BIOGRAPHY

Kimmo Pörsti is a Finnish musician, music producer and composer.

As a kid, after five years of non-advancing piano lessons Kimmo was finally allowed to change to drums. Turning towards more challenging music happened almost by accident as Kimmo was a fan of Deep Purple and he was observing Ian Gillan and Roger Glover moving towards prog and fusion in their solo projects. Soon after that Kimmo took his ”Hullujussi” LP's to second hand store and exchanged them with ELP's albums – there was no turning back.

As a teenager Kimmo received invaluable guidance to the world of good music from his neighbour Jari Uusikartano. Later on the work was carried on by Kimmo's mentor in music and recording/mixing, a Finnish prog legend Tommi Liuhala.

Every now and then throughout the 80's Kimmo worked for the Finnish Broadcasting Company Yle – making music for Television with Mika Syväniemi. With Kimmo's group Minea, a nationwide ”Starchase” -competition was won in 1986 - the first prize being a recording contract. The single was made and permormed in televison but never released as the record company went into bankrupt.

In the late 80's Kimmo was a member of a semi-professional fusion/gospel group ”Jouko Kantola Band” in Helsinki. That's where he met Mist Season's bass-player to be Keijo Hakala. After leaving the band Kimmo was invited to participate to group's album ”Odottaja”- CD in 1991. Together with Jouko Kimmo also played a concert with Juhani Aaltonen (of Tasavallan Presidentti) in 1991.

Between 1990 – 1995, Kimmo was member of Rockport, which also had it's own analoque 16-track studio in Tampere, Finland.

Kimmo released his solo-album, Maahinen: ”Ihmeellinen Iltapäivä” in 1997. The music of Maahinen has been heard in some Finnish television programs even during the recent years.

After moving to Hämeenlinna, in 2004 it was time to form Mist Season, which relased three albums and participated in many tribute projects of Colossus/Musea and Mellow Records.

Kimmo engineered Progression's highly acclaimed CD: ”The Dream of Cecilia” in 2006/2007 and was asked to join the band soon afterwards. Progression played as an opening act for Billy Cobham in Vaasa, 2009. Before disbanding in 2010 Progression made another album ”Noxologic” but it was not completed and released until 2016. Through Progression Kimmo got to know Jan-Olof Strandberg, with whom he formed Paidarion in 2009 - third stable member being Kimmo's wife Pirkko as a lyricist. In 2015 Paidarion made a small tour with Otso Pakarinen and international guests Jenny Darren, Robert Webb (of the group England), Akos Bogati-Bokor (Yesterdays) and Kev Moore (Christie).

Kimmo has taken part of some Jan-Olof's other projects – playing concerts with special guests like Michael Manring, James LoMenzo (Ozzy Osbourne, John Fogerty), Esa Kotilainen and Jukka Gustavson.

Kimmo got to know Marco Bernard through participating in Colossus tribute-projects. In 2009 Kimmo received a phone call from Marco as he asked if Kimmo could play drums for Marco's Samurai of Prog for a an Italian tribute album. It has been an intense co-operation ever since.

Steve Unruh joined just a little afterwards to complete the core of The Samurai of Prog. In the first two releases the emphasis of The Samurai of Prog was to make a good cover versions of prog songs, but for the subsequent albums it has been all about original/unreleased material. Even though TSOP's basic line-up has been the same in every album, the guest musicians have played important role in every album. So far Samurai of Prog has recorded 11 albums and received extensive international attention.

In 2020 a side project of The Samurai of Prog, ”Bernard and Pörsti” released an album ”Gulliver” followed by ”La Tierra” half a year after that.

In April 2020, Kimmo's second solo album, ”Wayfarer” was released.

In the early 2020's it was time to form a new project: The Guildmaster with Rafael Pacha, Marco Bernard and Ton Scherpenzeel. The Guildmaster's first album: The Knight and The Ghost” was released on November 2020.

Kimmo's third solo album ”Past and Present” was released on August 2021.