Biography
Farmakon roots lie in spring 2000 when Toni Salminen on his vacation from army played Opeth's "Still Life" to Marko Eskola. He said something like: "Wish I was this good vocalist so I'd just let a band do songs for me and growl!". These words grew in Marko's subconciousness. Till this date he had been a funk singer not much mending any extreme metal vocalbury, but in winter 2000 he teached himself the growling technique Mike of Opeth uses. Just for the fun of pissing Toni off. He also noticed he could write some pretty good riffs on guitar.
The riffs spawned a few songs Marko wanted to make a whole with band. He knew only a few guys he would be able to work with so that it would be fun. Riku Airisto, from his former band Planar Gallery, who he knew was a terribly talented drummer. Toni of course, since not only had he introduced Opeth to Marko, but had been discussing with him probably years about mutual musical interests. They also had a project called "Day Break Down", which withered because Toni's and the Eppu Ollila's military services. And Lassi Paunonen, who Marko barely knew, but with whom he had nice, inspiring, drunken discussion about music in a party 1,5 years back. A great bunch.
Farmakon was formed in April 2001 in Tampere. BOO! We did the three songs and, though there were different opinions, entered studio after a few months of rehearsing to record them. There were talks about quitting the project after the studio, because the guys and all their own things going on, but after the studio we decided to continue our project as a full band since we were all pleased with our demo and our style of music. Of course, the final (and the most important) nail on the coffin was a recording contract Lee Barrett of Elitist Records offered us only a few days after our songs were put to mp3.com.
We made a deal with Elitist Records in September 2002. We recorded our first album "A Warm Glimpse" in february/march of 2003 in the same studio as all out demos, with Pirkka Rännäli who had been familiar with us from the start and was an important person in creating Farmakon sound. We think we did pretty good there. Hope we can do even better in the future. BLAA!
Farmakon is pretty much about shaking the metal ground. On the base of swede-death metal we've planted groove, funk&jazz, and some pretty schitzo stuff also. Influences are taken from melancholic swedish metal to whatever you may imagine... "Rock'n'roll and blues and jazz, kiss my ass!"
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