Off the Record with Juhis Kauppinen of Merta

It’s no secret whatsoever that I became Merta fan last year. I first heard of them back when my late favorite band, Ember Falls, did album release shows with them for “Minä” and “Ruins” respectively. Then, when I was selling merch on tour with Arion, I became acquainted with vocalist Juhis Kauppinen and bassist Kalle Niskanen when I offered to cover the merch sales for Merta at the Tampere show where they were the warm-up act. This culminated in us recognizing one another when they had opened for a band I have long loved and followed, Machinae Supremacy, in Helsinki in October 2023. After that, I decided that I was allowed to consider falling in love with them, maybe. Since then, the band has joined Enslain’s crew, with me as their main seller, which means that I had all the excuses in the world to get better acquainted with these guys. After bonding over our mutual love of Happoradio, I realized that Juhis would be a great person to have as a guest on Off the Record, so here we are!

Stay tuned for their new album, “Virta,” on April 5th, and come check them out on tour in April! Thanks for checking it out, and please do the usual subs and shares if you want to see more of these in the future!