| Influences: | Don Airey Jon Lord Rick Wakeman |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fav. albums: | Rainbow: Rising Black Sabbath: Eternal Idol |
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| Fav. books: | Rock ‘n’ roll documentaries | ||||
| Fav. movies: | The first three Star Wars movies | ||||
| Fav. drinks: | Beer, long drinks, White Russian drink | ||||
| Best Tarot Show: | Thunder Roadhouse/Helsinki | ||||
| Fav. Tarot song: | All! | ||||
| Fav. song from Gravity of Light: | Hell Knows | ||||
| Perversions: | Pussy lover bueno! | ||||
| Slogan: | In a shitbag could be a great lunch! | ||||
| Other band(s): | Turmion Kätilöt Eternal Tears of Sorrow Marenne |
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| Gear: | Main boards: Korg Hammond Organ + Sound Modules
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1. WHEN AND HOW DID YOU START PLAYING YOUR INSTRUMENT?
When I was at the age
of 7 (1977), my parents bought me a
piano and I started to play. Later in
that year I went to first class to music
school in Helsinki, where I spent next
3 years, I also took private piano lessons.
After that we moved to a little village
to Vuolijoki, near by Kajaani and there
wasn't any music school that time, so
I continued my lessons by private piano
teacher for couple years.
At the age of 13 my mother bought me
a first synth, I think that was Korg
Poly 800. That was an incredible experience.
Hey! That machine had more than only
f***ing one sound!
In same year I went to play my big brother's
band, he played the drums in that band.
So that's how my band career started.
2. HAVE YOU TAKEN ANY PIANO/SYNTH LESSONS? HOW OFTEN YOU PRACTICE OR USED TO PRACTICE?
I used to practice a couple
of hours a day. Now I have my own studio
and I do commercial music for TV and
radio between playing rock music, and
I play in some different projects. So
I play all the time.
3. HOW DID YOU END UP IN TAROT?
That's a long story. In
1987 when Tarot was playing gigs nearby
my village, I was there almost every
time. I took a terrible drunkenness and
after their gigs I always went to backstage
to spoke shit and crap to tell them
that I play keys. Guys didn't believe.
Many times I was sleeping in their bus
on the floor with a lot of empty bottles
and all kind of shit around. Every morning
my clothes was full of shit and that
went on and on. There was a piano in
a some gig place and I tried to play
the Rose On The Grave riff, of course
I was drunken. Zac said maybe that drunken
guy can play something. By my behavior,
even the band's one technicians said,
if that drunker comes in the band, he
won't work with Tarot anymore, so it
was a difficult situation.
One day Zac called me and asked if wanted
to come to the rehearsals. I was shaking
and I almost got a heart attack when
I went to the first rehearsal. Well,
I was their Biggest fan and the guys
were there and they were famous! Happy
End! And still we ride!!!
4. THE BEST PART OF BEING A MUSICIAN?
I really don't want to
wake up until it's midday, actually
that was before I got my little boy,
but now on I try get back on the saddle
for the band.
I can travel to many different places
to play the music I love and we get
some free booze allright! The crowd
screaming is the best way to make a
gig going great.
5. WHICH ALBUM ALONG IT'S TOURS ETC. BRINGS OUT THE BEST MEMORIES TO YOU?
For The Glory Of
Nothing session and the tour. That's
the only
that I remember
just
kidding! Well
it was the summer
in 1997. We were recording our album
at Suomenlinna/Seawolf Studios. Summer
was f***ing hot and we did drinks a
lot! We slept 2 weeks on the kitchen
floor at Marco's place in Helsinki.
Every day we went to the studio about
ten o'clock in the morning with a terrible
hangover. First of all we bought some
ciders called Code from the nearest
store to get some fix! Sometime in the
evening there was a sign in the store's
window "Code sold out"! F***ing
great! That was the way how the whole
summer went on and we had really good
time. Somehow the recording sessions
went right in the schedule and we played
brilliantly.
After the recording and the mixing sessions,
I went to Los Angeles in autumn for
mastering the "Cake". Flight
was about eight hours and the first
stop was in New York. I had been drinking
enough and I thought nothing more before
L.A. But when I sat in the plane again,
some rabbi sat beside of me and he mumbled
something supernatural for an hour,
so second thought and the show must
go on! Rest of the flight was in twilight
zone, ha, ha! I had some Warhead singles
with me and when I woke up one was missing,
so maybe I gave him one for the road?
I spent my time at Jussi Tegelman's
house, who had arranged the mastering
in the studio called Master Lab. There
was more equipment than you can find
in Mustamaki square Estonia, ha, ha,
and all those machines looked like the
missing parts of Thsernobyl! Really
big knobs here and there. After the
first shock I understood that they couldn't
be totally shitty, because Metallica,
Pink Floyd and M. Jackson had used this
place for good.
When the work was done, we visited in
Tijuana, Mexico. I bought some metalman
stuff, boots and mescal. In the flight
back to Finland I decided to be sober
half of the flight, ha!
All right
one story left
we
toured Finland round and round, almost
every place crowd went nuts and after
every gig something funny and crazy
happened.
We were in the city called Oulu, after
the gig party in the hotel, there was
an aquarium in the hallway. In that
thing there was the biggest sucking
fish I've ever seen. Ignoring the boys'
warnings, I thought what would happen
if I catched it and I put my
you know what
in its mouth. Fortunately
it stayed only in my dreams, I reached
my hand and slipped almost in to the
aquarium. In that condition I couldn't
catch even a turtle in the Sahara, so
there I was soaking wet and the hotel
floor got it too. I hope the hotel staff
didn't notice the thing???