Soon Jari was asked to leave the band because his style of playing did not fit to the band's music at all. Timo played all the bass parts and even though there is a photo of a new bassist Jari Behm in "Twilight Time" actually play on the album. All this time the band did not have a record contract and it had to finance the recordings by itself. The band did not give up but rehearsed a lot and made new songs and finally went to record the follow-up to "Fright Night". New material was written and demoed early 1990 but CBS lost interest of releasing more Stratovarius material. After all this bass player Jyrki Lentonen left the band. The band gigged extensively during the summer and autumn 1989 and played a huge outdoor gig Giants Of Rock in Hameenlinna with Anthrax and many other metal acts. This was followed by another single "Black Night/Night Screamer" in the beginning of 1989 and finally the debut album "Fright Night" saw daylight in May 1989. The band recorded its first single "Future Shock/Witch Hunt" in 1988. At this point the band had a new keyboard player Antti Ikonen. The demos were sent to various record companies in Finland and CBS Finland wanted to sign the band after seeing a show at Tavastia Club, Helsinki. It contained songs "Future Shock", "Fright Night" and "Night Screamer". The band rehearsed and gigged extensively in Helsinki and made its first demo tape under this line up in 1987. Timo Tolkki brought along his influences Blackmore, Rainbow and Baroque music. At this point the music was starting to sound more like it is today: very melodic and classically influenced. However, good singers are few and far between and so Timo Tolkki took over the vocal duties. It soon became evident that the band needed a singer because Tuomo's vocal range. At that time Tuomo was still singing and playing the drums at the same time. Timo learned all the songs from cassette tape and after a few rehearsals the band travelled to Denmark.
Tuomo Lassila phoned to Timo Tolkki and asked him to join the band. Bass player John left the band by the end of 1984 and was replaced by Jyrki Lentonen, who previously played with Timo Tolkki in a band called Road Block.ġ985 Staffan did not want to play in Stratovarius anymore and he left one week before the band was supposed to play one gig in Aalborg, Denmark.
Guitar player Staffan brought in some classical elements. Back then it was heavily influenced by Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne. The music of early Stratovarius was very different from what it is today. Before Stratovarius the same line up performed under name Black Water. Stratovarius was founded in 1984 by three guys from Helsinki, Finland drummer and vocalist Tuomo Lassila, bass player John Viherva and guitarist Staffan Strahlman.
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