Those times my father listened Uriah Heep, Deep Purple, Pink Floyd, Eagles and believe or not he liked also Sex Pistols. My mother listened little different kind of music like Abba, Beatles and all kind of Finnish artists.

Mother has told me that when I was a little boy and I had just learn to speak I singed all the time and my mother wondered that if I was heard some song only one time in a radio I singed it with my own words but melody was exactly the same. When I was about 3 years old my father, mother, I and my little brother Joni moved from Ilmajoki to my father's home village Ylistaro where he had build our own house.

I was about 5 years old when I started my first music school where I saw first time a real piano and I little learned to play on it but mostly we just singed all kind of songs in there.

When I was 7 years old I started "normal" school and my first teacher was total music freak and next year my mom and dad bought me an accordion and I played it almost 5 years and took lessons to it also. I don’t know why but something came and I didn’t want to play it anymore.

I was 12 years old when my friend bought drums to himself and from that day I wanted to be a drummer. My father didn’t buy me drums right away because he thought that maybe I don’t like to play them after one year so he suggest that maybe I should practice to play drums in my friends place. So not very often but every week I played drums with my friend and about year or two my friend started to play guitar so we formed our first band. We played Metallica, Megadeth, Nirvana and off course something our own songs also. We practiced many years together and played all kind of music but mainly Metal music. Then my other friend asked me if I could be their drummer in their band called “cockroach” and I said yes. We played covers from Offspring, Greenday, Nirvana and also our own songs but we singed in Finnish. I can’t remember how long the band exists but something came and we stopped it.

I think it was the year 1996 when I bought my first double pedal and started to practise all kind of stuff with that. I played lots Paradise Lost “Draconian Times” album, King Diamond, Helloween, Iron Maiden, Manowar and Stratovarius. Those times I practised a lot, about 4-6 hour in a day and I learned to play lots of new things.

Jere LuokkamäkiIn summer 1997 few guys from Seinäjoki asked me play to their metal band and I joined them. They played melodic death metal and they were very good with their instruments and I got the chance to learn lots of things from them. After the summer I had to move to Kurikka town, which located 40 kilometres from Seinäjoki. I didn’t have the time/money to travel from Kurikka to Seinäjoki and I had to leave the band.
On winter 1998 I started to form Celesty and rest of that you already know if you have read the Celesty biography. 2000 I graduated from school and I became electronics mechanic and after that I started to find some real work also :) One year I had to do some casual work and on 2001 I got "real work" from hospital where I work at the moment also. In 2002 I got engaged with my girlfriend Sanna and on 20.04.2004 we got our first son called Roope and we got our second son in 21.01.2006 called Otto. Those boys has changed my life alot but I really enjoy it very much at the moment.

Well, back to the music :) Nowadays I play drums also in a Dark Metal band called Caldwell, and I think that Caldwell is also very good band, of course the music is totally different than Celesty's music but I like to play in that kind of a music also very much. I like so much different kind of music and some of my favourite artist at the moment are The Gathering, Strapping young lad, Kamelot, H.I.M, Old man's child, Faith no more, Helloween, Rhapsody, Gamma Ray, Diablo etc.

Here is few my favourite drummer and if you haven't ever heard of them, check, they kick ass.

Gene Hoglan (Death, Strapping young lad etc.)
Uli Kusch (ex. Helloween, ex. Masterplan)
Niclas Barker (ex. Cradle of filth, ex. Dimmu Borgir)
Mike Bordin (Faith no more)
Kai Hahto (Winter Sun)
Derek Roddy (http://www.derekroddy.com/)

Now I think that you know enough of me but if you want to know more just ask by e-mail jere(at)celesty.net

Keep the metal flame burning!


Source : http://www.celesty.net/jere.html