How It All Began

It  was around 2006-2007 when I got into death metal. I started getting albums of legendary bands such as Death and Morbid Angel but I also found myself searching for smaller new bands from websites such as MySpace. There seemed to be lots of interesting bands out there as I really didn't like the way death metal sounded today, I was liking the "old sound" more.

One band in particular was embracing the old school death metal in a way that really got my attention. The band was Stench of Decay (http://www.myspace.com/stenchofdecay). When it comes to original death metal, in addition to music, I really enjoyed the artwork of the genre. What I like about it that it is raw, unpolished and full of passion - just like the music itself. I really don't like the digital art that seems to be the norm nowadays, it kills the personal touch, your own style don't show through. Of course there are exceptions but all in all, I prefer analog over digital. That in mind, I wanted to try my skills creating something new for the genre and I chose black ink to be my tool of the trade. I had been experimenting with it before but I relly wanted to make more with it - and death metal illustrations seemed to be the way to go.

I figured out that in order to make good art, you have to have passion for it - you have to like what you are doing. So it seemed logical to contact Rami Simelius from Stench of Decay as I really enjoyed their music. I wanted to make new logo, artwork or anything for them. I got green light and I sent like a million different ideas for the logo. They we'rent all that great and many were imitating logo's of existing bands. But it got me started, it got me hooked. New Stench demo wasn't to be finished in a while so before I got to show my skills to Stench of Decay, I got some practise making posters for shows that were taking place in Pori.

Abigail in Finland (2007). Idea I got from the famous kamikaze photo. Note the Stench logo in its early stages.

The band scene was quite active back then, Metal Warning in cooperation with Stench of Decay and others got many great metal bands to play here. Next in the pipeline was Nunslaughter.

Nunslaughter was great. I wanted all my posters to be signed by the band. Black version of the Stench logo.

There were many shows that I didn't make posters for, for example Toxic Holocaust. But through Rami, I got to make quite a few. For example one for the great Czech band Root.

This art is just a remake of a photo, so nothing special in that way. Again, signed by the Big Boss himself and the band.

After that, the work for Stench of Decay really started. But thats a story for another time.

- Eero