Roope Latvala
| Roope Juhani Latvala | |
|---|---|
Roope Latvala performing at the Ilosaarirock 2009 festival.
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Roope Juhani Latvala |
| Born |
25 June 1970 Helsinki, Finland |
| Genres | Melodic death metal, thrash metal, power metal |
| Occupation(s) | Musician |
| Instruments | Guitar |
| Years active | 1985–2015 |
| Labels | Nuclear Blast, Spinefarm, Century Media |
| Associated acts | Stone, Dementia, Waltari, Children of Bodom, Sinergy, Amon Amarth, Latvala Bros |
Roope Juhani Latvala (born 25 June 1970) is a Finnish guitarist, best known as the former guitarist for the bands Children of Bodom and Sinergy. He was also one of the founding members of Stone, which was one of the first notable bands in the history of Finnish heavy metal.
Roope was born in Helsinki. At the age of 15, he founded the band Stone together with Janne Joutsenniemi. The band's style was initially focused on a more traditional heavy metal, but they soon shifted to a faster and more aggressive sound, which was the key for them to receive mass recognition. In the year of 1991, the band was dissolved, with a discography of four studio albums, one live album and one compilation album. He is the main influence of many Finnish guitarists, especially Alexi Laiho (from Children of Bodom).
After the breakup of Stone, he released an instrumental work with his brother, entitled Latvala bros. He then played with Dementia for around a year. In 1995 he joined Waltari after guitarist Sami Yli-Sirniö left the band. They played together for 6 years before Roope decided to quit the band.
He joined Sinergy after vocalist Kimberly Goss moved from Sweden to Finland and had to reassemble the band; he assumed the role that previously belonged to Jesper Strömblad (from In Flames).
During the whole of his career, Roope had many side projects and played as a guest musician in many bands, the most notable of the being: Warmen, Nomicon, Pornonorsu, Jailbreakers, Gloomy Grim, Amon Amarth, Children of Bodom, and Soulgrind. At times he also composed movie soundtracks.
When Alexander Kuoppala left Children of Bodom in 2003 in the middle of their world tour, the members of the band were forced to search for a new guitarist in the time span of one month, when their next show would happen. The new guitarist needed to be able to learn about twenty songs to be played live. Alexi Laiho allegedly tried to recruit Kai R. (Richard) Nergård (Kai), of the Norwegian Heavy metal band Griffin, but Kai declined. With little time left, Roope contacted Alexi and asked him if Children of Bodom needed any help on the tour. Alexi agreed that he would be a session player because he's the only guitarist he deemed skilled enough to manage the feat of learning the songs with enough accuracy to replace Alexander, who had been playing with the band for 10 years.
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