WiszdomStone

Ray Luokka (Guitars) and Brian Noonan (Drums) have played in bands together since they were in high school, but after years of the music industry kicking them in the butt, they decided to join corporate America and get REAL jobs. After being away from music for quite a while, Ray got the hunger back and started writing songs again.
As fate would have it Brian and Ray crossed paths and it was only a matter of time before they were writing songs again. The cool thing is they were writing music to please themselves, which made it VERY enjoyable and easy. Shortly after, they decided to write songs and submit them to other artist in hope that someone might dig one of their songs enough to want to record it.
Their first opportunity to submit a song to an established artist came at Prog Power in Atlanta Georgia. Ray simply walked up to the artist and handed him a CD with their song "Without Faith" on it and told the artist that if if he liked the song it was his with NO strings attached. The artist was very nice and said he would check it out, but after Ray walked away he laid it down on a table and walked away. That was the first and last time the band tried to submit a song to anyone.
After that humbling experience Ray and Brian decided, why not just record a CD on their own and bring in various artist to perform on it. About a month after they started tracking the material in their home studio, Ray bumped into Mike Stone of Queensrÿche at the Guitar Center. Mike and Ray have known each other for years and after a little catching up, Mike offered to sing on a few songs for the them. The guys originally entered Mike's recording studio with the intention of recording 4 songs, but due to his busy, busy schedule, they were only able to finish two "Eyes Open" and "Without Faith" before Queensrÿche went back on the road. They were hoping to finish tracking the other two songs when Mike returned, but Queensrÿche decided to start working on Operation Mindcrime II and it was at that time that they realized that Mike just did not have the time to be bothered by them.
Brian and Ray kept working on new material and auditioned many many singers until they finally came across a guy named Jim Mahr who had a very clean high voice much like that of Michael Sweet of Stryper. They tracked a song called "The Blade" with Jim, which was the first song they ever recorded on their own. Jim was really professional and did a great job.
After catching one of André Beaudot's shows with a local cover band, Ray asked André if he would be interested in singing on a few songs for them and he said he would give it a try. The first song sent to André was "Unforgiven" and the guys found out very quickly that André had "IT"... The band posted a rough un-mastered mix of "Unforgiven" on their MySpace page and soon after, their friends list starting growing more rapidly then ever. They received numerous messages asking to buy their CD that did not exist, so they decided to put out a 4 song EP. Though the production on the EP was not very good, people seemed to like the songs.
Originally, Brian and Ray wanted to put out a CD much like Avantasia that would feature many different vocalist, but after working with André they knew they wanted him to be the voice of WiszdomStone. After a short phone call with André, it was official. WiszdomStone had a voice that would give it an identity of it's own.
Brian and Ray continued writing and tracking new material over a period of about two years and finally had enough material for a full-length CD, but people were getting impatient waiting for the release, so they released a second EP. The second EP "The Battle Rages" consisted of 5 songs; 'Unforgiven', 'Take This Cup', 'The Battle Rages', 'Floods And Fires', 'and The Sky Is Falling'. The production on the second EP was much better and soon after it's release, WiszdomStone started receiving much more airplay on Internet radio and college radio stations.
Though they received interest from several record labels, the band chose to finish the full-length CD on their own, so they would not have to compromise one note. The band's first full-length CD, "RISE", was finally finished and was officially released in June of 2009.