THUNDERSTONE To Compete To Represent Finland In Next Year's EUROVISION SONG CONTEST

Finnish melodic power metallers THUNDERSTONE are one of a dozen acts that will compete to represent Finland in next year's Eurovision Song Contest, set to take place May 2007 in Helsinki. The artists are, in alphabetical order (record label in brackets):

BEATS AND STYLES (AJ Records Finland)
HANNA PAKARINEN (Sony-BMG Music Entertainment Finland)
HUMANE (Edel Records Finland)
JANI & JETSETTERS (Universal Music)
JANN WILDE & ROSE AVENUE (HYPE Records)
JOHANNA KURKELA (Warner Music Finland)
JUKKA KUOPPAMÄKI (EMI Finland)
KATRA (Edel Records Finland)
KENTALA (Deekay Records)
LAURA (Helsinki Records)
LOVEX (EMI Finland)
THUNDERSTONE (Nuclear Blast GmbH, Germany)

The artists were chosen after consultation with record companies and artists in autumn 2006. The songs for Finland's national selection will be chosen by the record companies and their artists. The names of the songs and their creators will be announced in the first week of January 2007 at the latest.

Finland's representative in the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest will be selected according to a familiar procedure. There will first be four preliminary rounds broadcast live on TV and radio from the Tohloppi studio in Tampere at weekly intervals beginning on Saturday, January 20.

Each preliminary round will feature three invited artists, each of which will sing two songs. Viewers will then televote to select the two songs to go through to the final. In other words, the competition in the preliminary rounds is between songs, not artists.

Finland's national selection will culminate in the final to be held at the Caribia Spa Hotel in Turku on Saturday, February 17. There will then be 12 invited artists singing 12 songs, and the winner — to represent Finland in the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest — will be decided in a two-stage televote.

The preliminary rounds will all be broadcast live on TV and the presenters will be Heikki Paasonen and Jaana Pelkonen. The newsroom anchor will be Simo Frangén. Finland's national selection for 2007 will be produced by YLE Entertainment and the programs will be shown on TV2. The YLE radio channels in Finnish and Swedish will once again also be closely following the Eurovision Song Contest.

YLE will be hosting the 52nd Eurovision Song Contest in Helsinki, the semi-final on May 10 and the final on May 12, 2007.

For further details of Finland's national selection 2007, see the updated YLE ESC site at www.yle.fi/eurovision.

The Eurovision Song Contest 2007: Finland's national selection on YLE channels (local times):

* 1st preliminary round, Sat. Jan. 20, 2007 at 7-8.20 pm (YLE TV2, YLE Radio Vega)
* 2nd preliminary round, Sat. Jan. 27, 2007 at 7-8.20 pm (YLE TV2, YLE Radio Vega)
* 3rd preliminary round, Sat. Feb. 3, 2007 at 7-8.20 pm (YLE TV2, YLE Radio Vega)
* 4th preliminary round, Sat. Feb. 10, 2007 at 7-8.20 pm (YLE TV2, YLE Radio Vega)
* FINAL, Sat. Feb. 17, 2007 at 7-8.50 pm (YLE TV2, YLE Radio Suomi, YLE Radio Vega)

YLE Radio Suomi will be presenting the entries in each of the preliminary rounds at 6.15-6.45 pm on four consecutive Mondays from January 15.

Euroviisuradio (in Finnish) on YLE Radio Suomi at 7.45 pm on Mondays.

THUNDERSTONE is currently recording its fourth album at Sonic Pump studios in Helsinki. The band is currently working on 11 as-yet-untitled original tracks and two cover songs which will be included as bonus tracks on special-edition versions of the new album.

You can read the band's studio diary and check out pictures taken during the recording process at this location.

THUNDERSTONE's third full-length album, "Tools of Destruction", was released in the U.S. in June 2005 via Nuclear Blast Records. The CD was mixed at Timo Tolkki's (STRATOVARIUS) Goldenworks studio with producer/guitarist Nino Laurenne.

(Thanks: www.finmetalnews.com)