Artist description First of all, we are from Finland. You could describe us by making a Katatonia / Anathema -shake and drinking it with a dying bride. We started as a metal band that was influenced by Katatonia, Type o Negative and Black Sabbath. We have made many line-up changes since 1997 and now we have the best line up so far. Finally in 2002 we got a recording deal from the Italian label Avantgarde music. We spent last summer recording our debut album "Effete mind". The release date is late 2002 - 2003.

Music Style Melancholic Metal with clean vocals

Musical Influences Katatonia, Anathema, My Dying Bride, October Tide, Type O Negative

Similar Artists Katatonia, Anathema, My Dying Bride, October Tide, Him

Artist History History: Prophet formed in 1997 when our former bands were run aground. We had played together for some years but somehow drifted apart due to different tastes in music and friends. As Hisu & Sami were spending night after night sitting at some gas-stations, I was listening to Black & Death cd:s I had gotten from my rascal friends. Drinking homemade moonshine and wine. We saw each other at the smoking corners of our school but we had all become strangers to one another. It took about a year or two before Hisu called me and said he wanted to put the band back together. He had gotten the number from friends of a girl I was dating back then. We were both drunk but in the morning I called Sami and asked whether he was willing to play some Black Sabbath era songs I had made. We started to jam at J-P´s (aka Hisu) basement. We played for about half year before making the first demo. The first songs we did were a total mishmash but soon we found a more unbroken touch. Sami´s guitar melodies over my supergain bass (we did not have a rhythm guitarist those days so I played most of the guitar parts with my bass) & Hisu, a magical selftought drummer who was a few years younger than we were. We booked the MD studio for two nights ´cause we had heard Hiili had recorded HIM´s first ep there and we were all into the sound. It was the first time any of us was in the studio. We made the last touches to the songs just the night before. I remember at the time we were mostly into Katatonia and Type O Negative. Afterwards I am surprised as to how good the demo turned out. (I mean now, back then I did not think so much of it). After the demo it took about 2 weeks for us to like the it. It´s always hard to listen to it without hearing something you´d want to change. But not as hard as going back to the rehearsals. Everything sounds so much more chaotic... We had played our first show at a local youth club. We were all 5 beers drunk but the audience seemed to like our songs. We only had 3 songs ready so it was quite a short set. Even though we all were lil´nervous. For that moment we were on top of the world. After the show we got back drinking. We did not care about the feedback. Things were much more scattered after that. I took a step back and started to write new songs. One night I went to a gig with some friends and we got totally smashed before the show. It´s weird how we ever got in as we were all underage and drunk. Once inside I went straight to the boysroom to drink my hidden beers and licoricebooze. I heard someone vandalizing one of the cans. He came out and I knew we were to be best friends. We took a few swigs and talk about our bands. He was a guitar hero from local bands called Denigrate, Mortify and a bunch of other death metal acts. He asked for my contacts cause he wanted to comment on the demo I gave him (Thy Sky...). I did not hear from him for a few months but then one night he called he wanted to hang out with our band. So then we went to the basement to drink and play a little. After that he helped us with sounds and made demos of new songs before we hit the studio. This mystery man was Seppo Nummela. This was not the only thing that was going to change things. I also met Pete (Raatikainen, who later became one of us) and Mr. Ullgren that night at the gig. Pete was a freak I had seen at school. I knew he was more into black and death metal than guys at Prophet. His lil´ brother was a friend of my ex- girlfriend or something... so I somehow wandered to talk to the guys. They had already heard me play bass so they asked me to join their band (Jatunheim). I called them after a few days and went to their rehearsals. The place was unbelieveable. We played in a old movie theatre. Stage and everything. But I saw these guys weren´t too interested in that but rather drinking and playing black... well, I was home. We drank together every fuckin' saturday and played our own songs and some Rotting Christ etc. covers. The guys also had a band called "Rapture" and they were lacking a guitarist. I had to admit it was some of the best music I had ever heard. Eventually they asked me to play guitar and I was thrilled. I was few years younger than these guys and they were already known in Helsinki. I went to metal bars the first time with them and I always liked hanging out with Ullgren. In the beginning we always had some disputes with Pete but in the end out of all guys in Rapture, he became the closest to me. At this point Prophet was almost completely forgotten. Hisu was pissed off at me for joining Rapture. I even heard he told everyone I was a satan worshiper. At that time, it was a trend. Every fuckin' kid was wearing pentagrams and listening to cradle and dimmu... I was more into Katatonia and Anathema. I got the inspiration for more speed/death riffs and it was little hard to make Hisu understand. I had not seen him in a while but as we were good friends all the same we got things working. Then I bought my first guitar and we played for the summer, just the two of us. We played thrash, speed, doom, death... etc. I took some notes and started to make real songs out of em. I had the most musical and drink-filled vacation that summer. I met a nice girl who knew how to play the keyboards. Although she was the one who introduced me to Emperor and Sentenced, she was never as metal as the other guys. Tea, my god she was 14 ... When I got back to Helsinki we started to rehearse the songs I had made. This time I had found a more suitable style for Hisu and Sami. It was Prophet again! We did songs like As I Prove You My Lies and Gone. We got the songs rollin' and somehow got into the routine of going to rehearsals even 2 times a week. I shifted to playing guitar at Prophet´s rehearsals as well. We had to get keyboards and another guitarist. It was quite obvious that I should call Tea. Gone... The Songs for the next demo were put together during the following few months. We actually booked two separate studio dates at the same time. The Gone demo was made that fall in order to hear how our first MCD - Miles Away should be arranged. We got to the studio and the guy who recorded the whole thing could not even get the recorder to record for few hours... Once again we had to make it in two days. We had a great time and Seppo was playing some crazy solos for us. This time we weren't so pleased with the demo... soundvice I mean... But it gave us good hints on how to make the Miles Away that was to be recorded just few months later. Miles Away... We felt we were in a huge rush with things before the mcd. In retrospect, the only thing I feel we wasn´t ready was the vocals. I still don´t like ´em. I like the actual songs themselves though. I remember we had 5 or 6 days to complete the 4 songs. We did "As I prove You My Lies" and "Gone" again and 2 new songs called "Now I Die" and "Miles Away". As usual, when we got to the studio the equipment started to blow up. Recording went without problems. We had time to try different guitars, amps, strings, effects.. everything. So the mcd was was produced as it progressed. Jukka Puurula who had mixed our first demo was a big help with the songs and the vocals. A month after that the cd was finally ready. Listening to the first demos (Thy Sky ... 1997 & Gone 1998) it´s obvious that we had played mostly instrumental music before founding Prophet. Thy Sky Takes You Away is the first demo I have ever sung in and we were all about 16 years old at that time. When we released Miles Away, we sent many cd:s to various labels and magazines for the first time. That´s when got the first good feedback and interviews. To top it all we were interviewed for the radio. Guitar garbage dump... We had tried a bunch of guitarists already. Most of ´em bad and some of ´em just unstylish. One of them got so far that we played a gig with him. He dropped his pick just before a solo and as he lifted it up he somehow got stuck between the guitar belt and the guitar. He just rolled on the floor. And man did the rest of the band ;). He is still a great friend of ours but did not fit the band. We called Hisu´s friend Jarno and he convinced me by playing some fast riffs and Old Man´s Child at the first rehearsals. "Finally", I though someone in this band goes heavy metal!!! Fortunately this guy knew some show organizations and so we got our first big gig. It was in Lepakko with Cryhavoc and Absurdus, and I was thrilled to hear of radio publicity. When we got to the venue we were sober and decided that we´d keep it that way. .. But the night was long and we had LOT of booze with us. When we got to the stage our drummer was so drunk he could not keep up the tempo. I thought I could lean on the smoke floating around the stage... Of course we felt like winners again after the show. We played some gigs at clubs for some time but got tired of that. The guitarist was too busy with other stuff and so we had to let him go as well. The fight... Sometime in 1999 when we released Miles Away we saw the first signs of our band falling apart from its seams. The musical disagreements almost drove us to make the fight more personal. Hisu had lost his passion to metal and was listening to some Finnish shit. I was going more black ´n death. I started to play in a Finnish power metal band "Excelsior" because of the lack of Prophet´s motivation. I called Pete and we decided to put together a Doom Metal band, Snowgarden. we had Teemu (Throne Of Chaos/Thy Serpent) on drums and Pete tried playing guitar for a while. We rehearsed at the old theater again. I saw Diablerie once when we were playing in Vernissa with Excelsior. They asked me if I was interested in joining the band as their bass player. I had seen Henri sometimes at school and at some festival but I didn´t even know the freak´s name. He had made a big impression on me by talking about girls and bands after one Children Of Bodom show. Nothing,, Nothing was happening with Prophet. But as the mcd was selling fine and the reviews had been good, we decided to patch up once again. Death Becomes You... I had about 5 new songs ready for Prophet but when we got to rehearsals it was hell. Tea continuously made up excuses of why she couldn´t attend. Hisu forgot everything in between rehearsals. It seemed that it was no use to practice any longer. We just hit the studio and recorded the drum tracks as long as we had to. After that everything went well. Sepi played many guitar parts this time. I showed the songs to my friend Henri and he promised to do the growl vocals to the demo. We practised the parts in a toilet in a rock bar Honky Tonk. Of course it was spooky to other people. They both sounded great. Without realizing, we had just made our best demo thus far. "Death Becomes You" -2000. Also the lyrics are better. Still it's just a demo. We decided to release it in tape format and sell it with a price of 1 dollar when other bands charged about 6. We sold it with about the same same price that we had to pay for the duplicator. Our main objective has always been getting people to hear the music. As we started to settling gigs and rehearsing new material, we saw that all of us did not have the same motivation or interest to the music. Jobs, Army, Girls... allkinds of futility drove us to decide either to part with some members or to stop altogether. We did our last gig at a youth club. No ads. Nothing. It was some "no drugs"-event and the whole neighborhood was doing drugs. Well, we got off to an argument about stupid things like who should carry what, equipment etc. That's the last time I saw Hisu. Broken Promise So there we were. Me and Sami, certain of the music we wanted to do but not having the members loyal enough to start playing gigs or rehearsing for the next releases. For about a year we tried to find players but they were all either too busy, bad, or they did not believe enough in us. At that time I was extremely busy with my other bands, yet I had time to record some songs at home. I showed the songs to Sami and he was immediately interested to go to a studio. We thought through some drummers and finally I asked Pete from my other band Snowgarden to play the drums and he said yes. In 4 months, once a week we rehearsed the 5 songs that were supposed to be in "Broken Promise". We also had guest in this cd. Henri Sorvali in keyboards and Sepi played a solo. We tried to find a producer for the mcd but as no-one seemed to be interested, we took a loan and worked to get the money together. We decided to release it in digipack although it was very expensive for us since none of us were working on a permanent basis. Now indebted I have no regrets. It took about 6 months for labels to contact us after the release. Some of 'em provoking us and some of ´em saying nothing but "a great demo". We were approached with a deal and just before signing it we got another one. Finally something good had happened to us. Last year of disillusion We successfully attracted attention with our digipak. Good reviews, recording deal, interviews. I have to admit we did not think much when signing or doing anything for that matter. Anything for the band was a plus. We got tired of waiting around so we started to rehearse a gig set and some new songs for the cd. We found a new guitarist Jape Nummenpää for Snowgarden but then decided that he was better suited as a bass player for Prophet. Well we had a blast and hung out almost every day and night. We got to play bigger gigs. One in Gloria and an even bigger one in Estonia. I got so wasted before Gloria´s gig that I don´t remember anything but going there and bits after the show. But the house was full and we´ve had good feedback afterwards. We are grateful and ashamed of the trip we did to Tallinn with Denigrate. Seppo and Henri were drinking at my house the night before. It went on a bit late. Sami had lost all of our tickets. We were late from the port... We were ALL wasted before we even got to Estonia! Eventhough we had decided that we´d play sober, all of us were continuosly buying more booze. When we were on stage it sounded alright. But later when I heard the cd at home I was like.. oh my god. The weirdest thing, however is that they did not care about the sounds or that we were drunk. They seemed to like the music. Well we all had a great time there and loved it... well not all of us. From that day on things were not the same with Pete. He bad-mouthed the whole place, the arrangements, and finally the rest of the band. It was really awkward because the rest of us were having good time and understood what the organizers had gone through to get us there. Well, after a few fights we were in a boat on our way back to Finland. God knows how we got there... Life was Dirty We did not stop there and got 2 gigs at Vernissa that winter. Those shows were better than in Gloria but I was as wasted as before. Some of us had gotten the idea that Jape did not give his best to the band, and I said so much to him, causing another fight as usual. Well, we forgot all about that and continued. Finally we booked a studio and recorded the Dirty demo of 3 new songs in two days. We were drunk the whole time. We even got to a party the first night and got back to the studio late and drunk. Well you can hear it on the demo and I like it. Dirty was sent to a few mags only. And was sold from our hands. Effete Mind Broken Promise was sold out. We had changed our name to "Fragile Hollow"and had a vision of how the upcoming debut should sound like. WE also had the demos of the songs ready. What we did not realize was that we should nevertheless have practiced and thought the songs through. That way we would have spent a lot less time in the studio or use that time better. For our bad luck the man whom we had chosen to record and mix the album was completely burnt out. Maybe something critical happened during the start or then he just got better towards the end of the session. I´m glad the cd sounded this good. The songs are different from my original versions. At first it sounded weird and I didn´t like it at all. We were more into rock at the time and decided to use rock guitars and 80s drums in this release. That's what we got. So it did not sound like the music we usually had done. Now as we listen to it, it sounds great and we can hear the feeling we had back in the studio. We made the rest of the cd in a countryside studio, distant from all the city noise and traffic. We spent 2 weeks, just the three of us, me, Sami & Tea. Mornings in the studio and nights walking and talking and maybe finally getting to know each other better. It was the best time ever. I´m sad that the whole band wasn´t there. We got a tie of friendship which finally divided our band. We did not see the other band members so much after that. Rush,rush,rush, The day we got back from the studio I think all of us had somekind of fight waiting at home. It was sad to have to leave the very next day to Savonlinna to record Rapture´s conversational second album "Songs For The Withering". Booze, bars, beer, cigarettes. I suffered trouble with my heart and general health. As the other guys went to bars, I slept back in the studio. It was like going from heaven to hell actually. The premises at Karillo studio were clean and cool. In savonlinna however, we had mold & dirt. We amused our selves with about a 1000 strange vinyls we had found, a small tv, and our dirty beds. When I finally got well we went to bars together at last. I was stresses as other FH members were calling me. "The studio hadn´t had its money". Pete called that he hated the sounds and the fucking' keyboards. When I got back we had long talks with Pete who had decided that there couldn´t be girls in the band.. or just Tea or something. So that was the beginning of that end. It was either him or Tea. Eventually when he badmouthed the whole band it was evident that it wasn´t going to work. But really that was no problem as we were on a break with FH anyways ´cause we were going to a studio with Rain Paint. Rain Paint This was a great thing to do! The label that originally offered it´s deal to Fragile Hollow was interested in my other band, Rain Paint. I showed ´em my songs and they immediately signed us. It was that easy and that's why it was so much fun to do. They sent their money in time and we got to buy good gear for the studio. Food and Drinks were paid this time also. No screwing with royalties or anything. They really have enthusiasm to promote our band and really get things done. In the heat of this enthusiasm we recorded the 8 songs we had rehearsed at Denigrate´s band basement. It was 2 times a week + the time we spent with Tipi drinking and playing there. The songs were so technical and more closer to the music I love to play. The songs were ready in no time. The studio time was grotesque. We named the place "Con hombres" which is a gay bar in Helsinki where threatened to go on the last day to drink gallons of beer. Well, the drinking started on DAY ONE! Of course no-one played drunk. :S .. well almost something like that. It was mid-summer so we could sleep outside the studio if we had missed the last train or bus. We had to fight to keep away from the bar located just a ½ mile away. There was blood, sauna, beer, cigarettes, etc, sweat, laughter, ,, and eventually a great cd. After a drunken night there is always a hangover While we were at the studio with Rain Paint we missed a rock festival in Helsinki. And as the relationships in FH were already open wounds, something happened that made it even worse. Sepi and Pete had gotten to a mutual fight, and as I was hanging out after the gig, they both called me about it. We were no longer a band. New day, brand new beginning As we were already spending a lot of time with Make Vainio who played in Rain Paint we decided to also try out some Fragile songs with him. They sounded great and eventually he became our drummer. We saw Pete and tried to break the bad news in a bar.. nevertheless, we strayed from the subject and got drunk. It was a lowsy way to handle this. Jape came to about 5 rehearsals after that but then got busy with other things. So we tried Make´s friend Teo on the bass and it worked. This time the whole thing got out of hand. When I saw Jape as I was passing the railwaystation and heard he´d spread lies that I was the one who said he had to go. And the reason was sick. After the first couple of months of training, Teo and Make knew the first 10 songs. Things were looking great. The band had a new engine! They add just the right rock bottom to our sound. Something Black Sabbath that was with us at the beginning. We had gone through a circle. But now we have progressed what comes to songwriting, playing and how to speak things to each other. The band still wasn´t not full. If we ever wanted do a gig, we´d have to ask our oldest friend Seppo for his precious time. However, he is & will be busy with his band Denigrate. The Puzzle get´s it´s last piece We played our first gig with this lineup at a local youth club. It was clear from the act that we had gone even more towards rock. Now it has been about four months since that gig. We have finally found a second guitarist for the band, Harry. It was just like last piece was put in. He had played for 10 years together with Teo and Make and you must know what that means. They play great together. For me this is a relief as he really brings his touch to the sound and learns fast. He knows the things that are important in the songs. We have played gigs with this current lineup and all of them have been better than earlier ones. I guess nothing can stop us now! Rock on! We are kickin' ass more than ever! ... To be continued The stars: Aleksi, Sami, Hisu, Jarno, Tea, Seppo, Henri, Jape, Markus, Teo, Harri

Group Members Aleksi Ahokas - Vocals, songs. Sami Koikkalainen - Guitars. Tea Dickman - Keyboards.

Instruments V,B,G,G,D,K

Albums 5 releases from 1997 - 2001 with the name Prophet and 2 CD:s.

Press Reviews The Reviews of all releases have been about 8/10. You can check 'em out from our site.

Additional Info + Some compilations and a lisence

Location Helsinki, Pääkaupunkiseutu - Finland

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