Biography:
Far Arden was formed in 1987 by singer/songwriter Nevski who shared
company with Jamppa GT Heikkinen (drums), A-M Jänkälä (bass), Juha Lindberg
(guitar) and Arto Willman (keyboards).
Willman was soon replaced with guitarist Eero Mahkonen and this lineup was
to record their first single 'Lisa' that was out in 1989 and became a minor
hit in finnish radio stations that year. The single introduced an energetic
pop/rock combo with melodic catchy tunes.
The debut was followed by two singles, one ep and their first full album
'Wind and Change' in 1993. Shortly after that, Jänkälä and Mahkonen left
for good, and they were replaced by Jari Pietilä (guitar) and Esa Koukkari (bass).
In 1996 the original guitarist Juha Lindberg quit too, and Nevski was to grab
the guitar (An acoustic one). This lineup started to record the album 'Free Pictures' in 1998.
During the prolonged sessions stressed by the lack of money, equipment, space,
time, support from folks at home, production skills or whatever you could think about, bassist Koukkari and the original
drummer Heikkinen decided to call it a day, too. They were soon replaced
by drummer Jarkko Aro, with whom the guitarist Jari Pietilä used to play in a
Jethro Tull-tribute band Limingan Tulli, and bassist Juha Liimatta. The album
'Free pictures' finally saw the daylight in 2001 after three years from the start
of the session. Contrary to all the expectations (of the band), it didn't gather
much attention though. At this point the music of the band had evolved from straightforward
rock into more progressive directions. At the same time finnish radio had became format based playing only top20 hits from big labels, so no airplay.
Due to a poor gigging situation the bassist Liimatta decided to leave and he was replaced
by Lauri Väkevä in 2001. A multi-instrumentalist, former bandmate of Aro and Pietilä
from Limingan Tulli, Juha Sutela was asked to join in, and he agreed. He already had
visited in Free Pictures sessions and played flute on track 'Mind the Gap'.
With this new lineup Nevski started to write new material and the band have visited
studio several times in between 2002-2007. Obviously it should be mentioned that bassist
Väkevä had to move in 2005 and he was replaced by Pietilä's former bandmate from 80's,
Asko Karhunen, furthermore Juha Sutela (keyboards, flute, guitar) decided to leave the group at the beginning of the year 2009 and keyboardist Kari Kuivamäki joined in. At the time being there exists recorded songs worth of two or three albums.
Faithfully to the one-album-per-eight-years publishing cycle the next album is scheduled
to be published in 2009. It will span various styles from riff-driven hard rock
(e.g. Intuition's Arms) to more folky tunes with progressive vibe to the point where
some of the band members' past in a Jethro Tull-tribute band come obvious. The band firmly believes
that the album will be their best approach ever excluding the forthcoming album that will be released in 2017;)
