1) Sami Sarhamaa, tell us about your history as a musician. What bands or solo projects there have been, and what other prog-related projects have you been involved in?

I began playing earnestly at the tender age of 13 (1976). I've always been a guitarist first and foremost. First bands are best forgotten, I think. My musical upbringing got a true kickstart when I was accepted at Sibelius-Lukio (Gymnasium) in 1981. I was fortunate to have Anssi Tikanmäki as one of my teachers. At that time Anssi was composing his masterpiece Maisemakuvia Suomesta and our school band, guided by Anssi, had in its repertoire quite a few songs from that still unreleased album, my personal favourite was "Aamu Lakeuksilla". We also played King Crimson's "Epitaph" and "In the Court....", Pink Floyd's "Pigs" and other songs in the prog vein.

Chapter One (1983-1985) was my first band that felt "real". Chapter One was not prog as such but sort of "prog lite", lots of influences; Saga and U2 mainly, later on Peter Hammill was a huge influence. Our vocalist Hannu Leidén had a wonderful Paul Rodgers-like voice but luckily he wanted to do more than just Bad Company- or Free-covers or soundalikes. Hannu also had already then a remarkable sense of melody and was an ace sculpting melodies. Jouni Ullakko was the prodigy; he played bass and keyboards, wrote lions share of the songs and sang backing vocals beutifully. As I had studied piano at Sibelius-Lukio, it was obvious I should play keys (another reason was that Jukka Tikander, the lead guitarist in C1 was stunningly good). Chapter One never released albums, but I managed to rescue the tapes with Hannu in the 90's and later released One (2015) and Two (2022). One is basically the album we made back then and Two has seven songs recorded in the 80's by the second version of the band and four old songs made in recent years as a sort of a homage.

After Chapter One few bands came and went, next one worth mentioning is PS. with my friend from our band at Sibelius-Lukio, Pale Päiviö. We begun to compose together and learning music technology while doing it. I worked at a music retailer, Pro Center in Helsinki, so I had access to all kinds of cutting edge music technology, first MIDI-synths, first sequencers, first music computers, you name it. It took us quite a few years to make Ajan Virrassa (1995). By then I was working at Musicmakers Studio in Helsinki with Leri Leskinen and Kalle Chydenius and learning and breathing studio. While working there I also learned to mix and mixed for Kauko Röyhkä, Maarit and Aikakone among others. Valuable lessons in so many ways. 

I also did some original soundtracks for a few movies at that time, but that didn't stick. The first one was for Tomas featuring Arttu Kapulainen. Then I did one with Leri Leskinen called Yöjuna and finally a really interesting piece, a mockumentary of the Bonk Business called The Cosmic Sucker.

PS. released two other albums, Onni (2002) and Oma Maailma (2005). Not that close to prog (with a few exceptions), but great time developing my skills on so many levels. My friend and co-conspirator from Chapter One, Hannu Leidén (Havana Black, Wolf Larsen) was instrumental in PS. as well, he did most lead vocals on the first two albums, the third was sung by the sweet voiced Satu Wilkman.

After PS. it was time for some solo stuff under one of my aliases, Sam Marsala. I've been an avid composer from Chapter One onwards. During and after PS. I was dabbling with my idea of ambient music and for one reason or another, Sam Marsala felt an apt moniker for that. Scapes and Tracks (composed 2005-2008, released 2009) was a hoot to make, it's a true solo effort, I did basically everything on it. Still love it. Sam Marsala released another album Trails of Mist (2013) with an Enoesque title track clocking at 37+ minutes.

Intermingled with Sam Marsala was Kataya. Kataya was a trio of myself, Matti Kervinen and Teijo Tikkanen. Matti and Teijo were in Wolf Larsen with Hannu Leidén and Petri Majuri. For one reason or another, Wolf Larsen disbanded and guys were left with quite a few songs in a half done-state. I had been working with Teijo on PS. albums and was a huge fan of his musicianship, the man could and did play everything amazingly well and with such groove!

I had also mixed Teijo's and Tero Mikkonen's group's (Corey & Maple) first album Dialogue so I was Teijo's go-to-guy when he hit a wall. Matti had a long history as a record label owner and sort of a all around music guy. He had helped us with PS. releases and was a super nice guy in every way. So Kataya: I was given 5-7 rough songs, some of them more ready than others and a license to play with them anyway I saw fit. The songs were instrumentals and felt very interesting from the start. I managed to help them along so much that at some point during 2007 we found out we had an albums worth of songs almost ready to mix. Canto Obscura was released in 2008. Along the songs that Matti and Teijo had at the start, we made some songs by the three of us and I composed two songs, "On a Moose" and "Putkivaara" on which I also played drums. We also had few guests on that one, Johanna and Mikko Iivanainen (voc & gtr) who were on "Lento" and "Valaistu" plus Linda Fredriksson, who played sax on "Valaistu". Now we're talking prog, for sure! The next Kataya album was at the time super exhilarating experience which unfortunately had some dire consequences as well. We (or I) decided that the album should be done from the scratch as a sort of a group improvisation. No ready made ideas, just dive in to the deep end! It turned out that the method was fruitful for me and Teijo, not so much for Matti who felt left out. The album Voyager (2010) is in retrospect a bit disjointed but still one of my favorites of my recording career. Pretty soon Matti decided to leave the group. As a sort of an epitaph we released Kataya Lives, a live compilation from two different liveshows in 2014.

During the making of Voyager I found a new love: Opeth. Both Watershed and Ghost Reveries had made a deep impression. Having always loved low distorted guitars I was instantly wooed by the varied compositions and Mikael's lovely clean vocals. Being old school I was not too enamored with the growls but they were easily digested along the great playing and interesting compositions. So as a sort of a homage/fan fiction, I began to compose in the vein of Mikael Åkerfelt and Opeth. Pretty soon the project took a life of its own and after composing a few of these songs I sent them to Teijo to see what he thought. He was enthusiastic from the get go I'm happy to say! Needless to say we're talking of Liquid Wolf, my main project during 2011-2017. First Light (2012) had the same group of musicians from the start: Me on guitars etc, Teijo on lead vocals and main keys, Samu Wuori (Kataya Live, GG Caravan) on bass, Sami Kuoppamäki (Kingston Wall, studio, etc.) on drums and Pepa Päivinen on saxes and flutes. Second album turned out to be a double, so it was named Second Wind Part 1 (2016) and Second Wind Part 2 (2017). The group had one member more on these; Pekka Nyman plays marimba and vibes. Hannu Leidén lent a hand once more and mixed them with me. The last release was last year's "Plight", a single with a different drummer, Miri Miettinen. We are in the process of compiling material for the next release with Teijo, so this saga continues.

Meanwhile I was also stretching my vocal chords. I had sung in my first bands and at Sibelius-Lukio but gave up after school for the longest time. Somehow it still nagged me, so the itch had to be scratched and a new alias was born: SSTB. I've been nicknamed Samsara from Kataya on and it sort of stuck, Matti called me the "Mystical Samsara" in Kataya. SSTB translates as "Samsara Sings The Blues". It's certainly not blues, but yes it's me singing anyway. I've done two albums so far, Blacks and Blues (2014) and Misplaced (2020). This is me in rock/pop mode, no prog in sight ;-). Once again it's me on guitar and bass plus vocals and Teijo, of course, on drums, bass and keys.

In between Kataya and Liquid Wolf there was the instrumental group Kudos with the guys from Kataya Live; Tomi Laaksonen on drums, Pale Päiviö on keys, Samu Wuori on bass plus Jaakko Kiikeri, my old friend from various bands on guitar. I naturally played guitar as well. We did a gig at the local cinema theater and released that as Kudos - Live at Rekolan Kino (2013).

Before we get to my main gig after 2019, Lighthouse Sparrows, there's two groups worth mentioning: Flipside with Tipi Pulkkinen (vocals, bass) and Inertia with Tipi, Tomi Laaksonen on drums and my fellow sound designer Janne Laine on guitar.

Flipside had two different drummers, Ari Hujanen and Topi Kurki on the two ep's we did. On the first ep (ep#1, 2014) with Ari, we managed to make a few quite nice prog rockers. The second one, Dead Light, is probably even progger, it's quite a bit darker, in retrospect there's probably too many elements per song, it would have needed outside help to prune the songs into their final shape. It definately has its moments though, it quite clearly foreshadows things in my musical horizon.

Inertia (2017-2019) released one album, New Obstacles. The music is mainly mine with a strong contribution from Janne Laine. The group was a breath of fresh air as I had worked mainly with different single partners (Pale, Teijo, Tipi...) for most of my career since Chapter One. This was a real band that actively arranged my raw songs into their final shape. As I was the lead singer as well, I had to actively try to develop my skill in that area as well.

We finally have reached my present day with Lighthouse Sparrows with Olli Huhtanen. I've worked with Olli for over a decade mixing as a rerecording mixer movies he was a sound designer for both for cinema and TV. Quite early on we noticed that our musical preferences were quite similar, we both liked the modern side of prog. Olli has an affinity for jazz that I don't share and my taste is strongly rooted in the prog and rock of the 70's and 80's, which he is not that familiar with but there’s a solid common ground and that's the place we started from. It was late 2018/early 2019 that we switched from words into action and started to compose and arrange songs together. So far we've made one ep (The Deep End, 2019), two singles (Safe and Sound, 2020 and Elephant, 2021) and finally two weeks ago we released out first full length album AERIALS. It has 11 songs and is available as online digital thru the normal services, CD and double vinyl (my first vinyl release!). We've had Miri Miettinen as our drummer on all the songs and Olli's daughter Ella Eriksson sings background vocals on few songs. We both sing, Olli takes care of most of the keys while I handle guitar and bass.

The other prog related projects I've been involved in were mostly when I ran the Presence Records with Matti Kervinen, we did quite a few albums which I either engineered, mixed or mastered, they are: Kurkirku: The Mesh (2007); Jeavestone: Spices, Species & Poetry Petrol (2008), 1+1 = OK (2010); Pax Romana: Trace of Light (2008), And the Dance Begins Again (2010); Corey & Maple: Dialogue (2003), Home in the Universe (2007); Pepa Päivinen: North Pipe (2009); Esa Kotilainen: Turqoise Planet (2010). Then some later date projects: Nauticus: A Wave to Carry Us Out (2009), The Wait (2012); Lakewood Experiment: 1 (2014); Oddtomatic: Cryptic Messages (2020).