He was just 14, a year below me, and was sitting in the music class in our school with his white Ibanez guitar. I had been playing for a couple of years, but Janne was waaaay ahead of me. He was not only cranking out riffs but was doing simple solos as well. I had … More Part 5: Refining Metal

We kept rehearsing in my parents’ garage, and I came up with some new songs, but the guys weren’t happy with them. Too much rock. Not enough metal. The stuff I wrote just wasn’t tough enough to separate us from the hair metal (that wasn’t yet called hair metal) scene. “Rock the Crowd? Why Rock … More Part 4: Turning Rock Into Metal

In May 1989 we got a chance to play our first gig. The local live music association Sessio had this idea of bringing back something they called “school parties”. It meant a bunch of local bands playing in a school gym hall. The party we played at ended up being the first and the last … More Part 3: It’s Alive

Danger Zone split up before we got to play any gigs, but we weren’t to be stopped. Assu got his first drum set (he had to shovel a lot of snow before his dad agreed to buy it), and in early 1989 I convinced my long-suffering parents to let us rehearse in our garage. We … More Part 2: Scorched by the Fire

SHORT STORY LONG: ARCHED FIRE 1989-1990 It was such a long time ago. But I do remember. Tiny steps for mankind, giant leaps for us. “You know, in a year or so, we’ll have a great band”, Assu assured me. It was late 1988 or early 1989, and the weather was freezing, and we were … More Part 1: Through Danger Zone