Biography





Antti and Arttu met for the first time in the mid 80's in Tampere, Finland. Little did they know that in the future they would set up the greatest band in Finland (or in the whole wide world, ever!) Years went by like rolling stones and the boys found their own identities growing up with Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Humble Pie, The Beatles and other great rock artists. Antti started playing guitar and Arttu played drums. For the first time Antti heard Arttu play was at a christmas ceremony. Arttu was on the 6th grade back then. From that moment on the idea of the two guys playing in a same band was born. For many years the boys played in separate groups, until..
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It was the year 2007 when Antti introduced some songs to Arttu which he had written during the years. They had played with each other many times before, but Antti was too busy with his other bands during that time so that prevented them from playing together in the same group. Now that the time was favorable for that the guys played together like maniacs at the rehearsals dreaming about a band of their own. For about a year they were looking for new band members and at last they found the right guys, and the band Live Cycles was born. The group was a bigger than life thing for them and they thought they would give everything for it. Referring to Antti:

"It was totally awesome! Although our group was together only for a year and a half, it taught me so much as a musician. For that I have to give thanks to Hannu Tikkanen (who taught me some new ways to write songs and encouraged me to write lyrics, thank you Hannu!) and Aleksi Aaltonen (Btw The best bass player ever!), and of course to Arttu Raappana"

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After Aleksi left the band and Hannu moved back to nothern Finland, Antti and Arttu were all alone again. What now?

It was certain that the show must go on! Arttu and Antti were rehearsing again and taking advantage of all the tricks they had learnt during the Live Cycles times. Eventually the guys found Joonas to play the bass even though Joonas had told that he's actually a guitar player.. Antti and Joonas had played in a same band for a moment (from which both guys were fired) and Antti was sure that Joonas was the right man for the band and had the right kind of rock'n roll spirit. Referring to Antti and Arttu:

  "When Joonas stepped into Genre boots, we had a feeling that a long lost brother had arrived home." 

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The band started to look for a singer immediately and it seemed to take forever. Anttis sister knew a guy from Spain who is moving to Tampere in the near future. The guy was Fran Araujo Perez...

When Fran had settled to Tampere the boys persuaded him to come to the rehearsal. All you need is love sang The Beatles in 1967 and that it was from the first rehearsal. In 2011 Genre took part to a local band contest "Kukkona tunkiolla" and nailed the thing. The guys had a strong feeling that now they are on the right path.

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In the fall of 2011 Fran announced that he's moving back to Spain. This was a huge disappointment that left a big hole in the group. The band decided to keep on rocking anyway and soon they found Rino, who had played earlier in a same band (Oikosulku) with Antti. They had a few gigs together with Rino, until he told the sad news that he was leaving the band because of being too busy with other things in life. Meanwhile Fran had arrived back to Finland. One call to Fran and the thing was rolling like in the good old days. The band played many gigs and they took part in a national band contest (GBOB), where they made it all up to the finals. After the contest Fran announced that he was moving to Berlin. And again the boys were left without a singer. Many singers auditioned but they had a feeling that the right guy was still missing.
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Today

 

On the late summer of 2013 Antti was visiting his parents when out of the blue his mom asked him if he knew a singer called Pekka. Antti: "No, Pekka who?" Mother: "Pekka Louhimo, brother of Noora." Antti had met Noora before (who herself is also a singer) but didn't know her that well. After a while the conversation moved to other subjects but Antti left wondering just who this mysterious Pekka character is.. Later that evening Antti contacted Noora and asked her for her brothers e-mail address. Antti thought it would be appropriate to contact Pekka by e-mail instead of calling by phone so that he wouldn't seem too excited and scare off the new potential singer for the band, who could even make it to the band rehearsal. A few days later Antti received a positive reply from Pekka where he accepted the challenge and soon enough a date for the next band rehearsal was decided. The rehearsal was a success and everybody had fun. The band was already making new songs although Pekka was so new to the band and didn't even know what to think of it all.


"Right from the very first rehearsal we were already making songs together. Joonas, Arttu and myself were looking at each other thinking that now there is a really amazing chap behind the mic who is also a keyboardist! 

In spite of all the fun it was still unclear what Pekka thought of the band. We had discussed something about the possibility of him joining the band but nothing was settled. One day I called him to arrange the next rehearsal and at the same time told him I was updating Genres website and needed to know if I should inform that a new singer has been found? Pekka replied to my question in his own calm manner... "Yeah, that's fine with me" ...and that was it!"

-Antti