Pekka Kokko - Vocals & guitars
My mother gave birth to me in the summer of 1974. Since then the Finnish summer have played a great role in my life. The reason is that I’m a passionate fisherman and in the summer the fishing conditions are ideal. Especially in the early 80’s I when I was old enough to stay in a boat I used to spent my summer holidays on the lake. At the same time I became interested in hard rock. Back then the N.W.O.B. H.M. bands, especially Judas Priest made a huge impact on me. And I have to admit that I still got Kiss logo written on my first lure box. Despite of all those bloodthirsty mosquitoes that have sucked my blood during all those summers I would change none of them.
Another hobby that I have is hunting. I became a hunter right away as I was allowed to carry a gun. And I have to say I have written many lyrics while stalking ducks in the autumn dusk. Anyway, at the same time my voice became much lower and my balls went down. However, at the same time I let my hair grow and started to listen to more powerful music. The trash metal titans (Metallica, Megadeth) were my favorite bands. Well, I got myself a cassette copy of “Master of Puppets” back in the -86 but I was too young to realize what was going on. However, after those classic hard ’n’ heavy bands came Sepultura, Paradise Lost, Pantera etc. and god damned they really kicked my ass! But I have to say that black metal was definitely not for me. Even today I prefer trash metal bands and of course the old-school heavy metal bands and mainly their previous albums.
So, in the early 90’s I was a long-haired dude in high school. There were a bunch of guys that listened to the same metal bands. Sometimes somebody bought an LP and made a copy. And we used to spread cassette copies among each other. We didn’t have cds back then.
One day one of those guys called Anssi ‘The Guru’ came and asked me if I wanted to be a vocalist in his band. He has bought a guitar and started to write some riffs and he needed someone to use his voice. Well, I sounded cruel enough and we founded Ancestor. We asked Petri Sankala to be a drummer and he filled the vacancy. We didn’t have a bass player so I bought one and learned to play. Soon after we made our fist demo and felt enthusiastic. But it wasn’t a very huge success but at least it was a start! However, ‘The Guru’ choked on his beard and quitted. So, I made some firewood out of my log (bass) and bought a guitar. I practiced a lot and soon was ready to record another demo. Altti Veteläinen joined us and we recorded our second demo and some of those musical elements are still involved in our music. Meanwhile my brother Antti has started to play guitar. So I asked him if he wanted to join Ancestor and he wanted. So we started to write some music and made a couple of demos. Luckily we were able to get a recording contract and the rest is history. Kalmah’s history.
Pekka Kokko - Vocals & guitars
Antti Kokko - Lead guitars
Marco Sneck - Keyboards
Timo Lehtinen - Bass
Janne Kusmin - Drums
