Celesty was formed 1998 town called Seinäjoki in Finland. First line-up was totally different than today, only Ari Katajamäki and Jere Luokkamäki are left from those days. In the year 1999 Tapani Kangas joined the band as a guitar player this was the time when Celesty made their first demo in summer 1999, which was recorded only for themselves and wasn’t released or sent anywhere. In a short time after that Ari, Jere and Tapani noticed the potential of the band, but knew that something had to be done, so they decided to sign off some members and they started to replaced them with new ones.
Финляндия
2000-2002
In the year 2000 Tapani and Ari went to army and Celesty were still looking for functional and first- rate line-up. At spring 2000 Tapani found young and talented guitarist J-P Alanen and he decided to join Celesty. J-P already knew vocalist Kimmo Perämäki, and band asked him to join Celesty also. Kimmo joined ,and finally at autumn 2000 they booked studio for their first real demo. “Warrior of ice” demo was released at spring 2001 and soon after the release Juha Mäenpää joined Celesty to play keyboards. After the first demo release, some very good reviews and a few gigs in Finland, Celesty began to sound familiar in people’s ears.
At march 2002 Celesty went to studio to record their second demo to the Fantom Studios. “Times before the ice” demo got even better receiving and reviews everywhere, and record companies also started to contact Celesty. Celesty signed the deal with the spanish record label Arise Records and right away in that same autumn they entered the Fantom Studio to record their debut album “Reign of elements” which was released worldwide in december 2002. Celesty appeared also on the Helloween’s “The Keepers Of Jericho- A Tribute To Helloween Part II” album playing the song “The chance”
2003-
Many metal fans, Metal magazines and Metal Radios all over the world started to know the name “Celesty” and debut album got good receive. Celesty was voted for the lists as “best newcommer band” in Metal Magazines and album “Reign of elements” was voted for “best debut album in year 2002” in some magazines also. Celesty did gigs in Finland and got great feedback from their good live performance also. In the end of the summer 2003 Celesty started to compose new songs for their second album and the last gig before this was with Stratovarius, it was time to start preparing for the studio.
In the autumn 2003, Celesty entered studio to record their second album. They decided to record the album in peace so they kept a break from live performance and concentrated to the new album. The new material was a bit different than before, and band found their own style of making songs. New songs were very aggressive and much darker than the material in “Reign of elements” album, the new songs were a combination of epic, dark, progressive but still melodic powermetal, but added with that unique sound of Celesty in it. . Ari, Jere, Juha, J-P and Tapani were very satisfied to the new material but Kimmo wanted to do something else and Celesty had to find a new singer to the new album. Many singers from all over the Finland was tested and finally Antti Railio, 19 years old singer from Vaasa turned to be the right choise and his voice was the thing what Celesty was looked for.
On may 2004 there will start a new era of the powermetal scene, you will hear something epic but dark, something progressive yet melodic, familiar but still something completely new..... the new beginning of Celesty.