Spring Vibrations

Heyyyyy! Long time no see! Olli was supposed to write the blog after Paul's magnificent "running up that hill", and when he didn't this blog kind of died.. but NOW it's time to start blogging again! :D

Ssssooo! Last post was from Norway.. Lots of things have happened since then. We've spent most of our time writing songs for album number 2. Hits hits hits! On the weekends we've played shows all over Finland. We also signed a live booking deal to Norway so we'll be going back there in the summer! 

When I'm writing this we're sitting in our van on our way home from Kyyjärvi. One of the best gigs of my life!! The girls who organized this collected the money themselves and made this all possible. Really amazing! Wish there was more activity like this <3 And the gig was awesome. Almost 10% of Kyyjärvi's population was there, that's the same as having 50 000 people on your gig in Helsinki ;) And they blew us away… I've never jumped and ran around the stage as much as I did yesterday.. I almost went crowdsurfing in the last song.. And I've never seen a crowd like that. So much fun. Thank you <3

The summer is coming very fast and we're really looking forward to playing all over Finland soon! We're going to a lot of places we haven't been to before! Hämeenlinna, Turku, Oulu, Tammisaari, Jyväskylä, Kuopio, Vaasa, Hanko and more.. We're still booking more gigs for the summer so hope to see you around :)

Stay tuned on our twitters and instagrams for more updates on our tour life! @toasterrrr, @kripps_, @axelkalland, @pauluotila, @olli_halonen

-Axel

SC on tour !!!

It's Sunday morning, 9 am. We're sitting in a van on our way from Kemi back to Helsinki. I've slept one hour.
Expectations was released last Friday 14.2, and our album release gig in Gloria was the best gig we've had so far. Unbelievable audience. The music peaked at 105 dB and the audience at 114… Crazy screaming all gig long. So nice to finally be a headliner, and having all the people listening just to us.. Can't describe the feeling! Thank you all for being there, you're the best <3

The Expectations tour started this friday with a gig in Vaasa, and yesterday we played in Kemi. Our first gig ever in Lapland! Crazy audience once again, and I just love being able to move around freely, especially in the 3 songs where I'm playing keytar!

Life on the road has been great, it's so good to finally go out of the studio and play live for everybody! We're already rating hotel breakfasts from 1 - 5 like we would have been doing this for ages :D And this is just the beginning. This night we're gonna be home and from tomorrow we're gonna live on the cruise ship M/S Baltic Princess for five days.. Nine shows! I've never played on a cruise before and I'm really looking forward to this week. We've even made our gym programs already :D

After our week at the princess we're going to Norway for 2 weeks and then back to Helsinki for our tour end shows Nosturi 15.3 and Malmitalo 18.3. This is the dream life I've been waiting for for over 4 years. And finally it's happening! THank you so much for the amazing support and hope to see you all at our shows! <3

-Axel

watching hockey in the van!

Keytar hero & bass hero!

writing the blog. right now!

3 weeeks!

Hey everybody! With all the stuff we've had to do we've been a bit lazy with the blog, but now we're gonna start doing it again every week just as before :)

The start of the year has been crazy. So much to do and arrange, so little time. First of all, our FIRST ALBUM EVER will be released in 3 weeks!! oh my god. We've had this band for over 4 years and we've been working like maniacs, and to finally have the first album out is something we've waited for from the start. 

The other big thing we're waiting for is the album release party, which will be in Gloria, February 14th at 9 PM. Get your tickets here :) 

We've got so many new things on our live show that we haven't done before, the most important being the ability to move as much as we want thanks to our new wireless systems. Me and Paul bought wireless headset microphones, i got a Keytar with wireless MIDI, and Krippe and Paul got wireless transmitters for guitar and bass… That basically means that we can run around the stage throughout the whole gig. We've been waiting for this for years and finally being able to do it feels awesome!!

After the release we've got one week in Helsinki, and we're gonna do TV-filmings and radio interviews and stuff, and then our TOUR starts!! Starting February 21st, the tour looks like this now: Vaasa-Kemi-Turku-Stockholm (5 days on M/S Baltic Princess) - Bergen - Stavanger - Drammen - Trondheim - Helsinki. One month on the road! Oh my god, this is what I've dreamed of since the day we started this band with Olli back in 2010.. A real tour. Gonna be so much fun. I can't even imagine all the stuff we're gonna come up with being on the road for a month :D 

You better stay tuned on our instagrams and twitters and on our SC-vine account for more!

The Norway tour is just a start, we've got more international plans for the spring… Let's see about those later ;)

Talk to you soon!

-Axel

December!

December's here! The last month of the year, and usually also the busiest. Everybody's having their "pikkujoulu"-parties, and we just started our season with one of our own. We dressed up and went to a nice restaurant, then to our traditional celbration bar Viikinki in Espoo, and then to a pool party in Grani. This tradition started two years ago, and you can read about the first time here:

http://satincircus.blogspot.fi/2011/12/well-hello-what-do-bands-do-besides.html 

Besides lots of parties, we also have a lot of work to do this month. We're gonna take some more photos, record acoustic versions of our songs, practice a lot and write new music. The stress of this month will end with our show at Barona Areena 20.12.2013. You should definitely be there, it's gonna be so epic to do our first arena show!! Can't wait! I think it's gonna be the perfect end for a super busy and fun year.

Check out the trailer here ;)

After that gig it's family time! My sister's been in Kenya for almost three months and my parents have been traveling the world for one and a half, so I'm really looking forward to spending time with them on Christmas. We haven't had much contact, mainly because most of the places they all are at don't have internet or even cell phone network. Can't wait to hear all the stories when I see them!

but now I'm off to work, let's write some hits!

-Axel

Oslo

What a weekend! Can't describe how awesome that was.. We flew to Oslo on Saturday and while the Sony people were having dinner (where we were supposed to be..) we went straight to meet our Norwegian friends instead. Me and Julie had a surprise for Adelén: we booked a limo a drove around the city for an hour listening to the best pop music :D that was awesome and the birthday girl seemed to like it ;)

Check out Julie's blog for the Norwegian version of it :D http://juliebergan.blogg.no/1383518111_surprise.html

photos by Julie Bergan

The night ended up in a hotel room party, and with less than an hour of sleep we went to the soundcheck at Sentrum Scene in the morning. What a venue! Perfect for pop music, there are no places like that in Finland!

When we were supposed to do our soundcheck we realized that our backline was missing.. 20 minutes before the doors opened.. Good thing they found some amps somewhere just before the audience came in :D

The gig was beyond magical. I've never felt anything like that on stage. When I went on stage first and started to play the intro synth I just couldn't believe what I saw and heard. Thousands of girls screaming on the top of their lungs to a band they've probably never heard of! Oh my god. I had goosebumps during the whole gig, from the first chord to the last words. I wish we could play more gigs like that in the future.

We got hundreds of new fans in Norway and they're doing their best to promote us, calling radio stations and showing our music to friends. All of this makes me happier than you could imagine. Thank you so much!<3

And thanks to the boys, Adelén & Julie, Isac & his crew and everyone else involved for making this the best weekend of my life! I don't know if I've ever been this happy<3

-Axl


ps. There's a video blog from the Norway trip coming up soon ;)

wake me up when October ends

Fall is here. I love it. The nights are getting darker and colder but I don't mind. Music always sounds much better in the fall, at least some kinds of music. My favorites right now are Hey Brother by Avicii, Lifesaver by Sunrise Avenue and Atlas by Coldplay. 3 of the most amazing songs this year and they've all been released during the last month. Check out my Spotify-list here if you want to know what songs I like the most at the moment :)

Every summer I've been somewhere abroad for at least a couple of days, but not this time, I simply didn't have the time with all the band stuff going on. But on friday I'm leaving somewhere for a couple of dayssss!! yeaaa. I'll tell you later where I'm going cause I don't even have the flight tickets yet :D

I've been feeling overly happy the few days for no apparent reason.. I don't know why but I'm smiling all the time haha. I even said I love fall even though I've always hated it.. Weird stuff.

Maybe it's just because we've been doing lots of fun stuff during the last few weeks. Fan-meeting & unplugged gig @ Sony, roadtrip to Vaasa, golf-day (:D), TV-gigs (EL & MGP), parties.... Follow our Instagram and our twitters if you wanna stay tuned :)

Love
-Axel

#IfYouLoveMe

Hello hello hello!

This week is gonna be super! It's been over four months since we released Emma so it feels really good to have a new release coming up. And you all know what it's called: If You Love Me!! Yesterday we showed you the single cover and today we released the first teaser so now you might know what to expect. We saw the video for the first time today and we hope you're gonna like it as much as we do! Just a couple of days left;)

The other thing we've been waiting for is the Elämä Lapselle concert next week. It's gonna be the biggest show we've ever played and it's also gonna be aired live on tv. I've never been this nervous for a gig before.. I remember when I used to watch it on tv when I was a kid. I couldn't have even dreamed of playing on that stage one day. And now it's happening, in a week. Oh my.

We've got a lot of meetings coming up, including one about a Satin Circus Street Team. If you're interested, let us know! This is gonna be so much fun!

Even if we don't have an official street team yet, some of you have been very active in finding ways to spread our music. We're so thankful for everything you're doing<3

And you should all take part in this event Aino created: https://www.facebook.com/events/223606857797234/

If You Love Me will be released this Friday, and we're trying to get it to trend on Twitter by using the hashtag #IfYouLoveMe and posting the video, the single cover or really anything. As long as you write #IfYouLoveMe. It's gonna start at 18:00 (6PM) Finnish time. If we get it trending we're gonna come up with something very special that might or might not include a shirtless picture of Paul. Hehe.


Here's the first teaser of the video if you haven't seen it yet. The song will be available on iTunes, YouTube and Spotify this Friday!! #IfYouLoveMe

Ps. We're playing our acoustic set this Thursday in a bar called JallaJalla in Helsinki. If you're over 18 we hope to see you there! Free entry :)


- Axl

Nauvo & Lintsi!

Wow. What a week!

Going back to work has been the best thing that has happened this summer!

I love chilling and driving the boat and stuff and it was great to take a break from everything, but getting back to doing what you love most of all is the best possible way to end a vacation. We've been practicing every day and we've also been listening to our almost finished first album. It's gonna be so freakin amazing!!! We all have new favorite songs. Emma is great, but I have to say that the album has at least 5 songs that are even better ;)

This weekend has been one of the best weekends ever. On Friday I went to Linnanmäki with my friend. I hadn't been there since 2004 so there was a lot of new stuff to try! It was superfun, although we felt a little nervous in some of the machines :D

On Saturday we took off to Nauvo, a small town in the Finnish archipelago. Playing there felt amazing, it's been three weeks since our last gig and we really enjoyed playing live again. We had a much bigger audience than we had expected and everybody was having a great time! After the gig we had a lot of time to hang out with fans, something we always try to do. And when Krista Siegfrids performed later that night she asked us on stage to shoot at the audience with water guns :DD that was probably one of the funnest things I've ever done :D I recognized some of our fans in the front row and might have aimed a little at them although we were supposed to shoot in the air... :P hahahaaa but that was so funnnn!

After the gig we enjoyed the Nagu nightlife;) great night!!

going to Nauvo!

Nauvo sunset & Plu

Water guns backstage...

Water guns on stage :D

The next morning we took off to Linnanmäki, this time to play a gig! A big group of fans were waiting for us like 6 hours before the gig, and that was kinda cool! When we finally got on stage we were overwhelmed by the big crowd, probably one of the biggest we've ever played for!! The gig was greater than ever, and we all enjoyed it a lot (although my feet were almost ripped off when I went in the front to play my saxophone solos) :D

#Backstage Lintsi

the autograph queue!

Thank you Linnanmäki <3

Today we had a photo shoot for our album cover and other stuff. We had the best time ever. Great styling, great make up & hair, great photographer, great A&R, everything just felt just as it should. Sooooo good!! We're gonna get some veeeery cool photos!! 

photoshoot! more photos on Instagram :)

Our next gig is next Friday in Porvoon Urheiluhalli. It's a big venue and playing there is gonna be supercoool! You should get there on time, I've heard that some girls are planning to start queueing at six in the morning… 

You can get your tickets here :)

http://www.tiketti.fi/Isac-Elliot-and-Satin-Circus-Borga-idrottshall-Borga-lippuja/20940

I don't know what more to say. It feels so good to be back. In the following weeks we're gonna finish the album and play more gigs. We're also filming some more stuff to our upcoming music video for the second single! See you soon! ;)

-Axel

New fan Eve, 3 years old <3

Lovin' Summer, Summer Lovin'

Hi there! As the summer goes on, our instagram is turning more and more into a nature photography page. Well, it's just that whenever we see something beautiful we want you all to see it too. Simple :D 

I've been enjoying the sea like never before. Alright, I spent my childhood summers on a boat..  But since that time I haven't really been out that much. This summer the weather has been so good that anytime our band practice ends I'll call some friends, run to the boat and cruise out of the harbor full speed. Right into the archipelago. Cool.

Last week was gonna be our week off, but then we got mail from Sweden that some stuff should still be recorded. So as Olli took off to Kuopio and Paul went fixing a sail boat in Oulu, me and Krippe stayed in the studio recording some guitars and saxophone. It went pretty well and we're really close to having the album ready! We still need to record some backing vocals and ad libs, but after that we're finished. Feels great!! It's almost a year since we signed to Sony and started making this album.. It hasn't been easy but it has been worth all the hard work. The four songs we already mastered sound soooo good!! Can't wait for you all to hear them! We even recorded live strings to Sleep Tonight!

Wine, olives & the sea!

This weeks Friday we're having a gig in Nosturi, and then we'll probably take some time off again and enjoy the summer. August will be filled with work again so the best thing to do now is to relax.. You should do it too!

PS. I got the best fan gift ever last week!! Check it out:P 

Thanks Aino & Aino! I guess saving water is something everybody should think about in the summer heat!

Thanks Aino&Aino;)

Have a great summer everybody!! See you soon!<3

-Axl

Kallbåda

#OnABoat

Stora Brändö

Roadtrip!

Roadtrips are the best! Since we (exactly) one year ago for the first time had a longer road trip (to Popkalaset in Jakobstad) I've loved the feeling. Being on the road with the best guys in the world is something you can't understand unless you've done it. 

ROADTRIP!!

When we on Friday started our way towards Untorock in Utajärvi the car was filled with this special vibe telling us that this weekend is gonna be legendary. A week ago we managed to break a pier in Sysmä (among other things), and this place was like 7 times farther away, so it just had to be 7 times crazier… And oh man it was… We spent Friday on Olli's summer cottage in Leppävirta. We grilled, chilled, and enjoyed the sauna and the lake. (which was unbelievably cold btw :D)

                                                       My boys

Krippe doing what he does best!

Paul taking a bath :D

Olli with his Emmustache :DD

On Saturday morning we hit the highway and I drove straight to Utajärvi without a single stop. It wasn't that we didn't want to stop, there just weren't any places. Hundreds of kilometers without a single gas station, what if we'd run out of gas?? Good thing we didn't :D We arrived in the lovely town of Utajärvi in the afternoon and set up our stuff in the local ice hockey hall where the festival was held.

The gig was great, and esecially Sleep Tonight turned out to be a new crowd favorite. We've never played it live before, so I loved watching the audiences faces when they heard the melody, the lyrics, the gentle guitar and Olli's (non-acoustic gig) debut on the glockenspiel. It was the second time in my life that I actually got the chills during an own gig. The last time was 2007 so it's pretty huge. I learned to love that song even more. One other song that always seems to be working is Own the World Tonight. No matter where we go, everybody seems to love it. It's the ultimate live song: simple, easy to sing along, party-themed. AND the saxophone melody.. EVERYBODY loves the saxophone. Somehow the song never sounds good in the studio so it's not gonna be on our album, but there's always a second album... 

Meeting the audience afterwards was fun as always. That's something we're gonna keep doing, meeting with fans after the gig. We're always gonna be the band that stays and talks, cause you're everything to us. Being there to talk to you and chill with you after the gig is the least we can do after all the support you show us. Meeting new people is nice, but what I love most is seeing when some of you travel hundreds of kilometers just to see us. Every time. And when that happens week after week it just… I don't know what to say. I love you.

Meeting fans :)

There is a saying: "After every great gig there's an even greater afterparty!" Ok, I just made that up but it should be a saying… Anyways, Ostrobothnia was one of the best after party places ever. The festival line up included Santa Cruz, the coolest rock band in Finland. You should check them out, those guys know what Rock n Roll is all about. I know the lead singer from high school, and when we went on tour like 4 years ago he once played a guitar solo on a ladder that was like 10 meters tall. That's what I call rock n roll!!

Santa Cruz!!

And rock bands know how to parteyyy… And so do the Pohojanmaa girls... After we'd watched the festival for a while we went to the spa/hotel where we were supposed to sleep. Well… We didn't sleep that much.. We spent most of the night at Santa Cruz's suite, where they had a sauna. Sometime around 3 we went rowing around a lake. Paul and Krippe were skinny dipping in the cold water and everybody was having a good time. I've got pictures but I'm pretty sure no one will ever see them... 

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The way back to Helsinki was looong (600 km), but full of surprises. We stopped at the coolest place in Pyhäjärvi somewhere on the way. The place had all sorts of old bells and stuff, and there was an epic water fountain that played Bach :D

King Olli & the bells!

More bells..

The waitresses played melodies on the bells aswell :D

Okay, so that was one of the epic road trips, but not the last one.. I can't wait for the tours abroad.. Oh my, oh my..  And I hope we get to play (and party) with Santa Cruz again sometime! But until then, check out our Vine videos here: http://www.vineviewer.co/?username=satincircus

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What's up next? Tomorrow we're getting new haircuts (!!!!!) and we're meeting with a stylist. Why now? Cause we're filming our second music video in a week!!!! It's gonna be awesome, we have the same team that did EMMA! Can't wait to meet and work with Sami, Mikko and Erin again! 

And I can't wait for you to hear the new single and see the video!!

We only have a couple of more things to record for the album and after that it's ready! I promise that you're gonna love it!

This week we're gonna play unplugged on the streets of Helsinki, so stay tuned on Facebook and see you sooon!

LUV YA,

-Axl

Summer's on her way!

Spring is here!!! But actually it feels more like summer. It's 10 in the evening and I'm sitting on my balcony writing this, and it's f*****g beautiful here. You should see this! Unfortunately my phone's camera can't capture the colors.

The last four weeks have been amazing and so filled with work and new things that I don't even know what to say. There's so much new stuff to take care of when we're finally a "real" band. Our song is on powerplay on four radio channels in Finland, and also on NRJ in France! The best thing though is that we've been playing live a lot, and we've got a lot of new popsters who show up on every gig! Thanks for the support<3

Live in Kamppi!

And we've done good on the Ylex "Himotuimmat"-chart, and that's all thanks to you #popsters!! If you wanna help us get even higher on the chart, go do it here :) 

We've been working a lot on the album, and we're on a good way. Everything should be done by the time it's my turn to write the blog again, and that feels kind of scary. We've been writing these songs for the past three years and soon it will all be ready, and that's when the fun starts!! The album will be released in September, and before that we're gonna have a second single and also a new music video!

In the following weeks we're gonna have some international meetings and it's gonna be really interesting to see what everybody has to say. Basically everyone in the music industry so far has liked Emma so we're waiting for their thoughts on the other songs!

Summer is coming! There's only a couple of weeks of school left and everybody's getting ready for the summer of their lives. At least I am! One fun thing is that I'm actually gonna graduate from my school, although I didn't think it was possible. I haven't exactly been the best student during the past few years when all of my time has gone to this band. But it's a music school and they're supporting what we do so that's really great. One of my final assignments (along with writing a 25 page report about Emma) was to write sheet music to the song. I haven't done that in years but a full score of Emma is on its way :D 

EMMA score :D

The two biggest concert venues in Helsinki are Hartwall Areena and the Olympic Stadium. Here's something fun: we're performing in both of those next week :D Thursday we're in Hartwall and Saturday we're on the Olympic Stadium. Get your tickets for Thursday's show here! 

We've got all kinds of fun stuff on the way, and one of them is an Emma-competition on Instagram! Go check it out! instagram.com/satincircus

It's getting cold on the balcony so all I can say is: See You in June! But hopefully I'll see you before that on our gigs!;)

Share a Coke:)

Interview in Kylteri Magazine!

Froyo!!<3

EMMA 24.4.2013!!!!!!!

2 days and we will be a real band, with a release. Kinda cool. We've been waiting for over 3 years and it's finally happening!!! It's impossible to tell you how we feel. We've had so many ups and downs during the way here but we've made it. And this is only where it starts…

On Wednesday April 24th our first single ever, EMMA, will be released. It will first be available at iTunes at 00:10 Finnish time. The music video will be on YouTube at 8 in the morning. The song will be on Spotify at noon. Cool. And NRJ will be the first radio channel to play it!!

You've probably seen some of the teasers by now, and I hope you like them! The teasers show only small parts of the video, there is sooo much more to bee seen, including my crazy saxophone-madness! ;)

If you like the video, the best thing you can do is to share it to all your friends and relatives and tell everybody about us! Sharing is caring and we'd be really happy if you helped us reaching out to new Popsters <3

This week we're having a couple of things coming up: 

Twitcam on Wednesday 24.4! you can come and talk about the music video and ask any questions about the video or basically anything :) 

On Friday 26.4 we're playing a gig in Gloria at 20:00! It's free and there's no age limit! After us, our friend's band Elias Kaskinen & Päivän Sankarit will play their set. Really good Finnish music, you should check out their single when it comes out :)

On Saturday 27.4 we're having our Single Release Parteyyyyy in Linnanmäki! Wuhuuu! We'll be playing a couple of songs, including EMMA! It's also the opening concert for Linnanmäki, and Krista Siegfrids and Hevisaurus will be performing aswell! It's gonna be really cool so you should definitely come check it out! And it's free!

We can't wait for you to hear the song and see the video!! We really wanna know what you think!<3

Can't wait. But it's only like 25 hours til the song will be out on iTunes!!!!!

See you sooon <3

-Äxl

work all day, party all night, and write songs about these days so bright!

Hey everybody! The sun is shining in Helsinki, wohoooo! I almost could have had breakfast on my balcony the other day. It's still a bit too cold for that, but the time will come:)

A sunny morning in Kallio

I know how much all of you are waiting for our music video and we are too, but unfortunately you're still gonna have to wait.. But it won't be too long, it's getting closer day by day! ;) There has been some interesting meetings with partners regarding all kinds of co-operation, and we're sooo sorry for not being able to tell you anything about it.. But we're all VERY excited !!!! It's starting to look like this could be a bigger deal than we ever dreamed it would.. And one thing is for sure: It's gonna be a hit. A big, fat hit. Everybody who has heard it has gone totally crazy over it. Last week we got the mastered version and when combining the song with the Swedish production, mixing and mastering it just couldn't sound any bigger or better. It's physically impossible. There's a reason why almost all pop music is produced in Sweden, from Adam Lambert to Pink, One Direction and Britney.

What have we been doing? Well, the single is done, and the video will soon be, so all we have to do is finish the rest of the album. We've got the songs pretty much chosen but there is still a lot of work to do in order to get everything as good as possible. The single set the barrier really high so now we have to make the rest of the songs as good as it is. As our producer Patric likes to say: "we don't wanna have just an album, we wanna have 10 singles!"

Last week we worked on a song called "Beautiful", and we added a creamy soprano sax solo<3 I love it. We've now recorded 4 songs and two more are on the way! Can't wait for you to hear the all new Peach Party among the other hits!

when the song is done, it's time to party;)

When we haven't been writing (and partying), we've been practicing our unplugged set, and our next gig is in Kouvola on the 5th of April! We're gonna play you 4 completely new songs, and new versions of the old songs so you don't wanna miss this ;) and we've got a Beatles cover too, as Paul mentioned last week. And a new instrument, the Glockenspiel!! Something for Olli to practice;)

our glockenspiel<3

We're writing and playing music all day and all night so I guess you'd like to know what music we're listening to ourselves? I'm challenging Krippe, Paul & Olli to do this too: post a link to one song you've been listening to a lot lately each time you write the blog. My choice for this week is this:

An amazing song. When we were in Miami this had just started playing on the radio and when we drove through the night and this song came on, everybody went quiet and just listened. This is absolutely one of the best songs of 2013 and I'm completely in love with it<3

See you soon<3
-Axel

Krippe brought us some breakfast today :P this is now officially our most liked photo on Instagram. Should we post more photos like this??? :D

ICE ICE BABY

Testing some speakers!