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Henry Olavi "Remu" Aaltonen (born 10 January 1948 [1] ) is a Finnish drummer and singer. He is the lead musician of the band Hurriganes, but has also pursued a solo singing career.
Aaltonen was born in Helsinki. He was the oldest child in a family of seven siblings and one foster child. He is of Romani descent. For a while the family lived in an abandoned train car in Ruskeasanta, Vantaa near the construction of the Helsinki Airport. The living conditions of Romani people in Finland only started improving in the 1970s. [2]
The family's father Otto Aaltonen was an alcoholic who was not always around, and the mother Eeva sold moonshine to support them. [3] [4] Aaltonen got his nickname "Remu" in his youth. The nickname most likely comes from the Finnish verb remuta, meaning to make a lot of noise. "The big boys gave me the name when we were playing football. But I was never such a big noisemaker", says Aaltonen. [2]
Aaltonen was 16 years old and already playing in various bands when he received his first prison sentence for burglaries and other property crimes in 1964. [2] He has also received convictions for drug possession.
Aaltonen was inspired by blues music from the United States already in his youth. Although his formal musical training was limited to music lessons at school, by the early 1970s he had already been playing with various other artists, such as the brothers Kirka and Sammy Babitzin. [2]
After Aaltonen had been fired from his band Kalevala because of a prison sentence, he founded a new band called Hurriganes together with bass player Cisse Häkkinen and guitarist Albert Järvinen. [2] Aaltonen is the only remaining original member of the band.
In 1974, Hurriganes had to pause their tour for a few months while Aaltonen was in prison. [5] Aaltonen has said that his music career saved him from a life of crime. [6]
In 2018, Aaltonen was awarded the Suomi-palkinto (Finland Award) by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture as a recognition of an impactful career in the field of arts. [7]
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Finnicization is the changing of one's personal names from other languages into Finnish. During the era of National Romanticism in Finland, many people, especially Fennomans, finnicized their previously Swedish family names.
Hurriganes was a Finnish rock band that was formed in the early 1970s. They were very popular in Finland, Sweden and Estonia in the 1970s and early 1980s, as well as a popular live act in Sweden during this time. Their classic line-up consisted of Remu Aaltonen, Albert Järvinen, and Cisse Häkkinen. The misspelling of the name is intentional. Their style of music is very much of a nostalgic, pre-Beatles, roots rock'n'roll orientation. During their "classic" period, the band's output consisted largely of revved-up cover versions of well-known 1950s rock 'n' roll songs, in addition to their own original material. In this sense, Hurriganes can be viewed as Finland's answer to British pub rock performers of the 1970s like Dave Edmunds and Dr. Feelgood.
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Ganes is a 2007 Finnish biographical film directed by Jukka-Pekka Siili. The film is about Finnish rock band Hurriganes, told from the point of view of drummer/vocalist Remu Aaltonen.
Roadrunner is an album released by the Finnish rock band Hurriganes in 1974. It is considered one of the most influential albums in Finnish rock music history. It was the best-selling Finnish album from 1974 to 1985 and has sold over 170,000 copies in Finland. The album was recorded in Stockholm, Sweden at Marcus Music studios. The album cover features the band members sitting on a backseat of a Cadillac in Ruskeasuo, Helsinki. The cover has been chosen many times as the best album cover in Finland.
"Get On" is a song written and recorded by the Finnish rock band Hurriganes in September 1974. It appeared on their second album, entitled Roadrunner. It was originally supposed to be just a filler, as the number of tracks recorded at that stage was deemed insufficient to fill a complete album. According to Remu Aaltonen, both the music and the words were the result of improvisation, when producer Richard Stanley wanted the band to come up with one more song.
Eero Milonoff is a Finnish actor. He won a Guldbagge Award for his role in the 2018 film Border, and he has been a nominee at the Jussi Awards for his roles in the films Ganes (2007) and The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki (2016).
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