Esa Kaalikoski
Keyboards, backing vocals As a child I heard from the radio some great music. Bands like The Beatles, The Monkees, The Rolling Stones, etc. were something new and wild. Of course I fell in love with thouse sounds. Sooner in the seventies I had much joy listening to Marc Bolan & T-Rex and all that early 'heavy metal' like Alice Cooper, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, etc. Some time later I found songs by Bob Dylan and wanted to try playing myself. My father bought me an acoustic guitar and I started strumming chords and humming all those ballads and 'talking blues' stuff. Very soon I happened to hear a record by a new and unknown jamaican artist: 'Natty Dread' by Bob Marley. That was a revelation to me. A totally new kind of rhythm and mood! Instantly I became a fan of this new invigorating musical style that was called 'reggae'. Down by the schoolyard I met Esa and Vekku and they invited me to jam with them. First we played wild and furious rock but soon we were playing more and more reggae. And in no time there was the band Levitators forming. With Jussi and Ossi and Jylle we had a group that even had some gigs (for example in legendary Lepakko, Helsinki, as a support act for Linton Kwesi Johnson). Years went by and I was busy doing other things (study, work, family, etc.) so I was absent from bandwork till the very day in the summer of 2014 when Esa called me and asked me if I would like to come to rehearsals and play keyboards for the Levitators. That was fine for me, so here I am enjoying the power of the rydim! |