Interview by Tim Brown

When and why did you start playing?

I started to play in 1991 with Scream Tracker music
software. After some years I started to play
guitar and later on drums in a band. I’ve been
singing since I was child.

Which famous musicians do you admire?

George Michael, Neil Tennant, Madonna some of
them to mention.

Why?
GM has got great songs and so does Neil Tennant
from Pet Shop Boys and I have always loved
Madonna as well.

Were you influenced by old records
& tapes? Which ones?

I like especially Big Country’s The Crossing
album. Such a great record!

Who are your favorite musicians? Groups?
CD’s?

Neil Tennant and George Michael. I like
The KLF, Wham, The Queen is cool as well.
Cutting Crew’s: Broacast, Madonna: The
Immaculate, George Michael: The Best Of George
Michael some to mention.
collection.

Have you been in competitions? Fleadh’s?
Any prizes?

I’ve competed at the assembly computer
festical music compo’s
but no succes in this field. When I was
younger I won some vocal competitions.

Do you perform in public?

At the moment I only sing karaoke. As you know,
without radioplay it’s hard to get any gigs.
I am anyway planning to do some free gigs.

Describe those occasions? Concerts, radio,
TV

Once when I was younger I played and sang
a Beast’s role in the Beauty and the Beast play.
It was in my hometown Kuusamo 1996.

What makes this kind of music “good”
to you?

I love the sound of synthetizers and beautiful
clean vocals.

Why did you choose to play this
kind of music?

Maybe because it is pretty easy and because I
loved these sounds syntehetizers create.

Letís Talk about your music
and your last workÖ

I or actually the recordist Timo Haanp‰‰
wanted to change some of the lyrics since you
first heard them beacause in the current form
they make more sense. He’s excellent in
helping with pronunciation and giving
fresh ideas to production so I didnt have
probs with that. I also wanna thank composer
Tuomas Pitk‰nen who made an great work in
re-composing this song.Its actually 12
years old song (I made lyrics) and we wanted
to modernitize it to make it sound better and
I confess there some grammar mistakes too..

How do you feel about the internet in the
music business?

It has made music business more democratic but
also made it more twisted when it is possible
to buy followers and plays. And it sucks.
It’s even difficult to trust companies that
are they legit or not.

What are the plans for the future?

I am planning to develope as a musician and
vocalist and hopefully as a composer too.
Despite succes is a thin red line I hope there
is later on some succes coming up.

How has your music evolved since you
first began playing music?

I’m little bit lazy with music theory and
stuff.. But when I listened first recordings
it has evolved for sure.

Could you briefly describe the music-making
process?

Sure. I first come up some beat and then add
some piano, then synthetizer and bass. And
finally write some lyrics. Or I actually
just try to come up something straight by singing
from the mind flow.

What’s the story behind the artist name
of TULIMERI? And have you got a slogan?

I first started with name Ilari but some bigger
record-company nicked name and I had come up
some new name. It was my messinger name behind
20 years so I took that. It means “The Sea Of
Fire” in English. Slogan idea begun so that
I was thinking about “The man from North” but
my friend suggested that “The Man From Lapland”.
My hometown Kuusamo is not exactly part of
Lapland but southern people always thought so
Kuusamo decided: “Ok.Let’s be part of Lapland
when everyone thinks so”. And I still speak
like people in the north speak so it was easy
to adopt this slogan too.