Mind-A-Stray Bio

MIND-A-STRAY is a prominent metal band from the nordic scandinavian country of Finland. MIND-A-STRAY has surfaced to the metal scene with powerful songs, following-no-trends attitude and performances fueled with passion and fury in both live and studio situations. The Helsinki based quintet plays heavy metal with original sound, mixing infectious melodies and crunching riffs while honouring the influences from the past.

Story of the band began in year 2000. Principle songwriter, vocalist and rhythm guitarist Tommy Dee formed the band from the scratch after moving to Helsinki from the small town of Savonlinna. The band comprised of the front-man Tommy, the bassist Jukka, the solo guitarist Rizzto and the drummer Tony. The band was known as Holochaust back then and the guys started jamming and practicing hard resulting as a debut gig in Nummirock metal festival after just 2 months together in summer 2000.

The band decided on a name change in 2002 after experiencing a lot of unnecessary feedback on nazi associations etc. And besides, the name did not describe the band's style so well.. So they took the name Darcane, which also proved to be a false choice, because of their westernly cousins in Sweden..

Year 2004 was a time of turmoil for the band and they went through lots of line-up changes. As result thou the two original members of the band, Tommy and Jukka, grew to form a firm backbone of the band. They started to seek for new members with their aspiration to join the group.

Finally after few months of uncertainty they found young, prominent solo guitarist Jere Lappalainen to join them. Moreover the front-man Tommy Dee felt like the band needed some extra talent on vocals so they recruited Jukka's acquaintance Sami Ilvonen who has lots of experience in singing, both in classical and rock style. His versatile and strong singing style really fit the band like a glove. Also there had come the time to change the drummer and quite soon they found a talented guy named Tommi Lehtosaari who was up to face the challenging musical requirements of the band.

Finally in february 2005 the band settled with a new ethereal name MIND-A-STRAY which symbolizes the new relaxed style and the new determination of the band, which hopefully will carry on for years to come.

The band have recorded five promo CD's to date which have created much interest towards the band around the world along with many excellent reviews in metal scene press. They also achieved media attention while attending the finals of the Finnish Rock Championship competition in 2002, including national TV and radio appearences.