Kemopetrol is a Finnish band from Helsinki combining traditional, moody pop sounds with intriguing modern esthetics.

Guitarist Marko Soukka and keyboard player Kalle Koivisto founded Kemopetrol in November 1998, originally as an ambient music project. Vocalist Laura Närhi joined the band in January 1999, followed by drummer Teemu Nordman and bassist Kari Myöhänen later same year.

Kemopetrol’s first single Child Is My Name was released at the end of 1999 and was a breakthrough success. In 2000, their debut album Slowed Down was released. Slowed Down contains music that is a mixture of rock, jazz and electronic music.

In March 2002, the single Saw It on TV and, two months later, the album Everything’s Fine were released.

Kemopetrol's original bass player, Kari Myöhänen, left the band in July 2003.

In 2004, the single My Superstar and the album Play For Me were released. Having Kari left the band the previous year, on those releases, Kemopetrol's producer Kalle Chydenius plays bass. Shortly after the release of Play for Me, Lauri Hämäläinen joined the band as the new permanent bassist.

The band's fourth album, Teleport was released on 29th March 2006, preceded by Planet-single on 8th March. The latest album features disco influences from the 80's, including notable usage of synthesizer sounds from that era.

Kalle Koivisto writes the songs for Kemopetrol. All their songs have English lyrics. The name of the band reportedly originates from a Czech ice hockey team named Chemopetrol Litvinov.

THE BIOGRAPHY OF KEMOPETROL ACCORDING TO KALLE

Hi. We are Kemopetrol. We've been around since 1998 and we're still here. The dinosaurs.

There are four of us. We play music. And we write our own material, too. Laura sings, Marko strums the guitar, Teemu bangs the drums and I bang the synths.

We began as a duo, Marko & I. Then we met Laura and everything changed. We became good. Our friend Teemu noticed it and wanted to join. We accepted him because he looked so sad.

We've had bass players in the past, too. Wonderful guys who got lost in action.

We were lucky enough to get a record deal in 1999. Then everything happened almost too fast for us, I would say. The snowball was rolling and we were along for the ride, gathering fortune and fame (well, not REAL fortune and fame - it's Finland, after all), playing gigs and having a blast. We made a couple of really popular albums and a couple of somewhat popular ones.

Then we went hiding for a few years.

Now we have a new album out. It's our best work, naturally. We hope you have the time to listen to it, and if you do, we're sure you'll like it. I mean, we listen to it everyday, all the time. It's actually the only album we ever listen to. That stuff is pretty addictive.

Next we'll be playing shows in Finland and hopefully, in the near future, in other countries as well. So stay tuned.

Love,

Kalle K.

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