Biography as of April 2001

Short summary is also available here

 

The Beginning (1995 - 1996)

The band was founded by Teemu "Hexenmeister" (as his pseudonym used to be at the time) as his solo-project in August 1995. The first demo "I Am the King" was recorded in March 1996 in a small eight-track studio. The demo featured four songs with Teemu playing everything himself. It was released by Eerie Productions in July 1996 and sold a few hundred copies. The label re-released the demo on CD ("The Eerie Sampler") together with three other demos in 1999.

The First Album "Wizzard" (1996)

The next move was to find a line-up and start doing gigs - something that had already been planned by Teemu and Demonos Sova (Barathrum). The notorious character Hellboozer was found to play guitar and a lad named Ville to play drums with Teemu himself handling vocals and bass. This line-up played three gigs and, excluding the drummer, recorded the self-titled debut album in October 1996 for the notorious German true underground label Nazgul's Eyrie Productions. Due to severe financial difficulties of the label the release of the album was postponed until December 1999, when Supernal Music took over the bankrupt Nazgul's Eyrie and finally got the disc released.

The First German Experience and the Second Album "Devilmusick" (1997 - 1998)

With Ville's successor, Wellu on drums the band played a few more shows until Teemu moved to Germany in April 1997. Over there NEP had organised a local line-up: Daniel on guitar and CY on drums. Both of the guys come from a band called Thargos. Three shows were played with such cult bands as Countess, Sabbat, Barathrum, and Mayhemic Truth.

In August 1997 Teemu returned to Finland. With Wilska "Torquemada" on guitar and J. Crow on drums the second album "Devilmusick" was recorded in October the same year. It was released by Spinefarm in February 1998. The limited edition of 1000 is more or less sold out, albeit some distributions and mailorders may still carry a few copies.

J. Crow was so busy with all his other projects that he could play in Wizzard only for one album. Tero (Darkwoods My Betrothed) was recruited to play drums on a 5-day Finnish tour that took place in December 1997. Teemu handed the bass over to Wilska and a new guitarist named JeeJee was introduced. The other bands involved on this tour were Babylon Whores, Barathrum, and Horna. The next live performances took place in April 1998 during the Easter Holocaust Finnish tour with Babylon Whores, Barathrum, and Unpure (SWE). Tero cancelled the tour five days before the take off, so the band was forced to find a replacement in a matter of hours. Luckily Samppa (ex-Nightwish) agreed to do the job.

Samppa was in the band only for this one tour. Using his contacts at Eerie Productions Teemu was able to find Pasi to take over the drums on a permanent basis. Teemu also decided to make the overall sound more powerful by grabbing the rhythm guitar and thus introducing the band for the first time with two guitars. This line-up stayed together from the summer 1998 until the summer 2000.

The Third Album "Songs of Sin and Decadence" (1998 - 2000)

In November 1998 the band began to record their third album "Songs of Sin and Decadence". Due to mutual dissatisfaction the contract with Spinefarm was cancelled leaving neither party with hard feelings. The band recorded half of the planned album in November in the famous Walltone Studio in Savonlinna, Finland and started to look for a new label. Surprisingly many labels showed interest, but in the end did not sign Wizzard due to their bad financial situations. Near Dark Productions was the label that had the Metal and the money to take the band under its wings. In March 1999 the second half of the album was recorded. In the end there were so many songs that the band and the label decided to make a 7" EP in addition to the full-length album. The 7" was never realised, though.

The release was planned for the summer 1999, but again Mr. Murphy showed the power of his law and prevented it by driving Near Dark into trouble with the police and the IRS without the lads themselves being guilty of any illegalities. Time passed on. Teemu spent the summer, once again, in Germany and eventually got to know a local metal journalist, Arno Hofmann who suggested that perhaps Massacre Records would have interest in licensing the album from Near Dark. Not many weeks passed until the license agreement between Gutter Records (a division of Massacre Records) and Near Dark got signed. Due to the release schedules and some other hassle the release was postponed until March 2000.

The release party of the album took place at the cult venue Metal Bar Valhalla in Kuopio, Finland 11 March 2000 and the official worldwide release of the album 20 March 2000. The US release by Pavement Music took place in June 2000. Moreover, a CDS called "Tormentor" was released in August 2000. It features the title track from the album and three additional tracks including a new version of the classic "I Am the King", a cover version of Judas Priest's "Breaking the Law", as well as a previously unreleased track "Get Slaughtered". These three tracks are the very same ones that were originally planned to appear on the never realised 7" EP.

Meanwhile the band played two shows in the summer 2000: at the Valhalla Metal Feast and at one of the biggest Finnish rock festivals, the Ilosaarirock. Ilosaarirock also became the last gig this line-up played. Teemu decided to move to Germany after his civilian service, which obviously made it impossible to continue with the present line-up. Though his actual move took place in January 2001, Teemu had already recruited a "new old" line-up in the autumn 2000 consisting of nobody else than CY and Daniel of Thargos - the very same blokes who played in the band in the summer 1997. A bit later, in February 2001 another guitarist, Johnny was added to the line-up.

The next milestone are the recordings of the fourth album "Black Heavy Metal" in April 2001 at the Beat Point Studio in Krefeld, Germany. The album will again be released by Gutter Records, who have bought the rights of the fourth album from Near Dark Productions - a decision that has the 100% agreement of all the involved parties. The new album will be released in September or October 2001. If everything goes as planned, the release will be followed by live shows in Germany and the neighbouring countries.