Sami Raatikainen

Sami Raatikainen
Background information
Birth name	Sami Raatikainen
Origin	Finland
Genres	Technical death metal
Occupation	Guitarist
Instrument	Guitar
Years active	2006 – present
Labels	Relapse Records
Website	http://www.necrophagist.de/

Sami Raatikainen (born January 7 1984, Hamina Finland), is a Finnish guitarist who plays for the German technical death metal band Necrophagist. He joined Necrophagist in 2006 after the departure of Christian Münzner. He also plays guitar in the Finnish technical death metal band Codeon and performs guitar, bass, keyboard and drums for his solo project Radiance.

Childhood

Sami got his first interest in hard music, in the age of 8, when he saw Lars Ulrich from Metallica. He wanted to play drums, but his father gave him a guitar. He is a quarter Russian, and Sami had family in Russia, and he speaks fluent Russian. Radiance During Necrophagist's extended downtime, Sami spent his time recording and producing a solo album called "The Burning Sun," under the project name Radiance. The entire album was written by Sami including the vocals and lyrics, but Mats Levén handled the vocal parts in recording. Additional info regarding the album, as well as an embedded player where the entire album can be streamed for free, can be found on the Radiance website.[1] Equipment

Sami uses an Amfisound custom Routa model. He uses ENGL SE's in Necrophagist due to Necrophagist endorsement deal with the company. He uses an ENGL Powerball in Codeon. Having recently become an Ibanez Guitars endorsee, Sami has started using an RG-Series 7 String on stage with Necrophagist. His RG-7 is satin black, with a Lo-Pro Edge tremolo system and active EMG-707 pickups. Sami is now using 7 String guitars on stage with Necrophagist in order to preview songs from their new album. He also purchased a custom neck-through RGD from Ibanez.

External links

• Radiance Official Website