Coldway was formed in winter 2001 by Markus Pitkänen (guitar), Tero Konola (bass) and Joni Salo (drums). In the beginning the music was more in the style of HC/Metal, but later on the style changed into more death metal influenced. Rehearsals were held very rarely, which was the main reason why nothing really progressed.

After two years of nonsense and lazy rehearsing, things finally began to come together. In June 2003, Jonas Sjödin (vocals) joined the band, which gave more ardour to the band, and rehearsals were now held weekly. In November 2003 the band played their first gig and in February 2004 Jouni Gauriloff joined the band as a second guitarist.

Old line-up


A couple of months later, as school was taking too much Joni`s time, Tero switched from bass to drums to keep the band practising. Although the band searched for a new drummer it soon became obvious that it was easier to find a capable bass player and Juhani Impiö took the place in July 2004. During the recording of Coldway's first Demo at Tero's home studio (rehearsal place) in autumn 2004, Risto Ruotsalainen joined Coldway as a second guitarist and replaced Jouni.

Tero drumming


After the first gig since the Demo had been released, Jonas decided to leave the band. Nevertheless, the band quickly recovered from the loss and found Mikko Nikula to take the place as vocalist. For obvious reasons, gigs weren't played and instead the band concentrated in practicing the old songs and writing new material. In January 2005 the band started recording their second Demo that was released in March.

It was time for another line-up change... Risto Ruotsalainen left the band after playing two gigs and too few rehearsals. Luckily it only increased the band's productivity and only a couple months after writing the previous one, a 3rd Demo was almost ready to be recorded. Soon Juha Untinen joined Coldway and after hours of practise and a few gigs, the band started to record the third Demo at Tero's home studio.