Markus Toivonen (born 1979 in

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the Capital city, capital, primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Finland, most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of U ...

) is the founding member of the

Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...

folk/death metal band Ensiferum. Markus founded the band in 1995 and is the sole original member to have lasted the distance to Ensiferum's present incarnation. His role in the band is

guitarist A guitarist (or a guitar player) is a person who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of guitar family instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselv ...

and primary

songwriter A songwriter is a musician who professionally composes musical compositions or writes lyrics for songs, or both. The writer of the music for a song can be called a composer, although this term tends to be used mainly in the classical music gen ...

. He has always contributed

backing vocals A backing vocalist is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists. A backing vocalist may also sing alone as a lead-in to the main vocalist's entry or to sing a counter-melody. Backing vocalists are use ...

and since the departure of

Jari Mäenpää Jari Mäenpää (born 23 December 1977) is a Finnish heavy metal multi-instrumentalist and songwriter. He is the founder of Wintersun for which he records all instruments except the drums. Before forming Wintersun, Mäenpää was best known for ...

in 2004 has taken up a greater role behind the microphone, sharing the clean vocal parts with new bass player Sami Hinkka, with Mäenpää's replacement

Petri Lindroos Petri Lindroos (born 10 January 1980 in Espoo, Finland) is a melodic death/folk metal guitarist and vocalist. He is currently the lead vocalist in Ensiferum. Previously, he was a founding member and lead vocalist for Norther. Biography At 14 ye ...

handling the harsh vocals. Markus also plays in a side band called Speden Timantit and has been a member of the short-lived

black Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white have o ...

death metal Death metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. It typically employs heavily distorted and low-tuned guitars, played with techniques such as palm muting and tremolo picking; deep growling vocals; aggressive, powerful drumming, feat ...

outfit Soulstream.

External links

Official Ensiferum website
1979 births Living people Musicians from Helsinki Finnish heavy metal musicians Finnish male musicians Ensiferum members {{finland-musician-stub