Wild Country Rock Nights When Th

THE BEGINNING

The Yawnmovers band was formed in 2000. It was the time of dance during the Midsummer Eve´s festivities in Muonio and the time when the sun doesn´t set at all in Lapland.

"The Yawnkers" played their first gig at the Harriniva for the good folks of Muonio and the guests at the resort, some of who had come all the way from Germany. It was two wild nights of country rock echoing from the riverside venue across the border to Sweden.

The first engagement was of particular significance. The German investment bank present at the celebration of the Midsummer Eve declared The Harriniva resort their choice of holiday destination. The Yawnmovers got the call and were booked to perform all summer long until the fall for the Germans insisted on having the band, they had heard on Mid Summer Eve, to entertaint their guests and employees. Thus began the extraordinary stint of gigs between Helsinki-Tampere and Muonio.

HOW DID WE ALL MEET UP

Taija and Harri met up with Into at an outdoor gig in Hämeenlinna. They discovered at once that they were musically on the same wave length and before they knew it found themselves putting together a band. Harri knew Mikko and Into asked around at the Pop-Jazz Conservatory for a drummer and found Jani. Soon they were swapping sheet music and albums and rehearsing their asses off.

The primary goal was to put together a show for the Mid summer eve engagement in Muonio. The long booking in the Lapland (the original home of lapsteel?) was exactly what the doctor ordered for the band: they had time to develop their very own sound and add new songs to the repertoire. In 2002 Into got a music teach job in Oulu and the band was left with an opening for another guitar picker. Lo and behold: in walked Jukka Harju.

COUNTRY DANCERS AND THE FANS

The close co-operation with country dancers began as the band became acquainted with a.o. Pirkanmaa Line Dancers. They learned which songs were fun to shake a leg to and the dancers sure seemed to be on the floor all night long every night. The band began to gain a foothold in the South. There were new venues to play and The Yawnmovers were very well received. You began to recognize a bunch of faces and even the ones who weren´t particularly country music fans when they came out to see the YM show, would turn up at the backstage door at the end the night to praise the band.

THE NAME

The Yawnmovers is a distorted version of the word `lawn mower`. Harri was on the phone with a gig promoter and was asked what was the name of the band and as it was not decided upon at the time he had to come up with something fast : the ever-resourceful guitar player took a look out the window and he saw his next door neighbor mowing grass and so invented the funny name - one which, it was soon discovered, fit the group to a T since there certainly wasn´t going to be any yawning when this wild bunch got cracking!