Whistle Bait
Whistle Bait was formed when a couple of boys from a small town called Hamina -- Vesa Haaja (vocals and guitar), Vesa Tynkkynen (guitar), Juha Tynkkynen (drums), and Marko Mäkelä (bass) -- joined forces in the spring of '84 and started a band. The Tynkkynen bros and Marko had had couple of bands before this, as The Ghostriders and Pink And Black.
Soon after their first gig (May 1984) the band got a fifth member when Jarkko Ravi and his saxophone joined the crew. Now the music that had been pure 50's rock'n'roll and rockabilly slowly changed into jive and swingrock á la Bill Haley. During the first year the band concentrated on learning how to play their instruments and had a few gigs in Hamina. Their first gig away from home was in '85 in the Finnish capital Helsinki, warming up bands like The Rapiers, and from that day on Whistle Bait have been a familiar sight in clubs all over Finland.
In '86 the boys went to the studio for the first time and made a 7-track demo. For the studio sessions, a piano player was needed, and this is when Kim Drockila stepped in. In '86 the band worked hard touring a lot and as a result of their growing reputation as a good up-and-coming band, they got a record contract at Goofin' Records and in the beginning of '87 the EP Whistlin' for You was released. That time WB also joined national competition for young pop bands of all genres and the result was a ranking for 2nd-5th place.
The EP opened up more doors for the band and in '88 the single "Honeysuckle Jump" was released. By now their reputation had grown and the audiences had gotten larger. The band went on a promotional tour that included Sweden, Germany and Holland. In the summer of '88 the Finnish music magazine Rumba ranked "Honeysuckle Jump" as the 7th most sold indie single in the country.
In '89 Whistle Bait recorded their first finnish single "Tiikerihai", which strangely enough still sells in Japan.
By the end of '89 My Way Records signed the band and in the beginning of '90 the first full length record “Can't Beat the Whistle Beat” was released.
The first single from that album "One Step Further" got good reviews and quite a bit of radio airtime. That time Whistle Bait was also contacted by Roundtown Music booking agency (later Knox Ltd) and WB began to tour widely Finland. The band toured at a pace that got to be too hectic for Jarkko Ravi, and by the end of '90 the saxophonist left the band. At this time the band hit the studio again and the single "I Hate to be Santa (and We Don't Want to be Reindeer)" was released before Christmas, without sax but with their road engineer Mika Hytö on guitar.
1991-1992 WB toured steadily, trying first to find new sax player but then decided to concentrate more into piano pumping/guitar twanging style. In '93 WB first planned to make a new 45 by their own and two songs was recorded: “Love Hurts” and “Don’t Look Back”, but then My Way asked them to record some new material and the tape of those two songs has disappeared since... The cd-ep “Whistle Bait” was released and later the same year, and their version of old tango song, “Kiss Of Fire” got a lot airplay. Two originally penned songs in Finnish -- "Kissa" and "Salaperäinen tyttö" -- were recorded for a compilation album made for a radio station. The compilation album was only printed in two examples for YLE’s Radio Suomi –local stations, so there's a collectors item if you ever need one!
In '94 Whistle Bait met Janne Haavisto of Laika and the Cosmonauts, one of Finland's best producers, and together they made the cd-single "Four Aces and Joker." The song became very succesfull, and backed up by this, the band hit the road again and toured through Finland, Germany, Denmark and Sweden.
In the summer of '95 the compilation CD It's Party Time was released and by the end of the same summer the new Whistle Bait album What Happened to the Girl Next Door? (also produced by Janne Haavisto) was released, now on a new record company, Bluelight Records.
There were many guest artists on this album, like Esa Pulliainen, Veli-Matti Järvenpää, The Fabulettes, Wiley Cousins, Arto Tamminen and Jussi Huhtakangas. The record was highly praised by critics and the band got much attention in the media too. Encouraged by the positive critiques, the band went on a tour that lasted over half a year and included about 100 gigs! Whistle Bait played also in couple tv-shows.
1996 they planned to tour Germany again and to promote it a local rock’n roll fanzine, Dynamite also released a promo 45 containing one unreleased track by WB, “Lonely Weekends” – the tour was sadly never done. In '97 the cd-single "Time Will Tell" was released and this too got a very good response from the critics and plenty of radio airtime - it went to radioplaylists in Radio Mafia, Radio Suomi and Radio Nova.
Again the band kept on touring and started to plan the upcoming record and a big party to celebrate the 15th birthday of Whistle Bait. But on Saturday morning, the 23rd of January 1999, sad news reached the band. Their bass player Marko Mäkelä had died. Marko's death deeply shocked the band, who always had been a close bunch of friends and through all times had considered the band a family business.
After a stop for breath and some deep thinking the band decided to continue, as they knew Marko would have wanted them to.
The birthday celebration party was changed into a memorial of Marko and many of the band's close friends - Mr. Breathless, Skyway Patrol, Hullu Kissa, Ellis and his Angry Teens, Wiley Cousins, Jarkko Ravi, Rock Ola and Francine played at the memorial gig raising funds for Marko’s little baby daughter. Whistle Bait found a new bass player, Lasse Sirkko, who also plays bass or steel guitar in numerous bands like Red Hot, Bloodshot Eyes, Saimaa, Heartworn, Tennessee Plates etc. With Lasse the band hit the road again with great success.
Highly acclaimed Georg Malmstén foundation supported Vesa Haaja financially in purpose of getting new songs composed for Whistle Bait’s next album. And in summer of 2000 songs finally were written in a summer cabin and boys found themselves in studio after four years. The new album, ”Bait’s Motel” was recorded early 2001 in Hitsville, Helsinki, with Olli Haavisto. Just before that ”When The Time Stops” was released as cd-single. ”Bait’s Motel” was released in two formats: the normal one and double cd (limited edition of 500 copies!) which contains live gig recorded summer 2000 in their old hometown of Hamina.
That time their old booking agency, Knox, decided to end its business and since then WB has been sold by many different agencies, but mainly by the band itself.
Through the years the band has had the pleasure of working with many other artists, for example, backing for legends like Ronnie Dawson (r.i.p.) and the queen of rock’n roll, Wanda Jackson. During the early 2000’s WB decided to bring also some old finnish rock’n roll/teen stars from 50’s back on the stage and has worked with Lasse Liemola, Pirkko Mannola and Rock-Jerry since. For that work they needed again saxophone player and they met a young guy, Juho Hurskainen. Juho has played and still plays in various groups. Juho’s sax fit the WB sound so well that they decided to add it in the regular group and in 2002 Whistle Bait was a 6-piece band again. The same year earlier WB had visited USA first time and played a show in big Rockin’ Fest in Green Bay, WI.
As Whistle Bait celebrated its 20 years anniversary in 2004 they decided to put out some new special material and recorded a mini studio live cd-album that contained 8 songs and was packed in a tin box with extra material as a sticker and collectable cards. Only 500 copies of “Some Kinda Fun” was printed and was sold out on their two sold out 20th anniversary shows, in Hamina and Helsinki. Later the same year Goofin Records released a vinyl album of the same album with some extra songs of the same session and with a new mixing by Vesa Haaja. It was named as “The Beat-O-Tronic Sound Of the Whistle Bait” and was targeted mainly for international sales. WB promoted the album also in Italy and Germany.
The band members also have managed to find time for side projects – Lasse Sirkko and Juho Hurskainen both play and record with various groups, Vesa Haaja first with Frantic Four, then Less Misfits and still with the internationally successful Barnshakers and nowadays also with Hi-Fly Rangers. The Tynkkynen brothers and Kim Drockila with Skyway Patrol and Hullu Kissa and Vesa Tynkkynen still with Lost Fiction. Vesa Haaja also writes material for other bands and has had songs released in the States too by names like Marti’ Brom and Ronnie Dawson. Vesa has also made some english lyrics for Marko Haavisto’s songs – like the ones in Aki Kaurismäki’s Cannes Film Festival winner “The Man Without a Past”. Whistle Bait has also done some tribute shows for the King – playing Elvis Presley’s 60’s obscure movie material.
The story of Whistle Bait continues as long as the van, the gear and the guys can handle it, and if you happen to hear the WB van coughin' in your neighborhood, get into a party mood, put on your dancing shoes and join the fun -- you won't be disappointed! Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.
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