Jukka Karinen

I started taking classical piano lessons at the age of six and had grown frustrated enough to quit it when I turned 14. In a few months after quitting, I discovered a guy called Jens Johansson first with Stratovarius, and shortly after that, Yngwie Malmsteen. It was time to form the first band with my friends. Suddenly playing piano was not that disgusting either and rehearsing continued. My first piece of equipment, not counting the real piano, was some Roland keyboard which at some point was replaced by XP 30 synthesizer from the same producer. This great band was called Discord or Dischord, depending on who wrote the name. The two demos that we recorded both bore different band names on the covers.

In 2003 I moved to Tampere and found a cool band which was later named Status Minor. Admiration of technical virtuosity in power metal had been replaced by equally great admiration of technical virtuosity in progressive metal. Dream Theater, Symphony X, Pain of Salvation and such were my heroes at the time. Equipment-wise this period was spent with Kurzweil synths: K2500, and later THE K2600XS that I bought from Jordan Rudess in his summer auction. That was one of the coolest things ever.

In summer 2007 I was bored. Status Minor was going to record one more demo song but with the soon-to-come changes in line-up, the situation didn't look too good. I decided to join a band called Mantra X to play some more progressive metal. I had already tried my wings in an improvisational theatre band, done more than a few wedding, graduation and whatever-you-name-it gigs and all kinds of various stuff outside of the metal genre to get the feeling of going somewhere with music.

In August 2007, Status Minor went to Helsinki to record a demo. The studio had to be a great one so we picked Sonic Pump, a studio where Nino happens to be the studio manager. This was right when Thunderstone had been left without a keyboard guy and was leaving for a European tour in less than 2 months. Luckily for me, Sonic Pump had a sauna and I just had to stay overnight because I'd never had sauna in a studio before. One thing led to another and a few weeks later Nino called me and asked if I would like to spend a few drunken weeks in a bus with him and some other dudes.

After replying "Fuck yeah!", I have done a bunch of nice things. I had a fun tour and got to know some fantastic people. Some time later I was no longer called a substitute but a real member and we started recording Dirt Metal. Kurzweil was replaced by Korg. Status Minor's line-up finally stabilized and we got the long-awaited record deal, providing me with a huge amount of music to play all of a sudden. I no longer found time for Mantra X and luckily they got a new guy to play the black and white blocks.

Now that the kick-ass album called Dirt Metal is ready, I'm ready to conquer the world... or at least have tons of fun making the attempt!

The best Thunderstone gig I've played was Moscow, 17th April 2009 while the best Thunderstone gig I've seen from the audience was Helsinki, 29th December 2007. And the best gig I've seen from other bands would probably be Pain of Salvation in Helsinki, 2007.