About me
I was born in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1978. When I was four years old my family moved back to Finland to
our roots in Ostrobothnia. I grew up in the village of Bennäs outside Jakobstad – the musical Mecca of
Finland. I graduated from senior high school in 1997 and began studying electric engineering and
refrigeration technology. I am now qualified to work in both fields. I married my beloved Mia on a day of
thunder in august, 2004. During the years of 2004-2009 we lived in Turku on the southwest shore of
Finland. Mia studied theology at the Åbo Akademi University while I worked as a refrigeration technician.
Those were intense years when all time of our spare time revolved around music. When Mia was ordained
to be a priest we moved to Borgå, on the east side of Helsinki, where we live today.
Musical background
Music has been my passion since I was eleven years old, when I got my first guitar. I was inspired by Jimi
Hendrix Experience, Mötley Crüe, Guns ‘n Roses and Bee Gees. I took guitar lessons for private teachers for
a couple of years and then I was enrolled at the Musical Institute in Jakobstad. I spent five fruitful years in
the Institute’s pop- and jazz department. The band camp at the institute was like a second home to me.
Trough my studies there I discovered bands like Rush, Queen, Pink Floyd, Janne Schaffer, Steve Vai, Deep
Purple and Uriah Heep.
In 1997 I founded my first band, Tinnitus. The band played Christian heavy and did just under 40 gigs in
Finland and Sweden. Tinnitus contributed to the American “HM - Hard Music Compilation” with the hit
Why should I fear? from the album “Veritas” (1999). The band also released “Iron Will” (1997), “Human
Creation” and “2000 years” (2000) and contributed to the album “Finnish Metal Compilation Vol. 2”. After
six years the band put an end to its ear-splitting career with a tour in Southern Finland in the year of 2003.
Apart from Tinnitus I also put together a praise band which served in our congregation in Jakobstad and in
neighboring congregations. During these years I wrote a few praise songs myself, of which some were
recorded at the album “Ledstjärnan” (“Lodestar”). When I moved to Åbo I continued praising with Nanna
Rosengård and Joel Isaksson, among others.
Around the turn of the millennium I invested in my first set of audio equipment and began recording. I
recorded both my own songs and my friends’. Infinite possibilities opened out. I was developing by leaps
and bounds as a composer, musician and sound technician. I had a good cooperation with other musicians
from Jakobstad, for example with the Cajunga, a band with whom I made my first appearance on national
TV. Another band who recorded in my studio in Jakobstad was Altaria. Altaria recorded some backing
tracks for their record “Invitation” in my studio and I assisted them with the composition for the upcoming
album. Even though I enjoyed working with Finnish stars such as Jani Liimatainen (Sonata Arctica) and
Emppu Vuorinen (Nightwish) I felt the effort outweighed the benefits and I left the band. The two guitarists
also quit the band shortly thereafter.
My cooperation with the Cajunga continued when we all moved to Åbo. Joel Isaksson and Oskar Nyman
from the Cajunga and I released the rock album “Dear John” in 2008. Around the time of the release we
also recorded a low-budget video, Sexual Fusion, which was our entry in the Voice Garage Countdown.
In Åbo I was immediately picked up by the rock band Skin Deep. The band played pop- and rock songs on
pubs and clubs in Åbo and the cities nearby. Around that time the tracks of my recording studio multiplied
by four, and the effect rack grew by about one meter. Mia and I got to know each other better as
composers. We played together and wrote songs from dusk to dawn at our home by the Aura riverbank.
The year of 2007 went entirely to writing, recording and releasing Christmas time (in finnish Joulun Tähti).
The song was elected as the official Christmas hit at the FM Gold radio in Belgium. It was also frequently
played by Finnish radio channels, and is still a Christmas favorite in Finland.
In the end of 2008 the congregation in Åbo asked me to arrange a heavy metal mass. A heavy metal mass is
a mass where the traditional church music has been re-arranged into metal and is played by a heavy metal
band. This had already been done by a Finnish-speaking group and I was now asked to do the same for the
Swedish-speaking people in Finland. I gathered some friends and put together a band for this cause. I also
picked out some hymns and liturgical parts with potential for metal. The first metal mass in Swedish in
Finland took place in a parking grotto in central Åbo in November of 2008. The grotto was crowded. The
national TV-channel YLE made a short documentary on the event and almost every radio and newspaper
has reported on the cultural event. Every time we arrange a mass the church is packed and many of the
mass attendees come forth and say “At last!” Because of this grand reception we decided to record the
music from the mass in a studio and release “Himmelsväg” (“Way to heaven”). The record was released in
the beginning of 2010 and is now distributed by Fontana Media. A handful of metal masses are presently
booked. I believe this is phenomenon is here to stay.
On the side
A band and a studio need audio equipment. A natural side of music is therefore sound engineering. Along
the way I bought some loudspeakers and peripherals. As time went by I put together enough equipment to
manage all sorts of happenings. I soon realized that one can make a living as a sound technician, so I began
hiring out my audio equipment and working as a soundengineer.