“I have clearly started to reduce my work”

The Miljoonasade band, which has influenced the music world for five decades, has plenty to do. The band’s oldest member and frontman Heikki Salo65, says that no greater fatigue is noticeable despite the brisk autumn.

– Nowadays, when we go to a gig, the first thing I check is if there’s a sofa there. My fatigue is not so great that I can’t last a quarter of an hour after a nap, Salo describes.

Salo says that the musician, who will turn 66 in November, has a model of life. He is of course most grateful for his health.

– The children have moved on in their lives, my wife became an academic. Only the terrace should be renewed, he laughs.

Salo has not thought about official retirement, even though the pension clicks into the account every month.

– The pension is really small. Most of my income has always been copyright income, from which no pension accrues. The last monthly salary I have received is from 1985, he states.

– I have a very clear policy regarding work. I have clearly started to reduce my work, Salo continues.

At the beginning of the 2000s, Salo could have as many as eight writing projects in progress at the same time. Each project had its own workstation at home, and Salo jumped from project to project.

– I don’t do that anymore. And not only because I couldn’t take it anymore, but also because such a pace of work is not reasonable. It’s smart not to run all the time between the eight points, but above all to read and study. Or just being lazy! Salo states.

– Being lazy is also a process. After all, I need recovery even after swimming, so why wouldn’t I also need it after the writing process? he continues.

Closer living together

In the Salo family, no one has ever been told that a certain work project should not be done. Salo’s wife Sirkku Peltola is a playwright and director.

– Our family has always included projects and a pretty strict ability to organize things. In the old days, we had half-yearly calendars and five nannies. On the other hand, also close living and feeling together.

– We trust that everyone thinks for themselves what is worth doing and what is not worth doing.

Salo and Peltola moved together in 1980.

– It’s a long time. This has been able to fit a lot of all kinds, I must say. Of course I realize that I’m getting older, but I don’t think much about it.

The future of a million rain

Salo looks back on 2019, when he was awarded two Emma awards for his collaboration with rap artist Pyhimysen Giantfrom the song.

– I said at the gala that the previous Emma verticals came 35 years ago and now they came again. Of course there will be, Salo laughs.

– I don’t remember thinking much about the future back then in the 90s. But we’re still in shape and that’s really great! We still make good songs and a good show! Salo describes the Million Rain.

Although the average age of the band’s members is over 60, it is not a huge band. At the beginning of October, Miljoonasatei’s 16th studio album will be released Skip the introfollowed by a tour lasting several months.

– We’re not any old rams, we’re actually quite a cool bunch.

Miljoonasade announced in 2009 that it would stop operations completely. In 2014, the other band members wanted to revive Miljoonasatee, but Salo didn’t.

– No one pressured me, but one day I realized that this is what I have to do.

– That’s when I decided that if I go to this one more time and the band that was once stopped comes back, it will never be stopped. And I’m never going to stop this. This is the band of my life, Salo concludes with a thump.