Janne Parikka

Member in bands

JANNE PARIKKA IS CURRENT MEMBER IN

Biography

My musical history begins from the time when I was about seven years old. Then my awareness of music arose. Ever since I've listened to many kinds of music, and my favorites have varied from time to time. Back then they were "a bit" lighter and easier, I could say. More like typical kids' songs.

When I was ten years old, my favorite was Offspring. At the same time I also got interested in playing some instrument, and after trying out the crappy bass at school, my decision was obvious. It just had that 'mojo' that really excited me. And the sound... stunning. And that you could almost feel your liver go upside down after plucking the low 'E'... wow. The next Christmas I got my own bass guitar from my parents, and I really started to explore the musical field right away.

Soon after I got my own bass guitar, my good friend from school, Tuukka and I decided to form a band. We started by covering Nirvana (our drummer's favorite), Metallica (both Tuukka's and my favorite at the time), and a few others. It sure was fun, though not maybe very target-oriented. The band existed for a few years, but it never really came up with a proper name. We had two or three own songs by the time when our interest for playing together came to an end. It was extremely good practice for more serious band playing which followed in the future.

My next band was a little more earnest, although we also played covers for quite a long period of time. We played songs from groups such as

,

,

and

. This band really made me improve my playing skills, since the songs we covered had a lot more difficult riffs than anything I had ever played before. I was invited to the band by guitarist

and drummer

(who plays with

in

side project now). Soon we noticed that we were acking something; a secong guitar. I suggested we could ask Tuukka, with whom I had been playing before. We asked Tuukka to join us, and he gladly did. After Tuukka came along the band took a major step forward. Soon after, we also came up with our own songs and started doing some gigs. Before we started gigging we knew we had to have a singer. We came up with

, who was Matti's and Antti's friend from school. We also came up with a name for the band:

. This was the time I first met Juho and got to know him. Juho did not stay with us for very long, but long enough for a few gigs with him. The band didn't last, and we parted in a well mannered order. Actually, it is partially thanks to this band I met Kari. He was at our gig, and we talked for a moment afterwards. He really liked the way I played and asked if I was interested in jamming with him. I gladly agreed and before we noticed, we were spending numerous hours at both our training cribs with variable lineups just having plain fun.

If we hadn't met then, we probably would never have been started jamming together. Which was clearly an essential point when PP was recruiting a bassist.

At the time when I played in Crow's Stir I also played in a band called

. It was slightly mellower than any of the material I had played before despite the fact that at the beginning we played

-covers. But soon our style evolved into more easier, moodier and acoustic style, which was all new to me. I really enjoyed this new style I needed to learn to play. It surely has affected my playing style somehow. I guess it especially shows in the lighter parts of Pressure Points' music.

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