HOW IT HAPPENED, A FEW FACTS FROM THE LIFE OF COMA
The band came into existence in June 1998.
The name –Coma– was chosen accidentally. We tossed a coin to decide.
We did it to choose the name for the band because we had an appointment for an interview in Radio Łódź.
The band started off with Dominik Witczak on guitar and Tomasz Stasiak on drums. They had to wait quite a long time for God to send them Rafał Matuszak who apart from being a pretty good musician and partygoer turned out to live 300m from Witczak. The three guys were fascinated with one another. They had rehearsals a few times a week. Dominik, Tomasz and Rafał made up their minds to rock together until their dying day, and then they cut their veins and… sealed their decision with blood. In this way the hybrid was created and functioned under the name “Voo Doo Art”. The next person to join it was Wojciech Grenda (who was later asked to leave along with his girlfriend, the band’s manager Katarzyna Michel).
To complete the picture, guys needed someone who could sing. But here their expectations were really high while filling this post. God showed mercy once again, and Piotr Rogucki joined in on vocals. After the first rehearsal their choice turned out to be the best possible. Long months of struggling with compositions followed. Guys drank many different alcoholic beverages that helped to tighten cooperation within the band. Everything seemed to head in a good direction. Suddenly, an unpleasant situation concerning Wojtek and Kasia occurred. Nevertheless, the rest of the band decided to continue playing, but without them. A replacement for Wojciech Grenda was found immediately and soon Marcin Kobza, who at that time was very popular in the music underworld of Łódź, joined Coma. And that was another very good choice.
In the year 2003 the band finally found a new manager. And by the end of the year an amazing thing happened… Coma signed a contract with BMG Poland! Right after that the band began recording their debut album – “Pierwsze Wyjście z Mroku”. The recording sessions took place between November 2003 and January 2004. Though it may seem unbelievable all the instruments were recorded between 12th and 18th November 2003 in Łódź and during the last three days of January 2004 in Gdańsk. The vocalist’s sore throat delayed recording the vocals until December. The feat was accomplished after four days of hard work in cold December 2003 in Łódź and Gdańsk. Toiled by the sweat of their brows, worthy of sacrifice, the material which contained in a dozen or so tracks finally found its way to music shops on 17th May 2004.
The year 2005 brought some changes. Robert Kurpisz’s Concert Agency set about to working and Robert became Coma’s new manager. By the end of September Coma began working on a new album. The year 2005 was full of concerts during which previously unreleased compositions appeared. They were later included in the second album. Coma’s technical crew also changed a bit in 2005. Artur ‘Arti’ Czarnecki became the band’s road manager, Qba who till then handled the website became also the technician in charge of visualizations which appeared during concerts. Also, Tomasz ‘Zed’ Zalewski joined in as the acoustician and Marcin joined as a driver and a member of the technical crew. The last one to join was Chester who from then on became responsible for lighting Coma’s concerts.
The album "Zaprzepaszczone siły wielkiej armii świętych znaków" had its official premiere on 29th May 2006. There was an idea to make the album available for fans in Łódź four days before its official release, as a kind of tribute to them. But there was some confusion with distribution and the result was that the album was on pre-release sale also in some other towns. And as a result of this commotion, Coma appeared on 5th position of the official ZPAV list for sale between 22nd May 2006 and 28th May 2006, which proves a huge interest in the release.
As the festival period came to an end, the band began their first serious tour (consisting of 28 concerts around Poland), promoting the album "Zaprzepaszczone siły wielkiej armii świętych znaków".
"Zaprzepaszczone siły wielkiej armii świętych znaków" earned the status of a Gold Record according to the Official List of Sales (OLIS) – ZPAV.
We received two Fryderyk statuettes in categories: The Group of the Year and The Album or the Year – ROCK/METAL
During the 13th Woodstock Festival we received the Złoty Bączek statuette – awarded by the audience.
Among our music works we have seven low-budget videos. Five of them comes from our first record – “Pierwsze Wyjscie Z Mroku” and illustrate “Skaczemy”, “Chaos kontrolowany”, “Leszek Żukowski” and “Czas Globalnej Niepogody”. The rest comes from the second album "Zaprzepaszczone siły wielkiej armii świętych znaków" and illustrate „Daleka Droga Do Domu” and „System”.
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