Poets of The Fall is a Finnish rock band from Helsinki, Finland. The group consists of Marko
Saaresto, Olli Tukiainen and Markus "Captain" Kaarlonen. On tour the band is supported by
Jani Snellman, Jaska Mäkinen and Jari Salminen. The band has sold 99,198 albums in Finland.
History Early years
The band was founded in 2003 by Saaresto and Tukiainen. Tukianen had written multiple songs
for Saaresto's previous band Playground and performed with Finnish jazzband Pohjoinen
Syke previously. In 2003, Saaresto's friend Sami Järvi, a
script-writer working at Remedy Entertainment handed Saaresto a poem he had written, asking
him to turn it into a song to use in Remedy's video game Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne.
The song, entitled Late Goodbye, was used as the ending-theme of the game as well as
a recurring motif, being sung and whistled by multiple characters. It was produced by
Markus "Captain" Kaarlonen, who joined the band shortly after due to Saaresto and Tukiainen
liking his work. Kaarlonen being a former employee of benchmark-developer
Futuremark, POTF were offered to have their song Lift included in the 2005-literation
of Futuremark's benchmarking software 3DMark, which exposed the band to a wider audience
than Max Payne 2 had done. In order to keep complete control and freedom
over the band, the members founded their own independent record label, Insomniac, on which
they have released all their CDs as of 2014. On 30 June 2004, the Poets released their
debut single Late Goodbye in Finland which was followed by Lift on 9 September 2004.
The songs charted No. 14 and No. 8 on the Finnish single charts and reached No. 2 and
No. 7 in YleX's 2004-voting for "Best Finnish song". POTF were also voted "Fresh Newcomer
of 2004" by YleX. The videos for both songs were directed by Tuomas "Stobe" Harju. POTF
performed at Popkomm 2005 in Berlin. On 18 December 2004, the Poets released a
free download single on their website Maybe Tomorrow is a Better Day to market the release
of their debut album Signs of Life. After having been taken offline, it was remastered
and reissued on the band's second album Carnival of Rust.
Signs of Life The band's debut album Signs of Life was released
in Finland on 19 January 2005, followed by iTunes on 25 May 2005. It entered the Finnish
Top 40 album chart at number one and has been certified platinum by the Finnish IFPI. The
album was awarded the Emma Award for the "Best Debut Album of the Year 2005" and the band
received the "Best Newcomer of the Year"-Award. Accompanying the album, the band released
a video for the song Lift, directed by Tuomas "Stobe" Harju, and used the songs Stay and
Illusion and Dream as promotional radio singles. The album contains a password granting access
to a secret page on poetsofthefall.com that hosts a remix of the song "Lift", entitled
"Dramadance Remix" as well as wallpapers made from the "Lift" video and the album artwork.
The title Signs of Life is a reference to the Pink Floyd-instrumental of the same name
released in 1987. Carnival of Rust
Having won the "Best Finnish Breakthrough"-Award at the NRJ Radio Awards, POTF released their
third single, entitled "Carnival of Rust" in Finland on 22 March 2006 with a release
in Germany following on 1 December 2006. The single, which entered the Finnish charts at
No. 2, features a radio- and an album-edit as well as a live-recording of Don't Mess
With Me, the fourth track on Signs of Life, from the band's performance at Rockperry Festival,
Vaasa, Finland on 15 July 2005. On 30 March 2006, the band released the video
to Carnival of Rust which shows a gas-masked woman visiting an old carnival, and also references
every song from the band's second album of the same name, became hugely popular in Finland,
winning two Muuvi Awards as well as the YLE Audience Choice Award as "Best Finnish Music
Video of All Time". It was also voted "Best Music Video 2006" by The Voice. In 2009, the
video was remastered by Elmeri Raitanen as his bachelor-thesis in visual and media arts
at Lahti Institute of Design and reissued in high definition.
The Poets' second album Carnival of Rust was released in Finland on 12 April 2006 and has
since been released in Sweden, Australia, Ukraine, Russia, Germany and on iTunes. It
includes 11 new songs, a remastered version of Maybe Tomorrow is a Better Day, as well
as the music video to the title track. The cover, which sees the return of the lollipop
from the first album, was designed by Tuomas Harju.
Carnival of Rust also went straight to No. 1 on the Finnish charts. It has been certified
platinum. It was selected as one of the best albums 2006 by Finland's largest newspaper,
Helsingin Sanomat, and was nominated for "Best Finnish Album" at the NRJ Radio Awards as
well as "Best Rock Album" at the Emma Awards in 2007.
Revolution Roulette In 2008, POTF redesigned their moth-logo and
also changed the font used to display their band name. They also participated in the Voice's
CD compilation Livenä Vieraissa, with a cover version of Chris Cornell's song "You Know
My Name", and their own song "Diamonds for Tears". In the same year, POTF signed Phoenix
Effect, the band of former Sunrise Avenue-guitarist Janne Kärkkäinen to their Insomniac-label
and produced their debut album Cyanide Skies with Saaresto / Tukiainen performing additional
vocals / guitar work. The album was released on 18 February 2009 in Finland and entered
the Finnish album charts at No. 22. POTF also make a cameo-appearance in the video
to Phoenix Effect's song "King See No Evil". Poets of the Fall released their next single
called The Ultimate Fling in Finland on 6 February 2008. The single features three variations
of the title track as well as a live recording of Fire, the opening track of the band's second
album Carnival of Rust which was recorded during the Poets' performance at Ankkarock
Festival 2007 on 5 August. The single charted at No. 2 in the Finnish singles charts. Months
after the release of the single, the band published the accompanying video which consists
of fan-recorded footage of the band performing at various gigs.
The third POTF-album, entitled Revolution Roulette, was released in Finland and on iTunes
on 26 March 2008. Its cover was designed by Tuomas Harju and features a giant padlock
with a built-in roulette, abandoning the lolipop used on the previous album-covers. The record
marks the first POTF-album not produced in Markus Kaarlonen's living-room, but the band's
own professional studio. It went straight to the top of the Finnish charts and was certified
gold two weeks after being released. The band also released the title track of the album
as a promotional radio-single. Revolution Roulette is currently the only POTF album
that has not been released physically outside Finland. While on tour with the album, the
band played their first gig in the United States at Musexpo 2008 in Los Angeles on 29
April 2008. On 18 September 2009, the band released a
"Best of"-compilation in India. Twilight Theater
In mid-2009, after finishing the Revolution Roulette-tour, the band announced they would
be heading into the studio to record their fourth album whose genre they described as
"cinematic rock". On 9 December 2009, the band announced that a song entitled "War"
from their fourth studio album would be featured in Alan Wake, a psychological thriller video
game developed by Remedy Entertainment. Along with "War", Alan Wake also features two new
songs, "Children of the Elder God" and "The Poet and The Muse", which were written specifically
for the game, and are performed by Poets of the Fall as the in-game band Old Gods of Asgard.
In June, the band released a video for "War" which reenacts scenes from the game in live-action.
It features Finnish actor Ilkka Villi as the game's protagonist of the same name and the
band, except Saaresto. The band portrays in the video some of Alan Wake's in-game antagonists,
lumberjacks possessed by an evil force named "the Dark Presence". The antagonists are collectively
called "the Taken". On 18 January, the band announced that their
fourth album entitled Twilight Theater would be released on 17 March in Finland and that
the first single from the album would be Dreaming Wide Awake which debuted on Radio NRJ Suomi
on 21 January and was released on 3 February as a limited-edition single. It reached No. 18
on the Finnish single-charts. Twilight Theater was released in Finland and
on iTunes on 17 March, followed by Germany, Austria and Switzerland on 29 October. It
went straight to the top of the Finnish album charts and was certified gold a week after
release. Alchemy Vol.1
The band released a double-vinyl edition of their debut album Signs of Life on 19 January
2011, exactly six years after its original release. A CD&DVD-compilation entitled Alchemy
Vol.1 was released on 16 March 2011. It contains the band's whole videography as well as the
favourite songs of the band-members and also features two new songs, "No End, No Beginning"
and "Can You Hear Me". The latter was released digitally on 2 February 2011 and is featured
in the remake of Remedy Entertainment's video game Death Rally. The video to the song was
directed by Mikko Harma and premiered on The Voice on 18 March 2011.
Temple of Thought A fifth studio album Temple of Thought was
released on 21 March 2012 to conform to the release-cycle of two years set by the previous
albums. Its name and album cover was revealed on band's official Facebook page on 25 January
2012. Temple of Thought debuted at #3 on the Finnish charts.
The first single of the new album Cradled in Love was released for Finnish radio airplay
on 24 January 2012. On 26 January it was released for digital download on band's official digistore.
The band released the music video for the song "Cradled in Love" on 3 March 2012. "The
Happy Song", an original song written for Alan Wake's American Nightmare, also appeared
on the album. A 45 second snippet of the German radio edit of "Kamikaze Love" was uploaded
by remote music on 24 February 2012. The single was released in Germany on 13 April 2012.
A special edition of album was released in Germany and internationally on 20 July 2012.
It includes three bonus titles. Temple of Thought-Tour included locations in Finland,
Russia, Germany, Romania and India. In March 2013 the band announced that they
film their show in Moscow on 23 March, during 10th Anniversary Tour. They launched a campaign
collabrating with PledgeMusic. In April they produced a track called Yö for Finnish singer-songwriter
Ima. On 13 September 2013 the band released their first live performance DVD titled Live
in Moscow. Jealous Gods
On 19 December 2013 the band announced they began working on their upcoming sixth studio
album. On 26 May they announced that they'll have short break from making their new album
by going on tour. Currently as they announced they are on Studio Breakout Minitour, including
Finland and Russia. On 8 July 2014 the band announced that their sixth studio album Jealous
Gods was released on 19 September on iTunes, Spotify along with other digital music retailers,
streaming services and selected record stores. The album's first single Daze was released
on 22 August on their official website along with its music video. Plus, before the release
of album as a special countdown to new single and video, each Friday, starting from 11 July
with Signs of Life, they released each their albums on Spotify chronologically. On October
they will tour Finland and Germany on Jealous Gods Tour.
Discography Studio albums
DVDs Singles
"*" = refers only to the song, not b-sides etc. featured on the single
B-sides Compilation albums
Cover songs Videography
Tours Awards
In other media References
External links Media related to Poets of the Fall at Wikimedia
Commons Official website
Official YouTube channel