THE HUSH
Meet THE HUSH
Sami Tammioja - Vocals and guitar
Sami was born in Porvoo a little over forty years ago. He’s always been interested in music and one of his earliest memories of rock’n’roll is hearing Elvis Presleys’ version of ”Shake, Rattle and Roll” when he could barely walk. Sami picked up the guitar when he was fifteen and started playing it every day, trying to learn songs and licks from the records of some of his favorite bands and players such as Chuck Berry, Georgia Satellites, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Los Lobos, Eric Clapton and Cream, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble, CCR, Johnny Winter, Omar and The Howlers, Lonnie Mack and of course Jimi Hendrix.
Pretty soon he started a band of his own with some of his friends, playing covers of their favorite artists and some original songs too. By mid -nineties Sami’s band Kaksi Kuuta was gigging regularly around Turku area. They made a few demos and even took part in a national Koff Rock -competition ending up 3rd among the 600 participants. Sadly the band broke up soon after. Sami continued honing his guitar skills on his own and kept smp3, a poprock -trio, going on with two of his old school time friends. They too made a couple of demos and a few gigs but have since retired into what seems to be a permanent hiatus. In 2013 Sami joined a rhythm’n’blues band The Original Hardway and started gigging again with them immediately. He also made his first commercially available recording with them and even ended up co-producing it. The record is called ”How to Play the Blues” (FFCD 2014). When TOHW disbanded in 2015 Sami joined forces with their drummer and bass player (Kimmo and Don respectively) to form The Hush.
Donald "Don" Wright - Bass and vocals
Don Wright born in London in 1964.
The "do it yourself" element of the Punk movement saw Don along with other friends from school form a band (The Savages). Just a few weeks after first picking their instruments and forming the band they found themselves playing at school discos and Youth Centres. The Band carried on in various forms right up until the late 90's.
In the mid 80's Don joined the Screaming Eagles a London based rock outfit that was heavily influenced by the New York music scene of the late 70's (Johnny Thunders/Heartbreakers/MC5) They had some success on the live music scene and also some record company interest.
Don moved to Finland in 95 and has carried on playing bass and has experimented with various musical projects and locally based bands.
Joining The Original Hardway lineup in 2012, they went on to become a fairly popular band on the local live music scene as well as recording an album with the band until they split in 2015.
Kimmo Lilja - Drums and percussion
Kimmo was born the same year Jean Siblius died. He remebers listening to Carelia Suite among other records there we awailable at home. Music was music, no matter if it was Tapio Rautavaara, Annikki Tähti or whoever singing and playing. Young Kimmo was a keen listener of the charts in radio - and played along with his flowerpot-drums. Because of two older cousins there were a healthy dose of Johnny, Kirka and Danny as well. The firs artist Kimmo saw live was Irwin Goodman - he was smoking a cicarillo at the dooeway of his bus. After hearing CCR and especially Travellin’ Band something happened - the first own band was only a matter of days. After CCR came Black Sabbath, after that Yes and Genesis, and then jazz in diffrenent forms. A few own bands followed tackling everything from progressive rock to some jazz. The were even some theatre work. No dance music though.
At nineteen Kimmo moved over to Sweden to study - played one gig there and stopped completely for some odd decennies. There were a lot of listening and learning though. But no rock, no jazz, only classical music. Then something happened again, it was at the end of 2011. Soon there was a bluesband called The Rusty Mojo and some gigs, then The Original Hardway and even more gigs. Now it’s The Hush and some other musical projects keeping the man busy - and happy.
The only regret is losing his original Ludvig Vistalite kit he bought around the mid seventies. Well, Gretch Catalina jazzkit is not bad either.