BEFORE THE DAWN

The band was founded in 1999 by Tuomas Saukkonen as his solo project: "I made the first demo "To Desire Part 1" all by myself and for the second one I had a friend of mine playing the drums. The first line-up was gathered so that BTD could perform live. With many changes in the line up BTD entered the studio to record the MCD called "Gehenna". I received couple of deal offers but nothing serious enough. BTD continued playing gigs and I kept on writing lots of new material, and the next MCD called "My Darkness" got very good feedback and a serious enough record deal was offered by Locomotive Music."[1]
Joined by Panu Willman, Mike Ojala, and Kimmo Nurmi, the newly formed lineup released their first full length album, "My Darkness", in 2003. It was followed up by a second album in 2004, "4:17 am". The band supported Katatonia on a Scandinavian and European tour in 2003 as well.[2]
In 2005, Saukkonen announced a new lineup for the band, removing all the members currently in and replacing them with his so-called "Live Assault Team": the Norwegian Lars Eikind (e. g. WINDS, AGE OF SILENCE, KHOLD), clean vocals & bass, GLORIA MORTI'S guitarist Juho Räihä, keyboarder Joel Mäkinen and drummer Aatu Mukka. The reason - Saukkonen felt that the previous band members were badly motivated and not professional enough.[3][4]
"The Ghost" CD released in 2006,[5] however, rather turned out to be another solo project for Tuomas (details below).
With Lars and Juho as new permanent band members, the band released the next full length album "Deadlight" in 2007[6] (details below). The single "Deadsong", released in February 2007, immediately reached # 2 of Finnish Top 20 charts;[7] for four months it remained among the Top 20 of Finnish Radio Rock. The single "Faithless" featuring Jone Nikula on the PANTERA cover version "Mouth For War", reached Number Two on the Finland top 20 charts for the week of July 15, 2007.[8][9]
During the recording sessions for the fifth studio album "Soundscape of Silence", drummer Dani Miettinen dropped out; the band decided to leave the position vacant and work with session drummers for live shows (e.g. Matti Auerkallio). Right after its release end of October 2008, "Soundscape of Silence" went to the top 20 of Finnish album charts (# 14)[10] (details about the CD below). The core band members were later joined by drummer Atte Palokangas (from the band Agonizer). Atte became official new band member in summer 2009, and Before The Dawn could support Amorphis on their Forging Europe Tour in autumn 2009 with a completed line-up.[11]
The anniversary EP EP "Decade of Darkness" went straight to nro 1 of Finnish Single charts after its release in spring 2010.[12] The music video for "End of Days" from this EP was released throughout Europe and in Japan, it shows footage from the band's 2010 shows in Asia. The European edition of this EP, released in February 2011, contains a bonus-DVD with footage of the band's concert at German Summerbreeze Festival 2009.
In February 2011, Tuomas Saukkonen won Finnish Metal Award in the category "best instrumentalist"; Before The Dawn reached #3 in the category "Best Band".[13]
The new album Deathstar Rising cracked the Finnish Album Top 10 and reached #8 in first week of March 2011 (details below).[14]
In June 2011 bassist and vocalist Lars and drummer Atte left the band, Lars for personal reasons and Atte for musical reasons.[15]

Studio albums

My Darkness         2003 Locomotive Music
4:17 am         2004 Locomotive Music
The Ghost                 2006 Locomotive Music
Deadlight                 2007 Stay Heavy Records
Soundscape of Silence 2008 Stay Heavy Records
Deathstar Rising         2011 Nuclear Blast Records