STRATOVARIUS: First Photos With New Guitarist Released

As BLABBERMOUTH.NET first reported yesterday, remaining STRATOVARIUS members Timo Kotipelto (vocals), Jens Johansson (keyboards), Lauri Porra (bass) and Jörg Michael (drums) have officially recruited Finnish guitarist Matias Kupiainen to replace the group's founding member and main songwriter Timo Tolkki. The news of Kupiainen's addition to the band was broken exclusively by Petri Silas of Finland's Soundi magazine, who spoke to both Kotipelto and Kupiainen for the publication's August 2008 issue (available on newsstands as of August 20).

Writing on the band's official web site, Jens Johansson said, "Earlier this summer, Timo K, Jens and Lauri got together with a guitar player in a forest cottage in west Finland and wrote and arranged some songs. It went extremely well, and we are very happy with the material, the direction, and the general vibe in the band.

"We now have over 15 songs written and demoed already, but probably not all of these will make it to the actual album.

"We are happy to confirm that our new guitar player is Matias Kupiainen. He was the only guy we even considered seriously. This interesting fellow was born May 11th, 1983 and is a native of Helsinki, Finland.

"Next week, Jörg and Jens will come to Finland as we have booked three weeks of rehearsals and recordings in another cottage. We will then work more intensely on the songs in a real band rehearsal type of situation."

Matias Kupiainen is far left in both photos below.