Ari Koivunen (born 7 June 1984) is a Finnish heavy metal singer who rose to fame as the winner of the Finnish singing competition Idols in 2007. He was the vocalist of the Finnish heavy metal band Amoral from 2008 to 2017. Beside he has worked with many musical projects already before and also after Amoral disbanded. Early life Ari Koivunen was born in Kouvola on 7 June 1984 and developed an early interest in music. In 2005, he won the Finnish Karaoke Championships, and was placed third in the Karaoke World Championships the same year. The win of the Finnish "Idols" competition was his breakthrough in 2007. Unlike usual the pop music that dominated the show, he chose to perform mainly metal and rock songs in the contest. Career Ari Koivunen band (2007–2009) Ari Koivunen's debut album, Fuel for the Fire, was officially released on 30 May 2007, although the album had already been released for download on 21 May. The songs for the album were written by a number of Finnish metal musicians and songwriters such as Janne Joutsenniemi (SubUrban Tribe, Stone), Jarkko Ahola (Teräsbetoni), Marko Hietala (Nightwish, Tarot), Timo Tolkki (Stratovarius) and Tony Kakko (Sonata Arctica), among others. The album was recorded with Tuomas Wäinölä (Kotipelto, Nylon Beat), Mikko Kosonen (Maija Vilkkumaa), Nino Laurenne (Thunderstone), Mirka Rantanen (Thunderstone), Mikko Kaakuriniemi (Kotipelto), Pasi Heikkilä (45 Degree Woman) and Janne Wirman (Children of Bodom). The first single, Hear My Call, was released on 11 May 2007. The video for the song was directed and produced by Jaakko Manninen & Kusti Manninen. During the first week of sales Fuel for the Fire jumped immediately to the top of the official album chart, and by 7 June 2007 it had already achieved platinum status with over 40,000 albums sold. Koivunen's album was one of the fastest selling records in Finnish music history, with over 10,000 copies sold in the first week of sales. Fuel for the Fire remained the number one album in Finland for twelve weeks after its release. The album reached double-platinum status (60,000 units) in October 2007. Fuel for the Fire was released in Japan in October 2007. "Ari Koivunen" band was put together in spring 2007 mainly from people Ari had known for a longer time. Their first concert together took place in May 2007. In the first year the group played over 100 gigs. On 11