The history of Pressure Points goes back to the late summer of 2004, Heinola, Finland. Kari and I shared the same musical interests and on one night he talked to me about his idea of starting a little project. I was immediately excited about it. Soon we were jamming together and noticing that this might work. As it started to do so, some of Kari’s old riffs and jam-sessions ended up finding their places in lengthy songs. Enthusiasm grew and we started to take the idea a little more seriously than in the very beginning, no longer a side-project among the others. We started to look for a bass player and quickly found one, Janne Parikka. He joined in the fall, after a few months from the start. With this setup we played for half a year and made our first demo, until it was time to recruit more members because we had to start thinking about gigging. After some time and thinking we managed to get Juho Suortti as a permanent member on the second guitar. On behalf of keyboards, it was not until the beginning of 2007 when we found what we had been looking for so long, Veli-Matti Kyllönen. He fulfilled the position not only as a player, but as a mental and practical supporter of the band.
There are lots of elements in our music. We have not limited it to certain boundaries or borders. We are just being honest to ourselves – you can not go terribly wrong by doing what feels right. This way, music should feel genuine, not superficial. We do not have to think about making compromises in our work because almost everything fits in. The toughest part is to make it whole and intertwined. However, metal is where it all begins and it is the most recognizable style in our music.
The atmosphere in the band is very good-spirited. If that works, everything else comes along, including arrangements, deals, time-tables, the use of equipment etc. Chemistry is the driving force among band members. The best example is when we just come to practice on cold winter nights, we might say to each other that “let's jam a bit to get this chill out from our bodies.„ And soon we notice that we have a song on the table. We keep on surprising each other, which brings a certain freshness to the business. Like Gene Hoglan says: "If you surprise your band mates over and over again, then you rock!"
We sincerely hope that our energy, sense of music and real characters can be felt through our music which definitely is our best medium of expression – it's like a second language.
- Written by Vili Auvinen