Poets of the Fall

Poets of the Fall
Poets of The Fall performing at Columbia Club in Berlin on 24 April 2008 – left to right: Tukiainen, Snellman, Saaresto, Mäkinen
Background information
Origin	Helsinki, Finland
Genres	Alternative rock Indie rock Post-grunge Symphonic rock
Years active	2003–present
Labels	Insomniac Remote Music
Associated acts	Old Gods of Asgard, Phoenix Effect, Playground, Pohjoinen Syke
Website	www.poetsofthefall.com
Members	Markus Kaarlonen Marko Saaresto Olli Tukiainen Jani Snellman Jaska Makinen Jari Salminen

Poets of the Fall (POTF) is a Finnish alternative rock band from Helsinki. The group consists of Marko Saaresto (lead vocals), Olli Tukiainen (lead guitar), Markus "Captain" Kaarlonen (keyboards, production), Jani Snellman (bass guitar), Jaska Mäkinen (rhythm guitar, backing vocals), and Jari Salminen (drums, percussion).

The band was founded on 25 April 2003 by Saaresto and Tukiainen. Tukianen had written multiple songs for Saaresto's previous band Playground and performed with Finnish jazzband Pohjoinen Syke previously.

In 2003, Saaresto's friend Sami Järvi, a script-writer working at Remedy Entertainment handed Saaresto a poem he had written, asking him to turn it into a song to use in Remedy's video game Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne. The song, entitled "Late Goodbye", was used as the ending-theme of the game as well as a recurring motif, being sung and whistled by multiple characters. It was produced by Markus "Captain" Kaarlonen, who joined the band shortly after due to Saaresto and Tukiainen liking his work.

Kaarlonen being a former employee of benchmark-developer Futuremark, POTF were offered to have their song Lift included in the 2005-literation of Futuremark's benchmarking software 3DMark, which exposed the band to a wider audience than Max Payne 2 had done.

In order to keep complete control and freedom over the band, the members founded their own independent record label, Insomniac, on which they have released all their CDs as of 2014.

On 30 June 2004, the Poets released their debut single Late Goodbye in Finland which was followed by Lift on 9 September 2004. The songs charted No. 14 and No. 8 on the Finnish single charts and reached No. 2 and No. 7 in YleX's 2004-voting for "Best Finnish song". POTF were also voted "Fresh Newcomer of 2004" by YleX. The videos for both songs were directed by Tuomas "Stobe" Harju. POTF performed at Popkomm 2005 in Berlin.