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Thus whispers the Originator from the dawn of men:
It all began early in the beginning of 2007. My first so-called band had never
worked out because no one knew anything about music or about their own
instruments, and of course because I was the only driven one. Failing to
recruit any of my acquaintances to realize my visions I decided to do
it by myself.
My old friend Mikko Karppelin contributed to the songmaking and another friend lent me his bass. I played all guitars and basses, sang and had computer drums. The result was the self-titled "first" "demo" of Cause of Death. (Contrary to claims that the name's origins are related to the seminal Obituary record, the name of the band actually comes from various crime scene TV series, like CSI and NCIS, where in one scene the coroner always determines the cause of death.) The record consisted of the songs A Death Worth Dying, Dark Tomorrow and dreamIn, which is actually the second song I ever composed.
Since I had no bandmates and the first recording had quenched my creative impulses for a while, there were no new material or anything at all for a while. I had almost given up on making Cause of Death into a proper band, but everything changed in the summer of 2007. During a summer excursion to London I got to know a fellow physicist named Emil. Exchanging a few mumbled words in the night set the ground for things to come. After school started again, I happened to run into Emil at school. We went to Heavy Corner, a metal bar in Helsinki, and found out we were both guitarists. Then and there we decided to form a band together and Cause of Death was reborn.
I got Mikko to sign up for a while and Niko Mäkelä of Sophia's Eye took the first drummer spot, but neither of them would become permanent members. A friend of mine dragged me to a party at KY, a club at Helsinki center, and there I met the third and final member of the original CoD core, Outi. Having boasted to be able to growl, I challenged her to do Arch Enemy's Ravenous, and she did. Needless to say she was hired on the spot. The line-up complete, we tried to begin rehearsing but the time and place were issues. Soon Niko left and was replaced shortly with Leo Lepistö. Near the end of 2007 we had our first rehearsals at the Otaniemi-situated PELMU rehearsal place, which soon became the home of CoD.
I wrote The End, Compassion and brutalIty on my own in quick succession and Emil contributedwith Foregiveness and the c-part of Compassion. Along with A Death Worth Dying, the only original song to be salvaged, the material for our first proper demo was complete, and in the beginning of 2008 we were ready for the studio for the first time. The drums were recorded by Keisari Rankkuri of the infamous punk/metal band Rankkuri. He also mixed and mastered what would become Blunt Force Trauma. During this time we lost Mikko to other interests and I played some of the bass tracks for BFT.
Soon after the recordings, Leo left and the almost two-year-long struggle to
find a permanent drummer started. CoD was reduced to a trio, but we continued
practicing with computer drums and writing new material. The next leap in our
evolution came when Otto, a friend of the band, was finally talked into taking
up the duty of bassist, and so the core trio became a quartet.
- Markus
Thus speaks the nightwind from the year 2008 until now:
I joined the band during fall 2008, not too long before the very first
Cause of Death gig. The gig was at a Metal Club Mökä event in October with
Frozen Semen, and the lineup was Outi, Emil, Markus, me and Napoleon Rankkuri
filling on the drums. After the show Napoleon Rankkuri decided not to go on
with this band any further so the band lacked a drummer once again. In came
Yo-Yo, to fill in during his student exchange in Finland. Towards the end of
2008 we practiced with Yo-Yo and eventually released Blunt Force Trauma on New
Year's Eve.
At that time we were actually quite far with our second, at that point untitled demo. We had two songs, Not For Me and The Scorpion ready, both of which we actually played on our gig at Heavy Corner in January with Helsinki thrashers Bloodride. In only a few weeks it turned out that Yo-Yo had to head back to France sooner than expected, which would again leave this band without a permanent drummer. By the time Yo-Yo left we had almost all the songs ready for our second demo.
During the spring and summer we searched heavily for ways to put out this second demo. We wanted to do this with a real drummer, not a machine. After trying out different solutions we found that Anssi from ArchiTorture would be our session drummer. Through decent time of rehearsing and scheduling we came across the fact that we would record our next demo with Anssi's bandmate Tommi during October. Having gained some studio experience, the recordings went pretty easily.
We also played one show with Anssi on drums, at the notorious KKK held in Rekolan Kino, Vantaa with ArchiTorture, Freedomination and Batham. This was indeed an underground metal event to remember, although some memories aren't that clear.
The long search for a permanent drummer finally ended in December, when Tapio completed the lineup.
Cause of Death is now looking for gigs, writing more killer songs and of
course keeping up a status quo by rehearsing regularly.
- Otto