Who are you and what do you do?

Hi there! We are Esa (singer), Marko (lead guitar), Jyri (bass) and Olli-Pekka (drums).

What’s with the name?

We picked the name Satellite Stories from one of our early songs. It was a britpop influenced track about people coming together and forming a band, so the choice of name seemed right at the time. The song was not actually that good and we never recorded it.

How did y’all meet?

Esa and Olli-Pekka met in Oulu university and they instantly found out that they both wanted to form an indie pop band. Jyri was brought from Lapland to play the bass and Marko just wandered to their rehersal and seemed to know how to play the songs.

How does Finland compare to the UK?

They are very different countries. Finland is a very peaceful and young country, so UK seems more busy to us.

What do you sound like?

I’d pinpoint the sound to Scandinavian indie pop made for dancing. Although we have different kinds of songs too.

Who/what has influenced your music?

We are influenced by Finnish nature, many indie bands and new electronic music. We are not really musicians who like to dig in the past. We want to concentrate on what the sound will be in the future.

Is it all sex, drugs and rock ’n roll?

Sex, drugs and rock ´n roll? Is that what the music scene is really about? I’ve only heard of personal trainers, strict diets and gym schedules.

Is it easier to pick up dates when you’re in a band?

I think it’s important to have some passion in your life. When you are really into something, that shows on the outside too. That kind of passion can be attractive, it does not limit to musicians though.

Who is the brains of the operation?

We have a really great team (management, label, booking agency, publisher) supporting us, so they take care most of the planning. That’s really helpful, so we can focus on making music.

What’s your weirdest encounter with a fan/weirdest thing a fan has sent you?

I would say the weirdest phenomenon are the male fans that take off their clothes and try to rush to the backstage. This happened once in Cologne.

If you only had £100 between all of you and one day to live what would you do?

We’d put it to a savings account and deep-freeze ourselves, Han Solo style. In the future the "one day to live" can probably be taken care of and the interest of the savings would make us filthy rich.

What’s the most embarrassing thing to have happened to you on stage?

In one of our early gigs Marko broke the strings on both of his guitars, so he had to borrow a guitar from a local heavy metal band. It had seven strings and was very difficult to play. We had to stop many songs in the beginning since the guitar was sounding so bad. For a while we were known as ‘that funny band that only plays 30 second songs’.

How will you be spending Valentine’s Day?

Probably on tour or in our nuclear bunker studio, reminiscing our loved ones.

What’s on your rider?

It’s a very basic rider. Some beer (no Becks), some fruits and coffee.

You’re playing Shoreditch soon (Old Blue Last, February 11 at 11pm). What do you know about the area?

We have played in east London (Hoxton) before, and I really liked that gig. I have heard that the area is very cool place to visit. I think this show will be great too. I haven’t really spent a lot of time in east London, the gig days are so busy that there is usually no time to relax.