Finnish SARCOFAGUS Guitarist Kimmo Kuusiniemi has posted two first ever videos, featuring his Flame Throwing guitar. Check them out below.

“Insane Rebels” features the Flame Throwing Guitar, which probably is the first of it’s kind in the world. The other song is “Deadly Game”. Both of the songs are from Sarcofagus “Envoy Of Death” album. They were recorded in Tampere by the Finnish main TV broadcaster YLE for a music programme called “Iltatähti” (Evening Star).

Kimmo Kuusniemi comments on the 1980 Sarcofagus TV appearance:

“This was the main (the only?) music show in Finnish TV in 1980s. We agreed to do two songs with them. They all got quite excited about the visual aspect of Sarcofagus. Usually TV appearances were done as fast as possible but we spent several days in the studio preparing and filming.

We had to go through all the pyro effects one by one to determine the SAFETY areas 🙂 The Flame Throwing Guitar was a very big issue, but I managed to persuade them to accept that it’s very unlikely that I would blow myself or the studio up with the gas. (The Flame Thrower mechanism was installed by an approved gas fitting company.)

With these two videos (Taken from the “Envoy Of Death” album) the YLE technical team tried to make the best possible music videos they could. They also devised a funny Pyramid trick which saw the presenter walk out of a Pyramid to introduce the band.”

Insane Rebels 1980 music video link:

Deadly Game 1980 music video link:

After this TV appearance Sarcofagus toured Finland with an unique stage show which included the flame throwing guitar, pyrotechnics, pyramids etc.

Guitarist Kimmo Kuusniemi talks about the 1980 period in the band’s history:

“The stage show was an integral part of our band, smoke and fire and all that… From the old days one incident comes to mind: we were playing at the summer festival with a British band called Bad Manners, and were allowed to use their back line. The flame thrower guitar leaked some extra liquid gas onto the stage, which gloriously caught on fire… Looked amazing! No harm done since the gas burns away in seconds – but we did scare the shit out of the Bad Manners’ road crew!”

After this TV appearance the Flame Thrower Guitar was used in the 1982 full album length video for the “Moottorilinnut” (Motorbirds) album. The song is called “Elävien Hautausmaa” (Cemetery For The Living).

Elävien Hautausmaa (Cemetery For The Living) 1982 video:

Then there was a long period of time when the Flame Thrower Guitar was stored away. In 2009 guitarist Kimmo Kuusniemi made an info video about “How to make a flame thrower guitar” where he explains the principle of the guitar’s gas system:

“How to make a flame thrower guitar” video:

Sarcofagus guitarist Kimmo Kuusniemi comments about the future of the Flame Thrower Guitar:

“The Flame throwing guitar is still in use and the good news is that the gas bottles are now better than ever, the flame is double the size! I have used it on two new videos which will be released soon.

The latest and last filming session was here in UK at an old monument. It was filmed by using an Octocopter flying camera. The footage looks amazing, this was also the first time it was filmed in daylight.

It is time for the Flame Thrower Guitar to retire as I’m now focusing on new Sarcofagus music with a new lineup.

Rest assured when Sarcofagus is on stage next time I’ll have something new and weird for the show as I will use my knowhow as a film maker to add new elements to the stage act, so the show will go on.
 
I am selling the Flame Throwing Guitar on Ebay to raise money for the new Sarcofagus projects.”