60 years old | Singer and actress Kaija Kärkinen has always fought against shyness: “I still get nervous every performance”

From Rome returned from a business trip Kaija Kärkinen received an unexpected phone call in May 1991, which was flattering for a singer just starting his career – at least in principle.

“We have organized your own band for you and arranged the first big gig at Köyliö’s Lallintalo. We should no longer build software that suits you”, Kärkinen now recalls with some amusement the proposal that confused him, to which there was only one answer.

“Well no, not really.”

Kärkinen, who studied at the Theater Academy, felt even then that he had to be “completely behind everything he does without any explanations or reservations”.

He still holds the same decision and it can be imagined as an important thread of his career that has lasted for more than thirty years. He still sings what he wants because he doesn’t want anything else, and he can’t even.

Program office there was an understandable reason for the proposal, because Kärkinen had represented Finland in Eurovision with a song Crazy night. But even that didn’t really excite the Europeans and, despite the usual high expectations, fell to the bottom: got six points, left behind only the candidates from Yugoslavia and Austria out of 22 competition songs.

What if it had been different? If Ile Kallion composed by and Jukka Välimaan lyrics of a recent Finnish hit would have ended up at the top? Would Kärkinen have been a soloist on the big stages, a solo artist basking in the spotlight alone?

“I don’t think there would have been, and at least not a diva with these character traits,” says Kärkinen. He remembers that he always fought against his shyness and that he always preferred to work in a group, as part of a community.

“I’m still nervous about every performance, but luckily I’ve learned to turn the tension into a driving force.”

First a stopover on this long journey was Rovaniemi’s Lapland student theater, where Kärkinen was involved for four years – as a student of educational sciences and finally almost ready as a primary school teacher specializing in mother tongue and music. The only thing that left him exhausted from the degree was the degree, because he made it to the Theater Academy on his third attempt, where he also studied without a degree.

Reason? The music started to take away Crazy night and the first album – Black water, 1991 — so much so that commitment to the theater was no longer easy. Still, he had time to act in Espoo’s city theater and Kansallisteatteri, among others, and a little on television.

At least the role of the Finnish cabin cleaner in the popular Swedish one went down in history Shipping companyseries, in its first season in 1992.

So what did he think he was, a singing actor or an acting singer?

“Both, actor and singer. Although I still remember how, at an event in the theater industry, a theater director confusingly asked if I was going to return from the entertainment side to the art side.”

But At that time, at the end of the 1990s, Kärkinen was strongly on the “entertainment side”, as four consecutive albums had sold gold – and the first of the chain Rain (1995) over time also platinum. It was released under the name Kaija Kärkinen & Ile Kallio, as have all subsequent albums, which now number nine. Crazy night the work relationship that started during the period quickly deepened into a love relationship.

Guitarist Ile Kallio is the duo’s composer and producer, Kaija Kärkinen is the lyricist. And doing exactly what he dreamed of as a teenager in Sodankylä: telling meaningful stories. But whose and how?

As an actor, shyness is protected by the role character, but as a performer of one’s own texts, the situation is different. Can the listener distinguish the interpreter from the story and the author of the story, and does it even matter?

“As a singer, I am on stage without a built-in role, although I rarely write about myself or my life. However, sometimes I feel that the topic alone can be understood as personal.”

Now Kärkinen would like to become active again as a creator and narrator of new stories. From the previous album A poor woman’s paradise ten years have passed, and life will soon turn to a new decade.

Butwhat would a meaningful story be like now?

“There are enough topics, there are also in stock. But I won’t say any more. It is essential that the listener has the opportunity to include his own story in the story.”