Marko Paasikoski — born in Finland in 1978 — is a founding musician of Sonata Arctica: he played guitar in the initial line-up and later took up the bass, remaining in the band for more than a decade. He was there at the founding in 1996 in Kemi, and returned as bassist in time to record Silence (2001), Winterheart's Guild (2003), Reckoning Night (2004), Unia (2007), The Days of Grays (2009) and Stones Grow Her Name (2012) — that is, the whole phase that established Sonata Arctica in the international circuit and also the stylistic turn that followed. That double function — guitar and bass — is unusual and explains his staying power. In the fast power metal of the early records, the bass follows the guitar in unison, and someone who has played the higher instrument knows exactly how to articulate those figures. In the slower, harmonically ambiguous repertoire that came from Unia onwards, the bass gained room of its own and came to hold progressions that do not resolve predictably. He left the band in 2013, closing seventeen years of connection with the group since its founding.
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