Amorphis consists of Esa Holopainen (guitarist), Jan Rechberger (drummer, percussionist), Niclas Etelavuori (bassist), Santeri Kallio (synthesizers), Tomi Joutsen (vocalist), Tomi Koivusaari (guitarist).
Amorphis is a Finnish metal band started by Jan Rechberger, Tomi Koivusaari and Esa Holopainen in 1990. Initially, the band was a death metal act, but in later albums they have evolved into making songs that are more classifiable as mainstream, but nevertheless with increasingly complex arrangements.
Amorphis is well known for their use of the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala, as a source for their lyrics.
In 1989 Jan Rechberger and Esa Holopainen played in a speed metal band Violent Solution, which Tomi Koivusaari had left the previous year to form up the death metal band Abhorrence. Violent Solution slowly withered away as the musicians involved got interested in other things and styles of music, which is when Jan Rechberger and Esa Holopainen got the idea of putting a Death metal band together. After searching for additional musicians, in early 1990 Tomi Koivusaari was asked to be the vocalist and Oppu Laine as their bassist.
During that time the band asked Tomi to pick up the slot of rhythm guitarist as well as the singing, which led to the band dumping all original compositions and starting all over again. With the band starting to move along, Tomi's other band Abhorrence split up and he found himself with a lot more time to put into Amorphis. The band went into gear and started churning out new brutal music.
As soon as the band had recorded their first studio demo tape, Tomi got a letter from Relapse Records offering [[Abhorrence (Finnish band)|Abhorrence]] a recording contract. Since the band was no more, they quickly sent their new demo in the return mail and eventually got signed to a recording deal that would later almost destroy (due to its very long commitment and poor artist relations) the band. None the less, they quickly released a death metal classic Karelian Isthmus and later would up releasing the demo in the form of Privilege Of Evil EP, which had Abhorrence's original vocalist Jukka Kolehmainen doing the vocal duties on the Abhorrence cover song Vulgar Necrolatry.
