Biography
It all began in 1999. BLIND STARE was formed by Anders Öström, Heikki Raisio and Henry Valkonen. Soon after, Tuomas Kant joined the group to play the bass. Until spring 2001, the music style was instrumental metal. Then it was time to move ahead, towards a "real band" status, and so Eino Tuominen joined the band as a vocalist. The musical style evolved to more death-like metal. In fall 2001 Zacharias E. Aarnio joined the band to play the keyboards, and the music began to develop towards a somewhat more epic style.
Suddenly something happened with the motivation of some members. No rehearsals in months. It was a dead season in the band's history. Anders, Eino and Zacharias decided to put an end to that silence and the result was that Henry, Heikki and Tuomas had to go. It was a kick-start for BLIND STARE's new musical journey. Jaakko Lehtinen joined BLIND STARE and the band got a new rehearsal place in the newcomer's garage. The band was still in need of a drummer and a bass player. After a while, Timo Palokankare and Kalle Lahti joined the group to fill these positions.
In October 2002 BLIND STARE recorded a demo-CD "Ender". It was the first record made with this line-up. Although the sounds weren't that great, it was a significant milestone in the band's history. New, better songs just kept coming with some live performances on the side. The band had a hunger to record more, doeverything better. And so was the studio booked again.
August 2003. "Once a True Story" demo was recorded and published. With "OaTS" the band started to get some underground reputation, good reviews and also more gig offers. New songs were coming up, sounding more and more coherent and fresh. Between May and August 2004 the band recorded a new demo entitled "The Reborn Genius" (demo of the month in a well-known Finnish metal website Imperiumi.net)
In October 2004 BLIND STARE signed a contract with Arise Records, which led to the recordings of the debut album titled "Symphony of Delusions" at the Noisecamp/Musamuusa studios. BLIND STARE had created a fresh package of melodic death metal with orchestral and synthetic sound worlds. The CD illustrations were done by Jan Yrlund from Danse Macabre. "SoD" got many great reviews and sold quite nicely worldwide.
Again, BLIND STARE faced another quiet era in its history when Timo, Kalle, Jaakko and Zacharias had to go through their mandatory military service. The year was 2005 and except for few gigs in Turku, nothing happened. During this period the band was preparing new songs for the second album Arise Records was about to publish. But something happened at the end of 2005. Arise Records wasn't able to release any more new albums. So, the record contract had to be canceled which was a great disappointment to BLIND STARE. But like the old saying goes, "That which does not kill you makes you stronger". And BLIND STARE surely didn't die!
Eventually the band got the last guy, Jaakko, out of the Finnish defense forces. Shortly after that, a new two-song rehearsal tape was made and it was supposed to get only in the hands of gig bookers. In spite of that, it was also sent to some record companies that might be interested in BLIND STARE's musical style. The fans have continuously asked when the second album comes out.
In 2006 Zacharias called it a quit. BLIND STARE wasn't one of his top priorities anymore, and he decided not to continue further. However, this decision didn't affect the personal chemistries between him and the other band members. At the very moment, BLIND STARE is preparing a new, ground breaking promotional CD containing three songs, and looking for a new keyboard player.
Top of page
