Jarkko Ahola

Member in bands

JARKKO AHOLA IS CURRENT MEMBER IN

Biography

Early Phase

Born in 1977 in Toijala, Finland
Full name: Jarkko Kalevi Ahola
Didn't show too much intrest on music in his early years but was gifted artistically and willing to perform plays and "shows" with his friends
Got excited about drums in the age of 13 and wanted to learn more about them
Soon concentrated on singing 'cause his first band needed a singer
First band was called JVS but soon changed its name into Tribunes
After their first official demo, Tribunes soon broke up and J had to take a little break with his microphone (he was about 15 years old this time)

High Voltage Phase

Couple of months went without singing a single note but fortunately Antti Mäkelä asked Jarkko to join his band called High Voltage
High Voltage was first (as you might anticipate) influenced by AC/DC, Antti's favorite band that time. But soon was to be more melodic and a bit progressive
The line up was:
Krisse Leppänen - Bass
Jouni Salonen - Rhythm Guitar
Jani Peltonen - Lead Guitar
Antti Mäkelä - Drums and composing
Jarkko Ahola - Vocals, lyrics and melodies

High Voltage did four demo tapes and the last of them is still good rock music
The band didn't really broke up - if it really was never there. People just had something else to do and slowly the whole thing passed away

Bulldozer Phase

The first true band for J was called Bulldozer
For the first time Jarkko had a chance to write his own songs and after this chance and change he has been writing his own songs
Bulldozer was:
Ville Lehtinen - Bass
Kim Högberg - Guitar and Vocals
J.Ahola - Vocals

The band had few drummers, the most legendary of them was Tommi Takku and the most known and special was Heikki Malmberg (Diablo's hammering man nowadays)
They played few good and few bad gigs. The problem was sometimes the drummer or just being in a wrong place in a wrong time
The band did two good demos called Bulldozer and Love/Hate (the second as Bulldozer.com because of the name problem)
Bulldozer also won one local band contest
"Bullikka" broke up for many different reasons, for example: lack of players & time and problems in personal chemistry
Anyway, they played several years together and had a good time. Bulldozer is remembered - rest in peace
Love/Hate is still available from www.horppana.com/inc/bulldozer.com

Coverband Phase

After bouncing here and there, J and two guys from High Voltage (Antti Mäkelä and Krisse Leppänen) founded a coverband called Helmisetti. The idea was to play good cover songs with good vibes.
Soon Antti's girlfriend Virpi joined to supplement the band, so, there were actually two line ups:
J.Ahola - Vocals and Bass
Antti Mäkelä - Guitar
Krisse Leppänen - Drums
...or
Virpi Kamppuri - Vocals
Antti - Guitar
J.Ahola - Drums
Krisse - Bass

Helmisetti has become a tradition - the guys play a small gig few times a year just for fun

During the Love/Hate -session, Jami Katajisto (the recording engineer), got intrested in J's voice as a guitarist himself.
They formed a guitar duo called Two and did many gigs
Getting bored to "not so rocking" acoustic music they decided to expand Two into a rock band
Heikki Ahonen joined the band as drummer and J started playing bass
Two -band did several gigs and played together for a nice while
Their program held inside a huge variety of songs from Roy Orbison hit You Got It to Ronnie James Dio classic Holy Diver
Band broke up in 2002 for personal reasons

J played in a band called Critical Mess which concentrated also into cover music
J really didn't like to hang around because the band was inclined to run for nothing new
Critical Mess had good guys on control, though, so there was really no problem when Jarkko left the band
J wanted to form a band with CM bassist Pate Laitinen and it got a good start with the guys from Pillars Of The Past
At first they did few quality cover gigs as X-tasy playing the greatest songs of hard rock history, like Fireball, You Keep On Moving, Easy Livin' and Burn
The X-tasy was:
Timo Niemistö - Guitar
Pate Laitinen - Bass
Antti Hakulinen - Keyboards
Jari Kuokkanen - Drums
J.Ahola - Vocals

Unfortunately things didn't go as planned, 'cause too many people had their own "dream band" in target
Guys are keeping in touch, though

A band called Dreamtale asked Jarkko to join their band 'cause they were in need of new singer and at the time J had nothing big going on, so he said yes...
Dreamtale released album called "Difference" with J, but soon after this their paths separated 'cause of J's hurries and worries.

J.Ahola Phase

During the cover sessions J wanted to write his own music. He felt pretty empty with the cover stuff
So did born J.Ahola demos Hold and Blind
Hold was an attemp to write more poppier rock songs and he did pretty well. Unfortunately he didn't have too much knowledge of producing, so Hold sounds very much home/self made
J's friend Ville started this page and has been a great help ever since (and before of course!)
Next J wanted to write classic 80's heavy metal and Blind is the result. It sounds better than Hold and many guys thought that heavy was the thing for J - but J himself wasn't so assured.
J's next goal was to write blues rock music. Down was finished in the beginning of 2003.
He was satisfied with songs like Down and The Moment but artificial drums started to be a real problem

The Present

J has been trying to keep his own favorite group, Cosmic Spell, together
There is actually no chemistry problems and the players are great. The problem is just long distance between the guys and ...surprise - lack of time
Despite of these problems, Cosmic Spell has done four song demo with the sounds of classic rock. Few newer drum and bass tracks are also waiting. And new "Poles Apart" has just been released
At the time, Cosmic Spell is:
Heikki Ahonen - Drums
Ville Terämä - Bass
J.Ahola - Vocals, Guitar and Synths

J has also formed a finnish "true heavy metal" band called Teräsbetoni with his friends Arto Järvinen and Vili Rantanen. They have released one demo and people seem to love it or hate it - or should we say that the bands visual look seems to affect on people's opinions...
Well... Now, this band is totally rocking and it's known around Finland and their album has also been released in Germany.
The second album "Vaadimme metallia" is out and the band is on the road again!

Top of page