I was born in Kitee, Finland, on 21st of April 1978. I led a very happy childhood in a family of five: me, my mom, dad, sister and brother. Pesäpallo, a Finnish variant of baseball, played a big part in my life in the early years, but at the age of 11, music finally saved me from sports (or maybe it saved sports from me, I don't know.). Anyhow, at the age of 11, I took the entrance examination of the percussion line of our local music school, and, to my pleasant surprise, I got in. My journey to the miraculous world of music had begun.
I quickly noticed that I really enjoyed myself behind the drums. At the music school I learned the basics of musical theory and quickly developed the basic skills to keep my set together. In junior high school I got to play in our school band, led by our music teacher Plamen Dimov. We played a kind of Funk-Jazz-Rock mix and mainly had classic cover songs in our set. I might have had some kind of a teenage crisis or something, but on the eighth grade I quit the music school and school band, since I felt I didn't want to play drums anymore. But if you're really into something, it takes more than a teenage whimsy to keep you away forever...
A year or so later a friend of mine who needed a drummer asked me to join his band. After thinking about it for a short while, I decided to go for it. So there I was, joining my first "garage band", well on my path to depravity. I can't remember if we ever really came up with a name for the band. Their musical direction was really not for me, but it was a great opportunity to get to play in a band and record a demo for the first time. My musical taste was veering strongly towards Hard Rock and Heavy Metal music, my favorite bands being Stratovarius, Dream Theater, Helloween, Metallica and Paradise Lost among others. Soon after we quit our first try-out group, we formed our first band with Emppu and some other local guys. We called this masterpiece "Nidhro't" and basically played guitar-orientated Rock with Finnish lyrics, but you could easily hear our metallic influences. Those were great times for us! We got our first own rehearsal place and we really enjoyed our band haven. Parallel with Nidhro't we started our first "real" Metal band called "Ambrosia" which played instrumental, melodic Metal.
At some point Emppu told me about a project Tuomas was starting, and I went to listen to their demo recordings. It sounded very interesting, as the combination of Tarja singing in a high, operatic voice and an acoustic, close-to-nature kind of backing music created something I was not able to categorize. A short while after the demo was recorded, Emppu and Tuomas came to my place and I heard that I would have the drummer's seat in a band called "Nightwish". We listened to Tuomas' first keyboard demo and set the day for our first rehearsals. I was thrilled!
In 2003 I joined Sethian, a band that also released an album called Into the Silence through Spinefarm. Even though we never officially quit the band, it seems that our debut will remain our only release. A few years ago we formed a therapy band called "Bitch Driven", which was great fun to fool around with. Maybe some of these bands will once again become active, or maybe we'll come up with some new one(s), but at least for now, I have it all in Nightwish.
My aim in Nightwish is to continue being honest to myself, to everybody around me and to the music. In the constantly changing world of music, it's too easy to lose your focus and forget where you're coming from and why you started to play music in the first place. But if you manage to keep your head and do not let secondary things lead you astray, there are beautiful things to be created and wild, exciting adventures waiting for you. In the end, if we take out all the somewhat boring aspects of life — such as money, position, responsibilities and limitations - our life is pretty much what we make it to be.
TOP 5
Albums
1. The Gladiator soundtrack / Hans Zimmer - Lisa Gerrard
2. Dream Theater - Images and Words
3. Stratovarius - Visions
4. Metallica - Black Album
5. Pantera - Vulgar Display of Power
Songs
1. "The Battle" / The Gladiator soundtrack
2. "Walk" / Pantera
3. "Master of Puppets" / Metallica
4. "My Heart Will Go On" / Celine Dion
5. "Fields of Fortune" / Secret Garden
Movies
1. The Gladiator
2. Braveheart
3. Katsastus
4. Titanic
5. Uuno Turhapuro muuttaa maalle
Books
1. The Hobbit
2. The Dirt / Mötley Crüe
3. Lord of the Rings
4. Whole Dragonlance series
5. Donald Duck pocket books
Hobbies
1. Riding my snowmobile
2. Jogging
3. Movies
4. Gym
5. Fishing
Food
1. Curry
2. Salads
3. Mexican
4. Chinese
5. Tofurky (peppered & hickory smoked)
Drink
1. Beer
2. Coffee
3. Water
4. Sparkling wine
5. Red wine
Miscellaneous interests
1. Daytona Beach
2. Ocean
3. Travelling
4. Sun
5. WorkingSource: http://www.nightwish.com/en/band/members?id=4
Subject: Jukka Nevalainen 
Thu 13 Jun - 12:27
