Monthly Archives: January 2014

TUSKA, Tero Kinnunen and circle of life

It is funny how in life, things always happen for a reason. And if you leave the doors that matter open, things from the past will play a part in your present.

A funny story happened to me last summer. This story takes its roots sometime in year 2002 and is still going on today.

When I came back from mökki* on the week-end of TUSKA festival, a nice surprise was awaiting me:  an invitation to the festival from my dear friend Samppa.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Luckily it was not too late for me to catch the last 2 bands: Stratovarius and Nightwish. So I exchanged my jeans for darker clothes and I hurried towards Suvilahti for some good heavy metal moment.

The logo of Tuska Metal Festival, in Helsinki
The logo of Tuska Metal Festival, in Helsinki

Stratovarius were already on stage when I arrived and they were on fire, obviously enjoying themselves, together with their new drummer Rolf Pilve.
I made my way through the stands of greasy makkarat*, happy headbangers and beer drinkers and I watched the show for a while.

Matias Kupiainen from Stratovarius. Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org
Matias Kupiainen from Stratovarius. Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org

In between two of Matias Kupiainen’s guitar soli, a silhouette caught my attention from the corner of my left eye. The silhouette of a friend I had not met in years: Tero Kinnunen, going up the stairs to the main stage, and to getting it ready for Nightwish.

I met Tero for the first time in studio Finnvox.
Since then my fire and his ice have clashed and intertwined several times. Each and every time some special chemistry happened, that was somehow too extreme to be caught.

Tero Kinnunen

We met again later that night. It felt both strange and familiar to exchange news of our lives. As we drank our Karhu beers Tero said it was a funny coincidence we had met precisely that day. Because three weeks earlier he had found again my Ep “Precious Moment” and since then, these 4 songs were the only ones he’d been listening to, again and again.

EP

I did not linger for too long that evening and I went home to bed.

I awoke the next morning with a feeling that life had sent me a sign. How silly would it be not to catch it.. So I sent a message to Tero, suggesting that if he likes my work so much, and since I like his, we could work together on my new album… His reply came, filled with positivity.

The exchange of energy between passionate people around a same piece of art is one of the strongest I know. It is the core of a wave that grows bigger and bigger when a public join in. It breaks walls down and it propagates freedom and beauty in our world, like a tsunami, feared by dictatorships.

*Source: mages-in.centerblog.net Alfons Mucha was an actor of the Art Nouveau movement that started in Austria in the late 19th century, in reaction to the academic art. Art nouveau then spread in Belgium, in France and in the rest of Europe; then outside Europe. A breath of freedom from brave artists against established rules.
*Source: mages-in.centerblog.net
Alfons Mucha belongs to the Art Nouveau movement that spread in and from Europe in the end of the 19th century. A breath of freedom from artists against the established codes.

*mökki: means summer cottage in finnish language. In most cases to be found around one of the finnish thousand lakes. In this photo, the water of lac Päijänne, the same water that we drink in Helsinki.
*makkara: means sausage in finnish language.