Some context: Art Bell III was born in Jacksonville, North Carolina, to Arthur Bell, Jr., a United States Marine Corps captain, and Jane Gumaer Bell, a Marine drill instructor. Arthur Bell, Jr. died in 2000, and Jane Bell died December 23, 2008. Bell has always been interested in radio, and at the age of 13 became a licensed amateur radio operator. Bell now holds an Amateur Extra Class license, which is in the top U.S. Federal Communications Commission license class.
During the early 1970s, Bell lived in Watsonville, California and worked for KIDD 630 AM in Monterey, California. He also worked for KMST channel 46. First a rock music disc jockey before moving into talk radio, Bell's original 1978 late-night Las Vegas program on KDWN was a political call-in show under the name West Coast AM. In 1988, Bell and Alan Corberth renamed the show Coast to Coast AM and moved its broadcast from the Plaza Hotel in Las Vegas to Bell's home in Pahrump. Bell abandoned conventional political talk in favor of topics such as gun control and conspiracy theories, leading to a significant bump in his overnight ratings. The show's focus again shifted significantly after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. Many in the media did not want to be blamed for inciting anti-government or militia actions like the bombing. Subsequently, Bell discussed off-beat topics like the paranormal, the occult, UFOs, protoscience and pseudoscience. During his tenure at KDWN Bell met and married his third wife, Ramona, who later handled production and management duties for the program. According to The Washington Post in its February 23, 1997 edition, Bell was at the time America's highest-rated late-night radio talk show host, broadcast on 328 stations. According to The Oregonian in its June 22, 1997 edition, Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell was on 460 stations. At its initial peak in popularity, Coast to Coast AM was syndicated on more than 500 radio stations and claimed 15 million listeners nightly. Bell's studios were located in his home in the town of Pahrump, located in Nye County, Nevada; hence the voice-over catchphrase, "from the Kingdom of Nye".
Was this show successful?
A: Bell was at the time America's highest-rated late-night radio talk show host,
Some context: Sonata Arctica is a Finnish power metal band from the town of Kemi, Finland. Created as a hard rock band named Tricky Beans, they later changed to Tricky Means and finally to Sonata Arctica, when they shifted to power metal. The current line-up consists of singer, keyboardist and songwriter Tony Kakko, guitarist Elias Viljanen, bass guitarist Pasi Kauppinen, keyboardist and keytarist Henrik Klingenberg, and drummer Tommy Portimo. All the musicians of the band's history except Portimo also acted as backing vocalists.
The band was founded by Marko Paasikoski (guitar), Jani Liimatainen (guitar) and Tommy Portimo (drums) in Kemi at the end of 1995 (Tony Kakko (vocals) and Pentti Peura (bass) joined in early 1996). Originally named Tricky Beans, they played hard rock rather than the power metal with which they grew to fame. Kakko explained that when he was invited to join the band, Paasikoski said the band was going to play "a mixture of Megadeth and Spin Doctors". During their early career, they recorded three demos which were never sent to a recording label -- Friend 'til the End, Agre Pamppers and PeaceMaker. According to Kakko, the band's first name was based on one of their early songs, which was "about a lady who was tricky and I didn't really know what I was talking about (laughs)". Their first show was about to take place but they were still unnamed, so they had to come up with something. In 1997 the band changed their name to Tricky Means, and from that point until 1999 their style was thoroughly worked upon and ultimately was drastically changed, acquiring a strong emphasis on the keyboard melodies and relying on an easily distinguishable rhythm line maintained both by the bass and the guitar. Vocalist Tony Kakko developed a clean singing style which relies both on falsetto and tenor voices. Kakko has stated that the change of sound was influenced by fellow Finnish power metal band Stratovarius. At that time, Pentti Peura was fired and Marko Paasikoski left due to a lack of gigging. Two months later the band got signed to a three-album deal with Spinefarm, which left Marko displeased. The band finally changed their name to Sonata Arctica, because they thought they wouldn't be able to sell metal albums with the previous name and also because Spinefarm asked them to do so. "Sonata Arctica" was suggested by a friend of the band: "sonata" for the music and "arctica" for their home (Kemi, in Northern Finland). In 1997, they recorded a demo entitled FullMoon in Kemi's Tico Tico Studios, which was their first real metal recording. The line-up consisted of vocalist and keyboardist Tony Kakko, guitarist Jani Liimatainen, new bassist Janne Kivilahti (who started first as second guitarist) and drummer Tommy Portimo. The demo was sent to Spinefarm Records by a friend of the band and a recording deal soon followed.
Who founded the group?
A:
founded by Marko Paasikoski (guitar), Jani Liimatainen (guitar) and Tommy Portimo (drums) in Kemi at the end of 1995 (Tony Kakko (vocals) and Pentti Peura (bass)