Biography
THE HISTORY OF TWELVE INCHES: Twelve Inches, formerly known as Psycho Bitch, was born about six years ago. Everything started when during one hell of a kind of parties (like we always do...) someone started to talk about possibilities to start a new band.
The guys who were present were Marko, Juha and Pete. After some more discussion we decided to give a call for Vesa (it was 2.20 AM..) and band was formed. We had a band together with Vesa in a couple of years back called Incomplete. Also Juha and I used to play together in a band called G.P.M (Great Pimp Mountains) in the beginning of the 90’s.
Pete and Juha also played together in the mid 90’s in a punk oriented band called Teboil. After a couple of weeks we carried our stuff into training place and we started to think what kind of stuff our stuff is going to be? We played mostly cover songs from KISS, AC/DC, Loudness, and Skid Row in the beginning. It’s good that only a handful of “outsiders” were able to hear those versions …. Our first own songs came out after a couple of months.
“Hangover Heroes” and “Teenage Queen” were some of the titles. We played our first gig in Ravintola Satumaa back in 1998. After that gig we played out several dates with bands like: Tehosekoitin and Nightwish. Back then set list included mostly cover songs and 3-5 by our own.
1999 we took part for the band competition in Salo. We lost the number one place but we were second. After a brief discussion with competition judges we decided that it’s time to change our name Psycho Bitch for another name. Then came name Twelve Inches. Some other suggestions were: Quick Wrist and Seven Up.
In the spring of year 2000 we headed first time in the studio to record our debut CD. We decided to choose, mainly because of the price.., studio called Underground which was located in Espoo. After one but LONG weekend we were ready with 6 completed songs. “Teenage Vaseline” EP came out and it received some good reviews from the press:
SOUNDI MAGAZINE/TWELVE INCHES "Teenage Vaseline" mcd '00 "Kaverit soittavaa melodista hardrockia, jossa on pieni ripaus glamia. Saatteessa mainituista bändeistä ennemminkin tulee mieleen Kiss kuin AC/DC. Sävellyksissä on vahvat melodiat ja niiden ympärille on löydetty sopiva kuorrutus. Biisit hyvin tasavahvoja. Tiukemmat jyrät, kuten vaikkapa Teenage Queen toki kulkevat räyhäkämmin, mutta muukin materiaali toimii. Soitto pelaa ja asenne on kohdallaan. Joten kyllä näillekin voi demosedän merkin jakaa."
Another review: AORTTA MAGAZINE/"TWELVE INCHES: "Teenage Vaseline" mcd '00 (6.9.00) Twelve Inches'in (ennen Psycho Bitch) nelihenkinen kokoonpano ponnistaa pääkaupunkiseudulta viiden biisin omakustanneminillään. Vakuuttavaa rockia asenteella ja haetulla imgolla. Vai mitäpä sanotte levyn nimestä "Teenage Vaseline", kansista, joita koristaa (teenage-) vaseliinipurkki, vihjailevasta bändinimestä ja sanoituksista, jotka kiertelevät aiheita "Hangover Heroes":sta ja "Teenage Queen":sta ja kehottavat "Oh baby please get on your knees"? Kaikkiaan sanoituksissa on jotain samaa kuin Bloodhound Gangilla, mikä ei kyllä välttämättä ole haettua.
Biisit liikuskelevat jossain AC/DC:n maisemissa, vaikka muitakin vertailukohtia löytyy. Itselläni tuli mieleen ainakin Aerosmith ja sainpa hahmoteltua "Hangover Heroes":n alusta jotain kytköksiä Sentencediinkin ja kaiken kaikkiaankin kitaroissa esiintyy paikoin metalmaista raskasta otetta. Juha Ruohonen, mies mikrofonin ääressä, joitaa hommansa hyvin pystyen venyttämään ääntänsä ja kuulostaen hyvältä.
Samoin taustalaulut natsaavat hyvin. Metallisteille (niihin kai suurin osa lukioistani lukeutuu) tätä ei suoralta kädeltä voine suositella, mutta rock'n'rolla roiskinnan ystäville kyllä. Yhteyttä saa otettua vaikkapa e-maililla: twelveinches12@hotmail.com . AH"
Year 2001 included our biggest tour so far. We toured around South of Finland with another bands with us. Some of them were: Junction, SO, The Raaste, Seven Down and Viides Vaihde. In the same year we also started our working ship with EMP (Earlypace Music Production) and we are still doing new stuff under their control. Another year 2002 and more gigs. We played our first gigs in Helsinki which was a big thing. There was only 1-2 cover songs left on the set list anymore... ... and this year is 2003. When I’m writing this we are just finishing our new CD which should come out soon...
At 2004 we released our second album "12" and we did a lot of touring across the country. Well finally at March 2006 this page has something new and here's briefly what's been up lately. We have been touring a lot lately and there is lots of more coming in near future. We also announce our first ever line-up change when Vesa decided to quit on February, we now have "a new" drummer Tuukka who has played with us before at spring 2005.
New line-up finished recordings of third Twelve Inches -album "Rock'n Roll Show" which was released in November in 2006. On last spring we took part of Emergenza (www.emergenza.net) band competition and it went pretty well.. we took the second place which wasn't bad at all when you remember that originally it was more than 100 bands in that competition.
During the summer we have working on some new songs and we have done a few gigs every then and now. On this fall we will start working with U.S producer Rickey Lee Saul... Let's see what will happen then ? The story continues..
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