Tero Vaaja / Bass

Date of birth: 09.01.1981
Height: 173 cm
Favourite bands: Sisters of Mercy, Rammstein, In Flames, CMX
Fav. bassists: Cliff Burton, Sergio Crestana, Jay Bentley
Fav. guitarists: Steve Vai, Ritchie Blackmore, Strömblad/Gelotte
Fav. singers: Vesa Rantanen, David Coverdale, King Diamond, Ozzy Osbourne, Bruce Dickinson
Fav. drummers: Jukka Nevalainen, Tuomas Peippo, Nicke Andersson
Fav. keyboarders: Tuomas Holopainen
Fav. albums: Theatre Of Tragedy-Aegis, CMX-Aion, Rammstein-Mutter, King Diamond-The Spider´s Lullabye
Fav. songs: Bad Religion-American Jesus, The Sisters of Mercy-Temple Of Love, Dire Straits-Sultans of Swing
Equipment: Jackson PS-5 4-string, Hartke 3500 amp w/Carvin cabinet

Motto: "Maailma menee vituilleen"

E-Mail: tero@excalion.com

How it all started:

My enthusiasm with music began in teenage years, somewhere around ´95-96, after discovering bands like Paradise Lost, Amorphis and Bad Religion, to name just a few. I took a couple of guitar lessons already in school at the age of 10 or so, but it was years later that I got really interested in playing and got myself an electric guitar, and a bit later bass.

In the end of the ´90s Stratovarius became a big thing among Finnish metal fans, and it affected me also, although I did not become a long-time fan of that band. I anyway started to listen more to various melodic-style speedy metal bands. On the other hand, in the same years I discovered many of the Finnish rock, extreme metal and gothic rock bands, which form the biggest part of my record collection today.

I had been friends with Jappe since we were little kids, and when he decided in 2000 to make real the talks about founding a band, I naturally found myself playing guitar in it. High-speed melodic metal was the big thing for the other guys at the time, and I too found it fun to play. Anyway, I was not displeased when our style started to evolve more towards rock elements. I played the guitar the first years before taking up the bass in the new line-up 2005.

During my early years of playing I practiced hardly anything else than metal songs, which was not healthy -- trying to play too difficult top-speed things without any guidance was bad for my technique. Nowadays I know better, and I don´t actually consider myself a "metal bassist" (or guitarist) anymore. When practicing at home, I have found it useful to play lots of diverse things: blues stuff, pop songs, you name it.

Suomeksi (in finnish)