Official Celesty Web -www.celesty.net-

July 13, 2008

Greetings, fans, friends and everyone... It has been a very busy year so far. We have composed and recorded demos of over 20 songs. We signed a new record deal – and this time with Finnish label Spinefarm Records. We have selected 11 of our best new songs for the forthcoming album and now we can finally start recording Celesty’s 4th CD.

So here it starts. First I head to our rehearsal site and start loading my drums into the car. Teemu and Juha were also there and we started the "operation tetris" attempting to fit all the drums in the car. We eventually succeeded in this mission and were on our way with Teemu to the Fantom Studio near Tampere. We had to drive about 170 km to get there.

The trip went well and we got to the studio. Samu Oittinen who records our album is already there and before we start carrying the drums inside, Samu shows us his new studio which is fantastic. After the "introductions" and "small talk" Samu leaves us because we have to start early tomorrow morning. We carry the drums inside the studio and I start to stack my drums together. Teemu cooked some food for us during the time I was working with the drums.

Ok, Drums are ready and tomorrow a great drummer called Antti Mäkinen comes to tune my drums for the recordings. So, now off to sleep. See you tomorrow.

Jere "Skeletor"

July 14, 2008

Our day starts at 9:30 AM when Samu’s trainee Jussi "Leksa" Lehtivuori comes to wake us up. Jussi will be behind the mixing table during the whole recording session. During our breakfast Antti arrives at the studio and after some coffee and smoking we start tuning the drums.

Ok, no problems with the tuning process, drums sound good and Samu begun to arrange the microphones all over my drum set. When Samu has finished the microphone setup we begin to search for good sounds and Samu records some samples of drumming that would be perfect for recording.

Tapani arrives at the studio to check that everything is going well. We have some coffee and then I am ready to start working. I’ts about 21:00...

I start with the first song of the album, "Euphoric Dream", the tempo is 182 bpm. In the beginning there are some problems with my playing but when I warm up everything is great. I finish the song and then we start recording track #2, "Greediness", which is quite difficult track. Tempo is 190 bpm and there are some new things we have done to the c-part with Teemu. Those parts turn out to be "traps" but I manage to finish the song. Then Jussi proposed we’d continue again tomorrow because it’s already midnight and we find it a good idea, so off to bed we go.

Jere "Skeletor"

July 15, 2008

Jussi arrives at the studio about 12:00 and after breakfast we start working right away. I start with the song "Like Warriors" which is again a fast song with 180 bpm tempo. The whole song is almost full of double bass drumming and with this tempo one really needs good physical condition. After lots of water and sweating I manage to finish the song. Next song will be "Feared by Dawn" which is again a fast song, tempo 185 bpm, and there are also a few very difficult sections. I almost lost my nerves playing this but finally I manage to complete it :) After this song we took a little break and got some lunch.

Ok, back to work. Next song I decided to play is a slower one called "Lord" which is our "Manowar song" and one of my favourite songs. There aren’t any more problems so we check everything is recording ok and then decide to continue with our work tomorrow. We continue working a bit with the songs we’re going to record tomorrow because there are some parts which need rethinking before recording the drums for these songs.

Jere "Skeletor"

July 16, 2008

About 12 o’clock my phone rings and Jussi tells he has overslept and is going to arrive a little late, but it doesn’t matter because we both overslept quite badly and we need some time to "wake up". I get up because I need to tape my fingers a little because there are few very bad-looking blisters on my hands, argh! Soon Jussi arrives at the studio and we have some breakfast and extreme amounts of coffee. Then, time for drumming, another day begins.

Today I start with "New Sin", which is my favourite song. The tempo of the song is "only" 170 bpm but there is a lot of double bass drumming plus the blisters disturb my playing. But I must suffer and go on, and somehow I manage to play the track :) and we continue to the next song which is our HIT SONG :) "Fading Away". This is the only song we have also played live before we entered the studio, so there aren’t any major problems playing it – or that’s what I hope :)

Ok, "Fading Away" recorded, then got some good food, a few cigarettes and lots of bull-shitting. We continue working with another HIT SONG :) "Autumn Leaves" which has some new things which I haven’t ever tried before, and we also dropped the tempo to 155 bpm because the vocal lines sound better – and as you know, we’re not a rap band heheh.

Everything seems to advance well and we move to the next song. This song is called "Dark Emotions", this is the only song which I haven’t played at all before, since we composed the song last night. I start playing the song but there are few things we still need to think before we can finish it. We also need to drop the tempo a little bit more so the guitar riffs would work better, so we decide to continue again tomorrow. I’m so tired so getting now quickly to sleep, see you again tomorrow…..

Jere "Skeletor"

July 17, 2008

Time to continue from where we left off yesterday, first some coffee and then back to work. I decide to start the day by playing drums for our final track (in the European version of the album), this song is called "Legacy of Hate pt. 3" which is our longest song ever, about 14 minutes. There are four parts in the song and four different tempos. The first part of the song is a ballad and there aren’t any drums, but all the other parts feature drums. So, I start playing from the second part and it is really quite fast. The third part is quite hard and I really need to concentrate on it. The third part also ends in a really fast fill so I needed to "wrestle" with it a little :)

Ok. Then the last part is completed and the song is ready. Teemu is sleeping during the last part... I think that the ending of the song is one of the best endings we have ever done and I get a very good feeling about my playing. I hope you will hear it from the album :) The song is ready and now it’s time for some kebab and then we move to the Japanese bonus track.

The lunch was nice and now I have the required energy to play again the Japanese bonus "Gates of Tomorrow". This is quite an unusual song for us, this time we’re going to do small bass and drum solo parts. So, this is going to be fun :) The tempo of the song is 170 bpm and there’s lots of double bass drumming… This is our "HELLOWEEN SONG!!!" hehehe….

Well, I got some really good things into this song and now it’s time for the final song which we started yesterday, "Dark Emotions", finally I know how to play it!!

So now everything is ready and it’s about midnight, we decide to stay the night at the studio because tomorrow we will listen to all the tracks and clear up any problems we might find…. We leave the problems there :) hahah NOW off to sleep!!!

Jere "Skeletor"

July 18, 2008

Jussi arrives at the studio AGAIN about 12:00 noon. We start listening to the tracks. After too much coffee, more than a few cigarettes and a lot of bullshitting we find the tracks good so we start loading the drums back into my car and prepare to drive HOME!!! We’ll continue next week with guitars!!! So BYE BYE!!!

Jere "Skeletor"