Effective period / Period of releases: 1999 - 2004

Members: Jonne Järvelä, Janne Leinonen, Toni Näykki, Nalle Österman

Shaman is a Finnish folk metal band formed in 1997 on the ashes of Shamaani Duo, which is notable for the heavy use of original native Sámic music elements and lyrics in Sámi. The most widely used elements are the shamanic drum, yoik and humppa. Besides yoik, the vocals vary from clean to rather aggressive growling.
The musical style of Shaman is quite distinctive, especially in the slow songs, due to its entrancing atmosphere created by the monophonic, "narrow" synth sound making the deep contrast to the spacious sound of the acoustic guitar, the shamanic drum and yoik singing.
In 2003 the band had changed its name to Korpiklaani, as well as the music style to a more conventional folk metal with folk/thrash vocals instead of yoiking. The last album of Shama, Shamániac (2002) already featured much of the future Korpiklaani style.

Shaman had no permanent line up except the frontman Jonne Järvelä.


Line-up for the Idja album:
Jonne Järvelä - vocals, yoik, guitars, percussions
Tero Piirainen - guitars, keyboards, backing vocals
Juke Eräkangas - drums, keyboards, backing vocals
Ilkka Kilpeläinen - bass, backing vocals

Line-up for the Shamaniac album:
Jonne Järvelä - vocals, yoik, guitars, shamanic drum
Samu Ruotsalainen - drums and additional bass
Hosse Latvala - percussion drums
Veera Muhli - keyboards
Toni Nãykki - electric guitar
Henri "Trollhorn" Sorvali - keyboards
Janne G`thaur - bass