Lordi

Mr Lordi (Tomi Putaansuu)– Lead Vocals, Programming
Amen (Jussi Sydanmaa) – Guitars, Backing Vocals
Ox (Samer el Nahaal)– Bass
Awa (Leena Peisa)– Keyboard
Kita (Sampsa Astala)– Drums, Backing Vocals

After scoring the highest votes to date (292), on the Eurovision Song Contest, Lordi have shot to fame, or rather infamy after they took out the prize for best song at the 2006 contest with their glam metal masterpiece ‘Hard Rock Hallelujah’.
Best known for their massively praised monster costumes akin to that of American band GWAR, Lordi have now bridged the continent gap between their native Finland and the rest of the world, as since winning Eurovision their back catalogue has been hot property.

Back in 1990 Putaansuu left his first band due to the rest of the band’s distaste for KISS style glam, and theatrical elements that he wanted to add to their performance. In 1991 Putaansuu would begin recording demo’s under the moniker of Lordi, it wasn’t until 1996 when the would-be frontman met the rest of his band mates at a KISS concert in Stockholm.

The band created stage names for themselves and set about creating their infamous foam latex costumes, all the while bringing to life the metal monster that would shortly become Lordi. After many labels turned them down stating that they should be playing death metal due to their masks, BMG finally succumbed to their feel good anti-satanic metal hymns, and in 2002 ‘Get Heavy’ was released. It sold over 40,000 copies in Finland alone.

Over the next three years Lordi would lose two bass players, Magnum whom played with the band from 1996-2002 and Kalma who left in 2005. Their keyboard player would also leave in 2005 to be replaced by Awa (Leena Peisa) who is now engaged to Putaansuu. During these years of band-mate upheaval Lordi would release two more albums namely ‘The Monsterican Dream’ (2004) and the now sought after ‘The Arockalypse’ (2006) which spawned the top 50 ‘Hard Rock Hallelujah’ single.

During their entry into the Eurovision Song Contest, religious groups claimed that their ‘satanic messages’ were not suitable for the worldwide televised event. Greek activists attempted to take legal action against the group and issued a public plea to the people of Finland and Greece to not let Lordi compete, branding the band as Satanists. Frontman Lordi slammed these allegations claiming their music to be against Satanism and strongly denied any satanic influences, with the proof being in the punch as tracks like ‘Devil Is A Loser’ and ‘Hard Rock Hallelujah’ clearly relinquishing any Devilish ties.
Greece in turn would go on to award Lordi 12 votes in the Eurovision contest, the highest possible for a country to award.

Discography –

Get Heavy – SonyBMG (2002)
The Monsterican Dream – SonyBMG (2004)
The Monster Show (Mix album consisting of tracks from Get Heavy and The Monsterican Dream for the UK market) – SonyBMG (2005)
The Arockalypse – SonyBMG (2005)