Kari Vepsä overcame recurrent cancer on the eve of 70 years

Impact singer Kari Vepsä turns 70 on March 31st. Life in Veps has had its ups and downs from a successful music career to a cancer battle.

Vepsä plans to celebrate his birthday with concerts planned for his current hometown of Karkkila and his childhood hometown of Pieksämäki.

First, however, we go on a holiday trip to the Canary Islands. According to the outgoing wife May and daughters Siri and Tara with their families. There is a horse farm and many pets left to take care of at home, so help has had to be obtained from a close circle and a neighbor. The holiday plans include golf and a visit to the Finnish-favored Playa del Inglés area, where Vepsä has toured several times in recent years.

One of the wildest gigs is a concert at the resort’s ecumenical church in 2013. The concert was accidentally booked overlapping with a German fair.

– There are 15 minutes left in the concert, but a German priest came to church shouting like a lion and ripped off the amplifier’s jaws. We were evicted from the church. For a moment, it seemed that the fight with the Finns and the priest would begin, Vepsä recalls amused.

From the jumping hill to the singing stages

Prior to music, Vepsa had other potential career paths. As a young man, he practiced hill jumping in earnest. While living in Pieksämäki, he went to rehearsals in Jyväskylä, where he also did Matti Nykänen trained as a little boy in the same gang.

The old skis of Veps are hung in the living room of Karkkila’s home. However, due to the circumstances, the hill jump remained in his youth. Going to the army interrupted the training and traveling between different cities for training became laborious.

– Hill jumping is such that you can’t just do it. It must be practiced with determination, Vepsä says.

The last leap was jumped in 1981, when Vepsä moved to Hamina to work as a computer science teacher after a job. The music hobby, which started at a young age, was maintained alongside the work, and after succeeding in various singing competitions, Vepsä decided to take a day off to try his wings in the world of music.

Vepsä praises the songwriter, among others, for his breakthrough Jukka Kuoppamäki. Kuoppamäki asked Vepsa to send him a song to hear. The phone will ring soon.

– Jukka called like hot coals and said “Oh damn, where have you been these years? Now we’re making a record! ”Says Vepsä.

Kuoppamäki invited Vepsä to his summer cottage in Emäsalo and asked him to tell his whole life story. There was a difficult divorce behind it at the time. It gave birth to a song published in 1995 Why are you so far away, which became a radio hit. In the autumn of the same year, leave was coming to an end.

– Already in the summer I went to tell the principal that I was going to work with my guitar. Colleagues looked with round eyes at how I could leave a position where I could be for the rest of my life. We only have one life. I listened to the voice of my heart and did what felt good.

Not retiring

The music career started at a rapid pace, and at the latest after the 1996 Autumn Tune victory, the voice of Vepsa was known throughout the country. Records and gigs were done diligently until the 21st century. Gradually, the position of shock in the mainstream of music weakened and the entire industry began to suffer from a decline in record sales. In recent years, Vepsä has released music as a self-published publication, and the records are sold at gigs instead of in stores.

Although the industry has changed and the corona pandemic once again brought new challenges to musicians, the singer’s hero has not packed his guitar out.

– When the music is in the blood, you can’t stop it until you have one foot in the grave. You can’t retire from this job, Vepsä says.

Health problems have at times slowed the man away, but did not stop him. Prostate cancer was resected in Veps in 2011. In February 2021, the cancer was diagnosed again. At that time, Vepsa started hormone therapies that have done their job.

– It’s all very well now. The last CT scan was taken just over a month ago. Lymph nodes are reduced, some are completely lost, and the PSA value is immeasurable. Cancer will probably never leave me, but as long as I can live with it, I’m happy.

Initially, hormone treatments caused fatigue, but now Vepsa is fresh again.

– The doctor asked me how much exercise a day. I said I walk about 10 miles because there are steps to build when riding on a horse farm. He replied, “That’s enough, no more is needed!” Veps laughs.

The horses were rescued

In addition to his music career, Vepsä has run a horse training center on his home plot. There have also been enough customers throughout the Korona period, which has been a financial salvation in the loss of song gigs. Wife Maija and daughter Siri and their families also work at the training center.

Siri has taken primary responsibility for the company’s operations and moved to live on the same site. Vepsa is grateful for her daughter’s help.

– I have had to be on my toes all the time. If a place has broken down, I have had to go fix it right away. Now I can breathe a little while my daughter and her husband can take care of the chores. I still like to work on the farm, but now I don’t have to.

Vepsä looks to the future with good mood, even though he is old and life has tested.

– Maybe I’m just positive in nature, I always want to look ahead even in difficult situations. Sometimes I wonder if we’re going to go here for the last ten, but I don’t want to think about it any more. No one knows what will happen tomorrow, he ponders.