I was born on July 24, 1963 in Kohtla-Järve, Ida-Viru County, Estonia. My first contact with music was in the school band of Kohtla-Järve 1st Secondary School, where I initially played drums, but due to a lack of serious interest, I quickly switched to the guitar.
I started playing the guitar seriously quite late, at the age of 17. After graduating from Kohtla-Järve 1st secondary school, I worked for a short time as a stagehand at the Pärnu Theatre. At the same time, I took private classical guitar lessons from local guitar master and teacher Igor Klimenkov. I also took private lessons in music theory.
In 1983, I started studying classical guitar at the Tallinn G.Ots Music School, feeling a growing interest in rock music all the time, despite my academic studies of classical guitar. Halfway through the studio, I switched from classical guitar to electric guitar, heading to the then pop department. I am grateful in retrospect that I also studied classical guitar, which gave me good finger technique and tone. During my studies at the Ots School, I became a laureate of the Uuno Naissoo composition competition for two years in a row, which means that my interest in composing began at the same school.
During my studies, I played in the rock band Seitsmes Meel (1985–1990), which after a while became one of the top bands in Estonia at the time. Seitsmes Meel was also the first band we got to travel outside of Estonia, playing at Finland's largest rock festival, Provinssi-rock, in 1989.
After the breakup of Seitsmenda Meele, I played for a while in Tõnis Mäge's band 777, which broke up due to Tõnis's absence from Estonia for a few years.
"In retrospect, I'm grateful that I also took up classical guitar, which gave me good finger technique and tone."
Then, in 1991, I was invited to play in Ultima Thule, where I am still active today. During Ultima Thule, I managed to play in several important Estonian bands at the same time – Marju Länik's backing band, with whom they recorded an LP and toured Russia, Saxxapeal Band, with whom they performed at several music festivals such as the 1994 Bergen Natt Jazz in Norway and the Dinant Adolphe Sax Festival in Belgium and performed in several European jazz clubs. Shorter projects were Pantokrator, Data, Underwater, Kuller, etc. I also played in the legendary Gunnar Graps Magnetic Band, which I left because the performance times of the two bands started to overlap.
In 2003 I joined the hard rock band House of Games, with whom we recorded the album Rise and Shine (2007) at one of Finland's top studios, Seawolf Studios, which received good reviews from international critics. With HoG we performed in the USA, UK, Finnish clubs, Germany, Belgium, Poland, Hungary, Latvia, Sweden, Czech Republic. We were lucky enough to tour as a support band for the US group W.A.S.P. in the UK and continental Europe. We were on the playlists of Western radio stations, in Classic Rock and Metal Hammer magazines.
After leaving HoG, I started composing and recording my own music, which resulted in my debut solo album, Silver Lining, by the end of 2013.
I currently continue to play with Ultima Thule, which has performed at Sweden's largest rock festival Huldsfret, in the USA, Canada, France, Finland, Latvia, Russia, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Portugal, Georgia. After a 23-year break, the band Seitsmes Meel reunited in 2013, is working on new material and giving concerts. I also plan to perform with my solo project, where in addition to music, background visuals have been prepared.
In 2015, a solo album was awarded "Silver Lining" With the title of Album of the Year on Dutch radio station T-on-Air.
