Pauli Hanhiniemi of the Kolmas Nainen band reflects on career, life and contemporary pop

The elevator the doors open, and Pauli Hanhiniemi marches into the record company’s office.

She shakes off her wet clothes and ruffles her dripping hair. The fiercest autumn storm of the year is raging outside. Wind readings show more than 20 meters per second.

Hanhiniemi admits that he is a little worried about the situation. He was supposed to leave for Tallinn in a few hours.

“It remains to be seen what will become of it now,” he says.

“Maybe the weather will improve.”

In a similar the world of pop music lives in the wave movement. Trends come and go, music styles change and idols change.

There is an American singer in the lobby of the office Sabrina Carpenterin cardboard full body photo. Helsingin Sanomat named Carpenter in September as the pop queen of 2024.

“Who is this”, Hanhiniemi asks confused.

He admits that he is helplessly out of all of today’s meds. He doesn’t follow hit lists, and he doesn’t recognize the latest hit artists.

On the other hand, he doesn’t need to. Hanhiniemi has been playing in the music world for more than 40 years. In that time, he has formed his own loyal audience.

”

“I’m a bit like some kind of filler.”

Hanhiniemi turns 60 on Thursday, October 24. He will celebrate the anniversary at a celebratory concert in Tampere’s Tavaraasema in November.

Attracting more than 1,000 people, the concert was sold out in no time. It tells Hanhiniemi that he still has some kind of value.

“But I’m not in any newspaper headlines or on TV night after night”, he reminds.

Does it hurt?

“It doesn’t seem to be a problem.”

Hanhiniemi says that he has no illusions about being a relevant music maker by today’s standards.

In addition to songs, the world of pop music is also a big image and image game. In that terrain, it is difficult for the uncle in his sixties to strive.

Hanhiniemi says he accepted this fact a long time ago. He considers change to be natural.

So where does he position himself in the current music scene? Probably somewhere on the side of the field, Hanhiniemi says and laughs.

“Or in a way, I’ve been trampled on that field permanently. I’m a bit like some kind of filler.”

Hanhiniemen on his birthday, his memoir about the early years of the band Kolmas Nainen will be published Paul’s Third Woman.

It is a sometimes brutal and alcohol-fueled description of young men’s rock dreams and partying in Finland in the early 1980s.

At the turn of the 1990s, Kolmas Nainen became the top name in domestic rock music. Hanhiniemi believes that it was largely a coincidence.

“For a few years, we were really tough stuff, but that job could have been handled by another band just as well. We were lucky to have the right guys in the right place at the right time.”

But it required hard work, he doesn’t deny that. He wouldn’t be ready for the same kind of fussing and tolerating uncertainty.

“It’s hard to find an older person who would be willing to submit to all the crap that needs to be done to promote a music career,” says Hanhiniemi.

“You have to be young and relatively inexperienced to get into that fun, and also pretty bright-headed. No sane person would join such a media frenzy. Somewhere the hell Just for life or similar seating. And when you start doing it, it’s easy to get numb pretty quickly.”

Pauli Hanhiniemä is considered one of the masters of domestic lyric poetry. What does he think a good text contains?

At the very least, he expects the lyrics to have some kind of life-view nuance. It would also be good for the text to resonate with your own worldview.

Hanhiniemi regrets that such songs are sometimes difficult to find in today’s pop music. In his opinion, rap music, in particular, deals with rather infantile and everyday issues.

“If you were to go through all the texts I’ve written and set up an artificial intelligence to calculate how big their idle percentage is, I’d say that it’s significantly lower than today’s radio songs.”

Gohiniemi laughs.

“However, it is quite clear that the language used by our people is not the language of today. I’m talking to a pretty old gang these days. And music doesn’t define their identity. Things that are more important to them are a St. Bernard dog, a Harley-Davidson or some damn yoga.”

Also A man’s own priorities have changed with age.

He says that he has lost several of his long-time friends in recent years. It has inevitably made me think about the limitations of life and what is really important.

Hanhiniemi has three older children and two small boys. He says family is the only thing in the world that really interests him. Everything else is secondary to it.

He says that he took one of his sons to school in the morning and the other to kindergarten. After coming home, he had sat on the bench and stayed there to think about his life.

“I was thinking, when I was taking off my sweatpants, that damn, should I retire. That you wouldn’t make any more effort. I think that moment is getting very close for me.”

What would you tell your 20-year-old self?

“Stop smoking weed, drink less coffee and go to the swimming pool regularly.”

Helsingin Sanomat and Nelonen Media, which presents the Vain elämää program, belong to the Sanoma group.

Correction 23.10. 19:57: Pauli Hanhiniemi’s memoir will be published on October 24, not November 24.