The Finnish blues player reveals a new prototype guitar and a fondness for Eric Johnson Stratocasters…
What was the first serious guitar you bought with your own money?
“My father bought me my first guitar, actually. It was an Aria Pro II, you know, a kind of a Les Paul model. But the first guitar I bought myself was a red American Standard Stratocaster. So there was quite a difference between those two guitars, I think that changed my guitar playing back then.This was a really long time ago!
“I started to learn guitar with the Aria. It was quite a heavy guitar, but I liked it. It was beautiful and the tone was quite sweet and warm as those humbucker guitars usually are. I was around 14 or 15 years old and I had a background as a violin player, so I knew a lot of theory and all that. When I was around 15, my parents asked me to join their band, so I started at quite an early age. So, in a way, that was my first band.”
What’s the last guitar you bought?
“My latest is from Ruokangas Guitars, a Finnish brand. We have been making this signature guitar for me and this is kind of a prototype, which I really like. I ended up playing almost all my guitar solos on my latest album [Waiting For The Daylight] with it. It has a smaller neck than on my Eric Johnson Stratocaster, which I use all the time when
I play around Europe and so on. It just instantly felt really good in my hands. I’m quite petite and I noticed I started to play differently. I started to play more challenging stuff with it as well. So after all the decades I’ve been playing electric guitar, I’ve discovered something new.”
What is the most incredible find or bargain you’ve ever had when buying gear?
“I was teaching in a school for a little while and they had these instruments in storage. I saw this really beautiful yellow Tokai S-type that looked like it had been abandoned.At that time I was thinking it would be nice to get to know guitars better and maybe have a project guitar. So I said to the head teacher,‘There’s this old electric guitar. Is it possible to maybe buy it from the school so I can fix it?’And she was like,‘It’s old stuff, you can have it and just take it home.’
“It’s a Tokai from the 80s and it’s really amazing. In fact, it’s my favourite on shows nowadays. I simply love the tone of it, it has a lot of power and energy. So I was really lucky with that.”
