VOLUME II – THE BOOK OF V “I am the Question unanswered, the Story that needs to be told. I am the Song, I exist to be sung…” Those are the first lines of ‘The Book of V’, V FOR VIOLENCE’s follow-up album for the 2009’s debut ‘The Cult of V’. Those lines of ‘The Hated Saint’ – the opening track and the first single release – sum up what the album is about. Every cult needs it’s own Bible to grow into a religion, something from where to read or listen to the dogma, don’t they? THE BOOK The ’Volume II’ took years to get it’s shape and sound. V FOR VIOLENCE wanted to take the next step in songwriting and payed more attention on details. Hiili Hiilesmaa (HIM, The 69 Eyes, Negative) mixed it, Svante Forsbäck (Sunrise Avenue, Amorphis, Jenni Vartiainen) mastered it at Chartmakers and the recordings were held in three different studios by Anzi Destruction, Jarno Hänninen and Tommi Salomaa. Featuring artists on ’The Book’ are Olli Vänskä (Turisas), Tommi Salomaa (ex-Wankers of the Zoo Crew), Anna Grundström (Milargo) and Mr Bunny with his bandmate Nooz (Cold Cold Ground {RIP}). “Just as Slipknot´s debut delivered a fuel-injected ’fuck you’ to the metal scene in the 90s, so the Vs´debut does the same to the poppy, diluted industrial-rock genre.” -Metal Hammer THE BAND V FOR VIOLENCE is an Alternative Metal band from Helsinki, Finland. Being referred to different bands from various genres, such as Slipknot, Marilyn Manson and The 69 Eyes, the V represents musically perhaps something else than the majority of the metal and rock scene. “It is notable how well V FOR VIOLENCE keeps their songs together and themselves musically credible when there’s such a versatile set of influences involved” -imperiumi.net The band sounds groovy and aggressive, yet melancholically melodic and on top of the basic rock band sound the usage of industrial sounds (NOT meaning Disco-ish here), samples, pianos and strings create a rather rare combination. Like the music, also the stories are about breaking both face and heart, and filled with metaphoras from religious writings to straight-forward ’punch in the face’ approach, which may give an extra depth for a listeners mind to dwell into as well as something to listen to when they want to break something. VOLUME I – THE CULT OF V THE BEGINNING The band was founded in 2007 by Jarkko Lähderanta, Miikki Kunttu and Janne Salo. After few months of V’s first demo (’Promo 2008’) the band released a video for a song ’Boy Called Fucker’, which was shown and made it to Top 5 on Finnish music channel Voice’s music video contest for unsigned bands. Shortly after that, they made a record deal with Osasto-A Records. Bands first official release, ’Constant Of Death’ a 2-track single from the debut album was released in summer 2009. On the B-side of the single, ’Break The Face’, there was MC Raaka Pee from Turmion Kätilöt to feature on vocals. A music video for the song was also released and the song itself was a ’Free Song of the Week’ in Finnish Nokia Music store. 18th of November, their debut album, a 14-track facebreaker: ‘The Cult of V’ saw the daylight. THE CULT ’Volume One: The Cult Of V’ was released on 18th November 2009 and got soon attention in different medias. The album was widely reviewed in Finnish and foreign publications, on paper as well as on web, for example Metal Hammer, Terrorizer and Soundi, to name a few of the most widely spread. The band visited several radio shows both national and regional and was interviewed by the front-line music magazines in Finland and was even voted into the top twenty of the newcomer of the year category by readers of the Finland’s biggest music magazine Soundi. The album version of ’Boy Called Fucker’ ended up in Radio Rock’s playlist in ’Uuden rockin ilta’ prime time show, where they play the most recent rock and metal releases. The song was wanted enough to be charted in the top 10 list of the most downloaded songs in Radio Rock Store. The Album has also been played in several other radio stations and shows during autumn 2009 and winter/spring 2010. THE LIVE The band has aroused interest also in the audience. After the release of the first album V singed a contract with Live Nation, one of the biggest booking agencies. On December 2009 V FOR VIOLENCE was the warm-up act for the Hardcore Superstars [SWE] band at Tavastia Club in Helsinki and at Klubi in Turku. On February 2010 the band played on Finnish Metal Expo with bands like Amorphis, Hypocrisy [SWE] and Satyricon [NO] and a month later with Underoath [USA] and Architects [UK] at Virgin Oil Co -club in Helsinki. Year 2011 started as a warm-up band for Die So Fluid [UK] on their gig Helsinki and ended with a spectacular self-organized Turpashokki minitour with Cold Cold Ground featuring local bands in Turku, Tampere, Helsinki etc. The amount of played gigs around that very first album is total of 30+ during 2009 and 2012 after which V FOR VIOLENCE started to write ’The Book’ for ’The Cult’. VIOLENCE & CHAOS IN EVOLUTION V FOR VIOLENCE J. Lähderanta – Vocals (2007– ) Janne Salo – Guitar (2007– ) Miikki Kunttu – Drums (2007– ) Jani Rahkonen – Bass (2010– ) Riku Vuorio – Guitar (2013– ) Past members Mr. Kock – Guitar (2007–2013) Varjo – Bass (2009–2010) Base – Bass (2008–2009)