Juha Kyyrö. Photo Sanna Lehto.
Founded by Juha Kyyrö, record company Fullsteam records will only take an act on if every employee likes it. Kyyrö also does a lot of work behind the scenes. He’s brought an impressive bunch of indie artists to Finland: Wilco, Lily Allen, Band of Horses, Billy Talent… the list goes on.
A young veteran of the Finnish music industry, 28-year-old JUHA KYYRÖ is at work early. At 9am, there aren’t many people at the Fullsteam office, but Kyyrö has already grabbed a breakfast baguette to go. The spaceous but modest and homely offices are located at the industrial area near Sörnäinen, where there’s plenty of room and the rent is much lower than downtown.
Juha Kyyrö. Photo Sanna Lehto.
And they need the space. Fullsteam is currently a record company for two dozen bands, a promoter for foreign artists’ Finnish gigs, an artist management office booking and promoting gigs, a practice space complex for bands, a fan product vendor and a music publisher. All this has been given a trendy name: 360 degree operational model.
“When you’re a bit shit in everything, you gotta try a lot of things,” Kyyrö laughs, knowing full well that that’s not true in his case. The list of Fullsteam’s own artists is stacked with quality, including Disco Ensemble, Lapko, Rubik, Sister Flo, I Walk The Line, Ceebrolistics, Ismo Alanko Teholla and Sweatmaster. The list of foreign artists they’ve brought to Finland is almost straight from the Encyclopedia of Current Pop, from BILLY TALENT to Belle and Sebastian to JOANNA NEWSOM to Wilco.
Straight out of high school
Kyyrö, Fullsteam’s founder, got into the music business almost by accident when still in high school. His original intent was to get his own band some gigs. Minus SF, whose bassist Kyyrö was, wanted to play abroad, so they decided to book their own gigs.
“I got to know foreign bands and started bringing them to Finland. Back then I had no intention to work in the music business. It was just standard band activity. In the end I found myself working with real agents and people in the industry,” Kyyrö reminisces.
Soon Kyyrö also noticed he was a lot better at organizing gigs than playing them. During his third year of high school he organized his own little festival. While he started his music hobby beside civil service and other work, it soon started to take up so much time that he decided to turn it into a full day job.
He founded his first company, Sitruunamaailma (‘lemon world’), already in 2001. Fullsteam was born a year later. After that Kyyrö tried being an agent and promoter at the multi-national Welldone (now LiveNation Finland), but Fullsteam kept on growing.
Bands come first
Juha Kyyrö. Photo Sanna Lehto.
Juha Kyyrö. Photo Sanna Lehto.
In only a couple of years, Fullsteam had grown from a small diy-shop into one of the most respectable program agencies – not to mention one of the highest-profile rock labels – in Finland.
“In 2003, Turbonegro’s agent asked me if I wanted to organize the band’s gigs in Finland. The bigger companies had tried to get their case, but I never imagined I had to compete with anyone or try to get such big bands as clients.” Other milestones during Kyyrö’s career have been Looptroop’s first sold out show at Nosturi, the release of Disco Ensemble’s second album, signing ISMO ALANKO and Billy Talent’s gig at the ice hall.
“All of the aforementioned have been natural steps, but they’ve brought about them a great feeling. Each band has their own ambitions and dreams. Our job is to make those dreams come true and live them with the band,” Kyyrö says humbly.
Money is a by-product
Juha Kyyrö’s days are made up half by organizing concerts and half by managing Fullsteam’s flagship band Disco Ensemble, running Fullsteam’s other operations, handling positions of responsibility within the industry and taking care of administrative duties. So no sex, drugs and rock’n’roll but – eek! – just a normal day job.
“A large part of this job is just like any other job. Emails, excel sheets, phone calls. I still feel like I have a reason to do this, which creates motivation and drive. You can see your accomplishments when the band is on stage and the audience is there. It’s just as unique every time.”
According to Kyyrö, Fullsteam is all about a good team pulling together. At the moment Fullsteam employs 15 people.
“Fullsteam is all of us, not in any way just me. It’s what we all do here, together.”
A good example of this is how the label picks out their new bands. “The most important thing is whether or not we’re all excited about the band. If the reaction is a collective ‘yes’, then we’re a go.”
Sounds pleasantly uncalculative, but then again, Fullsteam is run by music lovers. Money – if and when there is any – comes as a by-product of other good things.
“To be honest, we’re doing the things that we want to do. I believe that in the music business the money will come if what you’re doing works. If you start to think about money first, you often neglect important artistic and production-related things.” †
Text Teemu Fiilin Photos Sanna Lehto Translation Jyri Paavilainen
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