Juice Leskinen and Mikko Alatalo’s last encounter – “Let’s start Mikko”

The friendship of Juice Leskinen and Mikko Alatalo began in 1971. Jukka Kuusisto

Mikko Alatalo says Pekka Ruissalo in fresh Juice – year after year In the book (Readme.fi 2025) for his last meeting with folk artist Juice Leskinen just three days before his death.

In November 2006 Juice’s wife Sari According to the book, Alatalo told Alatalo that the man would no longer agree to dialysis treatments and asked him to visit Juice.

It was Tuesday, November 21, when Mikko Alatalo once again made her stomach sore for an old friend. (…) The meeting stretched to several hours. According to Alatalo, it was typical: when Leskinen went to visit, he was prepared for three or four hours. The tone of this meeting was positive, nice. The laughter was refreshed, and eventually Juice suggested to Alatalo that Mikko would start to do. It stayed at the level of thought.

Alatalo tried to talk about his friend to go to dialysis treatments that maintained his vital functions. However, Juice strongly opposed this, Ruissalo writes in her book.

Leskinen refused the proposal in Jyrki’s twists and turns. Alatalo noticed that it was wondering if the old guy thought the body would heal himself. However, it was also possible that Leskinen thought it in the same way as when looking at the weapon’s barrel on a gig in late summer 1983: it is useless to try because it could not.

Three days later, Juice died at the age of 56 at Tampere University Hospital. For a long time, he suffered from renal failure, which would have required dialysis therapy. Alatalo heard the sad news of the death the next day.

In Pispala, Tampere, Mikko Alatalo’s time stopped for a moment and the memories quickly took me to their youth, together and lived life.

– Jussi was a serious and difficult person, but it was also a damn fun with him. There were a lot of such moments, Alatalo describes his friend in the book.

Juice Leskinen and Mikko Alatalo’s friendship began in the spring of 1971 in Tampere when they first met at the Student House. Both came from small home municipalities – Alatalo Kiiminki, Juice Juankoski – and were used to looking for places to understand them.

Juice introduced his texts to Alatalo, which already seemed to be musical as mere words, and Alatalo immediately noticed his talent. Friendship was based on a strong spirit of spirit and interest in each other’s artistic world, and laid the foundation for later cooperation and influenced the development of Finnish rock.

As a source: Pekka Ruissalon’s Juice – year by year (Readme.fi 2025). Italics are extracts from the book.