Gandalf was a Finnish

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

 melodic death metal

Melodic death metal

Melodic death metal is a heavy metal music style that combines elements from the New Wave of British Heavy Metal with elements of death metal. The style was developed during the early and mid-1990s, primarily in England and Scandinavia...

band who incorporated elements of traditional hard rock

Hard rock

Hard rock is a loosely defined genre of rock music which has its earliest roots in mid-1960s garage rock, blues rock and psychedelic rock...

 into their sound. Formed in 1993 by drummer (then guitarist) Nalle Österman (later in Shaman, Korpiklaani

Korpiklaani

Korpiklaani is a folk metal band from Finland who were formerly known as Shaman.-Biography:While other folk metal bands began with metal before adding folk music, Korpiklaani started with folk music before turning metal...

 and Lullacry

Lullacry

Lullacry is a melodic band with gothic metal influences that hails from Helsinki, Finland. The band recorded their first demo in 1998 and in a short time they had enough of a following to safely attempt a full-length album – Sweet Desire – recorded in 1999. This got the attention of Spinefarm...

), guitarist Timo Nyberg and vocalist Jari Hurskainen, with session drummer Mika "Gas Lipstick" Karppinen, who later achieved fame playing with the band HIM. The name Gandalf came from when the founding fans of the band used to refer to Gandalf's guitarist as the guitar wizard, Gandalf

Gandalf

Gandalf is a character in J. R. R. Tolkien's novels The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. In these stories, Gandalf appears as a wizard, member and later the head of the order known as the Istari, as well as leader of the Fellowship of the Ring and the army of the West...

 (from The Lord of the Rings

The Lord of the Rings

The Lord of the Rings is a high fantasy epic written by English philologist and University of Oxford professor J. R. R. Tolkien. The story began as a sequel to Tolkien's earlier, less complex children's fantasy novel The Hobbit , but eventually developed into a much larger work. It was written in...

). Since then, the band decided to call their band Gandalf. Gandalf released both of their full-length albums through Wicked World Records, a subsidiary of Earache Records

Earache Records

Earache Records is a heavy metal-oriented record label based in Nottingham, UK and New York, USA. It helped to pioneer extreme metal by releasing many of the earliest grindcore and death metal records in the period 1988-1994.-History:...

.

External links

• Gandalf at Earache Records
  Earache Records
  Earache Records is a heavy metal-oriented record label based in Nottingham, UK and New York, USA. It helped to pioneer extreme metal by releasing many of the earliest grindcore and death metal records in the period 1988-1994.-History:...