The Rasmus is a rock band formed in 1994 in Helsinki, Uusimaa, Finland. Consisting of Lauri Ylönen (lead singer/songwriter), Eero Heinonen (bass), Pauli Rantasalmi (guitar) and Aki Hakala (drums). The band was formed at the end of the band members' schooling and were initially known as Rasmus. They recorded their first single, 1st, released independently through Teja Kotilainen Records in late 1995. They signed with Warner Music Finland in 1996 and released their first album, Peep, that same year. The album went gold in Finland.
Hide From The Sun, the band's sixth studio album was released in September 2005. It received Platinum status in Finland and sold more than 15,000 copies in the UK alone. All in all, the album sold 400,000 copies worldwide. The album's three singles were No Fear, Sail Away and Shot. The Rasmus began recording their seventh studio album Black Roses in 2006, recording began and in Helsinki and continued in Nashville, Tennessee. Smaller parts were recorded in Stockholm, Singapore, Berlin and Greece. Livin' In A World Without You and Justify are the two singles released from the album, videos for both songs have received airplay around the world.
A compilation album celebrating The Rasmus' 15th Anniversary, titled Best Of 2001-2009 was released Novermber 28, 2009. It includes songs released from 2001 to 2009, as indicated in the album title, and features a previously unreleased song October & April, with the vocals of Anette Olzon from the band Nightwish. This song was recorded during the same time as the other songs from album Black Roses, but wasn't included as it didn't follow the album concept. The band's singer Lauri Ylönen has also announced that a new studio album will be released in 2010.
From Wikipedia:The Rasmus are a Finnish rock band that formed in 1994 in Helsinki while the band members were still in upper comprehensive school. The original band members were Lauri Ylönen (lead singer/songwriter), Eero Heinonen (bass), Pauli Rantasalmi (guitar) and Janne Heiskanen (drums). Heiskanen quit the band in 1998 and was soon replaced by Aki Hakala.
Before releasing their fourth studio album Into (2001), they were simply known as Rasmus, but changed their name to The Rasmus in order to avoid being confused with a Swedish DJ of the same name. They gained international fame with their 2003 album Dead Letters which went gold and platinum in several countries, accompanied with the single "In the Shadows" which reached number 1 in a number of countries. Their follow-up album Hide from the Sun which was released in October 2005 also went platinum in Finland.
The band is one of Finland's most successful with more than 3.5 million sold albums worldwide, eight gold awards and five platinum awards. They have released seven studio albums, two compilation album and 21 singles. Some of the band's most famous songs are the singles "Liquid", "F-F-F-Falling", "In the Shadows", "First Day of My Life", "Funeral Song" , "No Fear", "Sail Away", "Livin' in a World Without You", and "Justify". Their most recent album, titled Black Roses, was released in 2008. Immediately it replaced Metallica's latest album Death Magnetic in the Finnish Album Charts and went gold after one week. In early 2010, The Rasmus started working on their next album, which will be released by the band's personal record label due to their contract with their previous label dissolving at the end of 2010.