Blues quintet started so they’ll Finnish
YouTube has a lot to answer for.
It’s propelled numerous bands into the charts and made stars of the unlikeliest artists – not least Steve‘n’Seagulls.
The Finnish bluegrass quintet became well known in the summer of 2014 when their YouTube videos went viral. One cover version – a rendition of AC/DC’s Thunderstruck – notched up 35 million views.
The band, whose name is a pun on the American actor Steven Seagal, became stars in their native Finland and also covered The Beastie Boys Sabotage.
Their latest album, Brothers In Farms, has proved a hit and they’ll headline Birmingham’s O2 Academy 2 tonight, playing bluegrass versions of famous hard rock and metal songs.
Tomi ‘Remmel’ Tajakka, the band’s frontman, says Steve‘n’Seagulls have worked hard to make the breakthrough.
“The band started in 2010-11. I wasn’t in the lineup back then, I joined in about three years ago. The whole thing at first started as kind of a concept thing and a side-project just for 10 or 20 shows, and there was the theme of Spaghetti Western or stuff like that.
“So, it was a little bit different in the beginning, but about three years ago we started doing things more and more acoustic and found out that a lot of hard rock and heavy metal songs worked pretty well with this kind of an arrangement.”
