WAKE THE NATIONS

WAKE THE NATIONS are:
Krister Stenbom – vocals
Risto Tuominen – guitar
Janne ‘Gekko’ Granfors – bass
Tuomas Pelli – drums

discography:

In 2009, Risto Tuominen got interested in a band that was being established by Janne ‘Gekko’ Granfors:
a grunge-type of band with Krister Stenbom on the lead vocals, Tuomas Pelli on drums, and Gekko on guitar.
They were after a bass player, but since Risto came along, Gekko took the bass guitar.
A hard rock band ‘Villa Sucka’ was formed.
They wrote songs actively and recorded an EP during the spring of 2010.
In the same year, Risto got recruited to a melodic rock/AOR band ‘Human Temple’.
Gekko soon followed him.
In those times, Jori ‘Jorge’ Tojander was the keyboard player of Human Temple.
As Human Temple was having a break, Risto decided to start recording his solo album in 2012.
During the past years, he had written some songs that were never published.
Risto asked Jorge, Gekko and Kalle Saarinen, all from Human Temple, to help him with the record.
Also, Tuomas got an enquiry whether he could join.
Initially the idea was to record already written songs just for his own sake, with good quality.
But things got more and more ambitious…
Risto came up with a thought of ‘Wake the Nations’ project band.
Janne Hurme (Human Temple) and Petri Kitti (Violent Code) permitted him to record two of their songs as well, and so the album became to form an entity of its own.
Featuring many singers across the globe, ‘Sign of Heart’ was born in January 2015.
The album got its way to the top-50 of the official Finnish chart in the first week after release.
The band did not have a fixed front man and they were not supposed to tour anyways.
But as a one-time-occasion, they played at album release party, it became evident that WTN would continue playing for live audience.
Soon Krister joined the band and WTN hit bigger stages.
Live performance in DBTL festival 2015 was a turning point:
WTN opened for Sunrise Avenue and got some international interest after their show.
Ever since, the band has been playing numerous gigs:
for instance, they have toured Germany numerous times and supported Swedish metal act Dynazty during their ‘Titanic Mass’ tour in Finland.
In 2019, Wake the Nations released ‘Heartrock’ through a German label AOR Heaven.
It continued the AOR/melodic rock route set by the first album, but was more refined and solid.
Erik Mårtensson (Eclipse, W.E.T.) mixed and mastered ‘Heartrock‘ and his awesome work is present from track one to the very last beat of the release.
The album was received very well by the audience, especially within the German fanbase.
After 2019, Jori quit the band.
Obviously it was a big loss for WTN, but there were no disagreements whatsoever and Jori always remains a good friend of the band.
It was decided WTN continues as a 4-piece music machine and will not seek for another keyboard player for now.
Generally, the year 2020 was very difficult for the music business, namely the live shows.
WTN used the time to plan and pre-produce the next album.
Luckily songs kept coming from Risto and Gekko, who brought two killer songs on the next record called ‘Heartageddon’.
The songs were recorded in a loooong period (2021-2023), but finally they were released in 2024.
As the band is now keyboardless, songs are leaning more to guitar rock – but they are very loyal to WTN sounds.
‘Heartageddon‘ was mixed and mastered by Mikko Herranen, and produced by Risto.
The album cover was made by Janne Granfors.
Wake The Nations released three singles (‘Alive‘, ‘Bulletproof‘ and ‘Seven‘) from their third studio album ‘Heartageddon‘ which was released via Inverse Records.
The band comments on single ‘Seven‘:
“Relatively straight forward rock pulse! Text originates from Gekko’s trip into hospital where he was having a surgery. Nobody knows whether they removed or added something on him but what we do know is that all good surgeries start with sedatives. So, these lyrics were partly written intoxicated. Nevertheless, our singer Krister absolutely loves the song and especially singing these crooked lyrics. Nice carpet you have, can I take a ride? Of course you can, everybody´s invited to this rock party!”