In autumn 2001 Excalion recorded their first demo called Forlorn. This was done at Studio Kaktus near Jyväskylä, where they had two days to record and mix three songs. Army service of some of the band members and other practical difficulties prevented Excalion to play gigs regularly. Years 2002 and 2003 saw some scattered gigs and reasonably hard rehearsing. Jappe also wrote new songs with more detail and variety than before. This was above all a time of learning how to be a band, and growing together musically. In autumn Excalion started to make their second demo, this time with their own equipment and studio software. The unwillingness to pay large fees for studio time led the band to learn how to do things independently and experiment. The demo was worked in short sessions all the time through spring 2003. This demo was convincing enough. At the end of 2003 the band signed a deal with Sound Riot Records, and the recording of Excalion´s debut album was fixed at Autumn 2004. The tracks to be recorded included brand new songs written during 2004 and some reworkings of the older songs. The work was done at Studio Watercastle in Jyväskylä in September.

Quelle: http://www.excalion.com/

2005 Primal Exhale
2007 Waterlines
2010 High Time