Timo Lehtinen - Bass
I was born in Oulu in the same year that Lasse Viren won olympic gold from both the 5,000 and 10,000 meter events and Rainbow released their second album "Rising".
I got in to metal music when I was just a little kid. One time when we went to a local mall I saw a tape at the music department that had haggard looking men grining on the cover. I was quite an imp so buying that kind of tape seemed like a good idea. That tape was Twisted Sister's "Under the Blade", and when I put it on I was like, "Woah! This is good stuff!". After that I got myself records from bands like Kiss, WASP, Mötley Crüe, G'n'R and so on.
I got my first instrument when I was in elementary school. I've been told that back then I used to shout my lungs out while playing air guitar. So acoustic guitar was an obvious choice to me. Of course I couldn't play anything for real so I just strummed the hell out of it. The one day at my school I saw an ad that said that they were looking for students to music lessons. Of course I got interested and went there with my new guitar. There they gave me notes to be learned and I was like, "WTF! I came here to play, not to read!". After that I didn't play for ten years, until my school's best guitarist came to me when they needed a substitute bassist to a school play and just said, "Start practicing! I'll show how to play.". Little bit hesitating but more eager I took the challenge. We played only two songs. First was Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall" and the other was some song from Pyhät Nuket, can't remember what song. During that gig I mostly stood behind the stage curtain and bass cabinet hiding, but after the first song I heard the crowd cheer so I had to step forward and check that were they really applauding for us. That is how I got started as a bass player. Six months later I was playing in a black metal band and at some point I was in five different bands at the same time.
I bought my first bass in 1995 which was Tokai Hard bundcher and as soon as possible changed passive mics to it. After that I had to get bass amps. I saw an ad in the newspaper that said, "Slightly used MesaBoogies for sale.". I bought MesaBoogie Bass 400 head and cabinet. The guy who sold them is now and still a good friend of mine and we change our bass related news almost every week. I ordered my second bass in the end of 1997 and it was done in march 1998 by J.A.K.-Soittimet by Jussi Alakuha (R.I.P). It was my first five string bass which I still use. Of course I have bought few more basses over the years but J.A.K. is my ace. I also still have the Mesas, but now I mostly play trough Ampegs.
The way I ended up in Kalmah didn't happen at cloudberry swamp nor hunting/fishing trip.(as easily could be thought) It happened little bit more traditionally. I was in Oulu playing a gig with Catamenia and Antti was there to see it. Pekka might have been there also, I'm not sure because my memories from that night are little blurry for some odd reason... That I do remember that after the gig Antti came to talk to me and at some point asked that if I was interested to play in Kalmah. I didn't hesitate with my answer because melodic death metal has always been close to my heart, so hell yes was I interested. I haven't regret that decision even once but I'm not sure about Antti and Pekka...
Pekka Kokko - Vocals & guitars
Antti Kokko - Lead guitars
Marco Sneck - Keyboards
Timo Lehtinen - Bass
Janne Kusmin - Drums
