Antero Raimo & Ovet – Open Stage

Antero Raimo & Ovet was founded 1992. The players had been working as teachers in Vantaa and Helsinki.

Many of them got to know each other during their studies in Helsinki University. They had played before in bands like Jukebox, Zetor, Myrkky.

The members of Antero Raimo & Ovet are in this moment:
Jari Rönkkö: drums
Raimo Laine:vocals
Petri Sinivuori : bass
Tero Ylevä: accordion
Kimmo Salmela: guitar
Matti Kervinen: keyboard

Matti, Mikko, Jari and Raimo are the original members of the band. Petri joined the band as a bassplayer 2000 replacing tuomo Korpela, and Tero Ylevä replaced Tero Siivonen year 2005. Hannele Voutilainen left the band at the end of 90’s. 2018 Matti and Mikko Jordman were replaced by Kimmo Salmela and Matti Kervinen.

The songs are composed by Jari Rönkkö and the lyrics are written by Raimo Laine with a few exceptions.

The story begins: 1993 Antero Raimo & Ovet was recording the first single in an apartment of their neighbour. The drummer was playing in a livingroom, bass was recorded in a bedroom and guitar in a corridor. The monitoring room was also in the bedroom. There were songs “Mustikanpoiminta” (Blaubeeren sammeln) and “Jalkapallosankarit” in the single. The single was just spreaded into radiostations without any promotion.

In the spring 1995 was puplished an EP with 6 songs. EP was named UUSHUMPPAA (Einen neues humppa), and “Mustikanpoiminta” (Blaubeeren sammeln) was one of the songs in the EP. Now this song was found in radiowaves and it became very popular in Radio Suomi. Song “Mökille mennään” achieved the same popularity in the next spring 1996. After that the most played songs with those two mentioned have been “Kesäloma maalla”, “Ai, ai, ahdistaa”, Nassulan saunavuoro” (Das Saunalied der Ferkel), “Kiitos minä” (Ich bin Klasse) and “Rasvat pois” (Das Fett muss weg).

Antero Raimo & Ovet plays gigs infrequently, because the members have regular jobs and families.