Status Minor

History

Status Minor is a competent, ambitious progressive metal band from Tampere, Finland. The band strives to create musically challenging and lyrically interesting music which does not lose its edge due to excessive expression of technical virtuosity.

Status Minor begun taking shape in the beginning of year 2003 as guitarist Sami Saarinen and drummer Timo Hanhijoki started jamming together. As spring turned to summer, the group was contacted by basist Marko Kolehmainen and keyboard player Jukka Karinen and the band was almost ready to go. Having no singer was a big obstacle to be overcome, practically preventing the band from performing live yet. In spring 2005 Timo Hanhijoki decided to move on and left Status Minor. At last, summer 2005 Status Minor found drummer Perttu Helin and singer Markku Kuikka and things really started to look and sound good.

In late April 2006, Status Minor had their first demo out ('1/2006') and has been performing live somewhat frequently. Media mainly outside of Finland noticed the emerging new group and the reviews were very good. After cooling down a bit after the first "real" demo, the band hit the studio again in August.

After several delays in production, Status Minor's new promo cd, 'The Sun', was ready to be released in April 2007. On their second demo, the band has taken more than a few steps forward and the momentum is constantly increasing. This time finnish media begun recognizing the band as well while reviews from other countries got even more numerous.

Autumn 2007 saw the release of Status Minor's first music video, 'Blinded'. The song itself was recorded and mixed at Sonic Pump Studios and E-Major by Tero Kinnunen who also. Blinded showcases a more simplistic side of Status Minor songwriting which is something normally unseen from a prog metal act.

Right after 'Blinded' was out, Status Minor's drummer and a very good friend, Perttu Helin executed the already known decission of leaving the band for personal life endeavours. The new drummer was found fast: young drum-prodigy Rolf Pilve, already known from Essence Of Sorrow and Sightless, took the job. When the end of year 2007 came, bass player Marko Kolehmainen decided to concentrate completely on Masterstroke and thus, after a short while, Eero Pakkanen joined the band as their new bass player.

In September 2009, the band's debut full length album 'Dialog' was released by Lion Music.

(source: Status Minor, March 2009, last chapter added by AM)