Gösta Erik Sundqvist (17 May 1957 – 16 August 2003) was a Finnish musician, radio comedian and record producer. He was the lead singer of Leevi and the Leavings from the band's formation in the late 1970s until his death, and composed, wrote the lyrics for, and arranged every song the band released. Through his schoolmate and neighbour Jogi Ojamo – who lived on the same street and whose sister brought home records for the two boys to listen to – Sundqvist discovered Jethro Tull around the age of 12 or 13. Jethro Tull, along with the MC5 album Kick Out the Jams, sparked his interest in music; he began to grow his hair long and gave up organised football. In 1971 Ojamo introduced Sundqvist to , who would later write a memoir about the singer's youth. Shortly afterwards Sundqvist's parents divorced and he moved with his mother and sisters to the Helsinki district of Meilahti.

In a 1984 ' interview Sundqvist described his school years as isolated and marked by his deliberately provocative appearance – backcombed hair, makeup and women's skirts – which, he said, left PE teachers convinced he needed to be committed. Partanen has cautioned that his own recollections of the early 1970s contain no memory of Sundqvist wearing makeup, apart from one occasion when the friends experimented with it together.

First bands and influences

In 1972 Sundqvist travelled with Inna and Partanen to the Inna family farm in Iittala for a summer of rehearsing in a group then called "Funeral Procession". Inna's taste for dance music and humppa would be a decisive influence on the later Leavings sound, pushing Sundqvist toward melodic, iskelmä-like material. In photos of the session Sundqvist posed with his face hidden behind his hair, in the manner of Cyrano de Bergerac, a character he openly identified with.

Partanen regarded the various short-lived bands of this period as "finger exercises" – Sundqvist had no interest in performing live and instead recorded large numbers of his own compositions on tape. The early lyrics were in English and drew on myth and chivalric romance, punctuated by flute riffs in the style of Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson. Sundqvist dressed the part, with curled hair, a long Mediterranean-blue velvet coat and light-brown Robin Hood-style moccasin boots, and adopted as his personal motto a line from the Jethro Tull song "Life Is a Long Song": "life is a long song, but the tune ends too soon for us all…" After Jethro Tull, his greatest musical love was the British folk-revival group Amazing Blondel and especially their album England; the group's next name, "Troubadour", reflected this new interest in British lute-accompanied song. He was also drawn to Italian progressive rock, particularly La Bottega dell'Arte and Premiata Forneria Marconi. The group's only public appearance in this era was on the roof of the Inna family house on Mansikkatie in Westend in March 1973; a production company, Strawb Production, was named after the street and would continue to be credited on Leevi and the Leavings releases. When Inna left for an exchange year in the United States in August 1974, the friends' band activities were put on hold. He went through periods of withdrawal during which he claimed to have no friends and to want none. Toward the end of the decade he moved into central Helsinki, to Ratakatu, working for his father's renovation firm and as the caretaker of his own apartment building.

Music career

Leevi and the Leavings

In a 1978 interview with Partanen, Sundqvist dated the actual formation of Leevi and the Leavings to the autumn of 1977. Inna and had met while doing their military service at the Häme Jaeger Battalion in Hämeenlinna; a few months later Inna invited Paananen to the Iittala cottage to play bass. Sundqvist and his friends had already been making Stereogramofoni cassettes on which they parodied real radio shows and bands; among the fictitious acts appearing on the tapes were The Babyboys, the Kyösti Salmenoksa Quintet, and Leevi and the Leavings. In 1978 the band made an appearance at the Äimä-Rock festival in Iittala under the pseudonyms "Tarmo Dynamo" and "Rife Paananen ja kyytipojat".

Inna was determined that the group should release a proper record. He secretly sent two cassette songs – "" and "Rakas Annika…" – to at Love Records; Sundqvist himself would not have offered the songs for release. and remained intact to the end. 's backing vocals were a defining feature of the Leevi and the Leavings sound from the beginning. Under their own name the group made only one public appearance, at the Finnish Eurovision preselection in 1981, performing "Sinisilmä, mansikkasuu"; they were eliminated in the heats. The cover art, based on Sundqvist's ideas and executed under his close supervision, was the work primarily of Mikko Kurenniemi and Timo Puranen.

Other projects

At the turn of the 1970s and 1980s Sundqvist also worked as a producer for other acts, including The Crinolettes, in which both of his sisters sang. Sundqvist appeared as a guest vocalist on Liisa Akimof's single "Viiden pennin paskiainen" (1993) and on Sipe Santapukki's "Häiriintynyt kuu" (2002).

Sundqvist's radio work introduced the wider Finnish public to , a recurring fictional character in his radio series played (and still played) by journalist Kai Järvinen.

In the radio plays Sundqvist blended fact and fiction, and occasionally used real people as characters. He typically played a radio reporter who – alone or with a "colleague" – broadcast "live" from some unusual location. Short sketches alternated with musical interludes thematically linked to the preceding sketch. Some episodes formed larger arcs, such as trilogies set in Africa, Russia and South America; in each, familiar characters turned up "by coincidence". One Finnish setting was a sewer swimming pool dug under Helsinki's Market Square.

Final years

During the last seven years of his life Sundqvist refused all interviews, including from ', which had previously published extensive pieces about him; he promised editor-in-chief Timo Kanerva that he would agree to an interview when he turned 50. Ilta-Sanomat did publish an interview a week after his death, based on a conversation conducted shortly before, although it had not originally been intended for publication. According to Partanen, Sundqvist also kept his distance from people generally during these years.

Sundqvist drank very little alcohol but had smoked heavily since his teens. On his doctor's advice he also gave up smoking. After Sundqvist's death Paananen, Karastie and Nylund jointly decided to end the band, feeling that Leevi and the Leavings without Sundqvist was unthinkable. In 2011 they announced a return under the name , playing both new material and Leavings songs live. He was deeply concerned about the environment and raised ecological themes in interviews, even while mocking apocalyptic soothsayers. Uncompromising and self-directed, he preferred to abandon a project rather than relinquish control of it. Although he spent most of his life in central Helsinki, he rejected the "Stadi" (Helsinki-urban) identity, describing the people he found most foolish as exactly those who cultivated it.

Avoidance of publicity

Sundqvist actively cultivated a mysterious public image; even his bandmates found his personality hard to describe. Throughout the Leavings' career he played with the band's media persona – originally the intention had been to conceal the members' names altogether. Although that plan was unsuccessful, he pursued the same game by refusing to tour and by writing ambiguous lyrics. His fellow band members have said that he extended the game to journalists, and that his idiosyncratic interview answers could be as fictional as his lyrics. He nonetheless followed press coverage of the band closely and was pleased by positive responses, especially to the music itself. He did not move in music-industry circles and chose his friends carefully.

Sundqvist said he took football far more seriously than music-making – not as a hobby but as a way of life. Beyond music, he loved films and collected model cars. Later he used names including "L. Samarialainen", "Pentti Jormanainen", "Erkki Salpola" and "Erik Kääriäinen", under which, for example, he was credited on Aarne Tenkanen's albums.

Musician

Sundqvist composed and wrote the lyrics for every Leevi and the Leavings song. The band's style has been described as Finnish rock that blurs the lines between rock and iskelmä. rockabilly and synth-pop on the third. Critic Tero Lietteen has described Sundqvist's output as defined by melodicism and an acoustic sensibility borrowed from British folk music, and Sundqvist himself said that melody was what mattered most to him. His greatest inspirations were Jethro Tull, Ian Anderson and Amazing Blondel; in a 1984 Soundi interview he named U2 as his favourite band. Besides progressive rock he also loved classical music – particularly Sergei Rachmaninoff – and Italian schlager, whose ingenious arrangements made a lasting impression on him.

Despite all of this, Sundqvist did not regard himself as a musician. As a storyteller he likened himself to the pulp novelist Mauri Sariola and the director-screenwriter Aarne Tarkas.

Sundqvist was uncomfortable with the "voice of Finnishness" label that was sometimes applied to him, saying that he felt more Belgian than Finnish in outlook. Nylund has suggested that Sundqvist deliberately played with these images: "This loser-man story can be found just as well in Ahmed Ahne or Donald Duck; it is universal." In the history Jee jee jee: suomalaisen rockin historia, the Leavings' lyrical style is characterised as "tragicomic", a blend of irony and empathy, tragedy and comedy; although Sundqvist viewed his characters through comedy, he dealt with fundamental questions of life more deeply than many who tried in earnest. Kolmas nainen's Sakari Pesola called the style "nationalist-romantic and parodic". Tero Valkonen has observed that the lyrics are characterised by absurd narratives and a singer who refrains from judging his characters' actions.

Sundqvist resisted readings that took his lyrics to refer to his own life, His environmental concerns came through strongly on the album Raparperitaivas, whose title track contains the line "Man has done nothing but bring pain and destroy his planet".

Legacy

The 2006 PMMP album ' contains a song, "Henkilökohtaisesti", explicitly dedicated to Leevi and the Leavings. The actress Mari Rantasila has named Sundqvist as her greatest influence as a lyricist.

Bibliography

  • Alanko, Tero et al. (2008). Leevi and the Leavings – Matkamuistoja -kansivihko. Johanna Kustannus.
  • Bruun, Seppo et al. (1998). Jee jee jee: Suomalaisen rockin historia. Helsinki: WSOY. ISBN 951-0-22503-7.
  • Forss, Timo Kalevi (2017). Gösta Sundqvist – Leevi and the Leavingsin dynamo. Helsinki: Into. ISBN 978-952-264-796-2.
  • Ketvel, Roo (1989). Sanoista. Helsinki: Zappa. ISBN 951-8966-00-1.
  • Luoto, Santtu (2004). Raparperitaivas. Helsinki: Johnny Kniga. ISBN 951-0-29667-8.
  • Partanen, Juha (2006). Cyrano ja hullu koira: Nuoruusvuosia Leevi and the Leavingsin Gösta Sundqvistin kanssa: Muistelma. Espoo: Mediakasvo. ISBN 952-92-0973-8.
  • Official Leevi and the Leavings website
  • Yle Elävä arkisto: Tällainen oli Gösta Sundqvist ja tätä kaikkea hän teki
  • Sundqvist's 1984 Soundi interview
  • Obituary in Helsingin Sanomat