Markus Hirvonen is drummer in Finnish metallers Insomnium. Markus Hirvonen's biography, in his own words:
I was born 1980 in Espoo, Finland's second largest city, just beside Helsinki. I Lived there for about five years before we moved to Joensuu, capital of the North-Karelia. My mom and dad were born in Northern Karelia and decided to return to their "roots". It turned out to be an excellent move. You could say that my childhood was rather normal. Lot's of bike riding and some skateboarding with friends at the time.
At the age of ten or eleven I discovered the exciting world of metal. My friend introduced me to a band called Metallica. It all started with song called Welcome Home (sanitarium). I remember listening to that song in the library, especially the intro was into my liking. After listening all metallica records intensively for few years, I saw Sepultura's live performance from a video and decided to get a copy of Arise, one of the greatest albums in the history of metal. I suddenly noticed that I had became an eager metalhead! Years later when I was introduced to band called In Flames I really got into melodic deathmetal. After listening to Swedish death-acts for a while, I was thrown into whole new direction. I found a band called Dream Theater. Since then I have bought almost all of their releases and also few rarity. Honestly I can say that DT is the band that has influenced me the most so far. My music taste has been expanding ever since to a variety of directions. Nowadays part of my favourite artists are quite far from the basic metal. Don't get me wrong I still dig metal very much, but sometimes it's refreshing to listen other styles of music. Before I got into this whole metal thing I was listening to my big brother's records.
My first musical performance took place in elementary school, where I remember singing alone in front of the whole school in the schools closing before summer break. At the time I was about 1.2 meters tall and weighted 19.5 kilos, it must have been extremely impressive sight! I got my first guitar at the age of ten. It was a legendary small Landola that is actually still holding up fine. I learned the basics of guitar by playing those legendary Metallica intros, that are actually rather good exercise for beginning guitarist in my opinion. I remember those great feelings that I got from playing along with songs like Fade to Black and One. I have been playing guitar ever since. The way that I got involved in playing drums is my small brother's fault, who got drums of his own when I was about fifteen. I remember when we tried to play Slayer's Dead Skin Mask's intro, and thought that it was way too tricky to be handled at the time. Drums are the instrument that I have always liked. I am very pleased that I had the chance to play both guitar and drums! My first band experience was when Niilo Sevänen and Tapani Pesonen asked Ville and me to play acoustic performance with them in high school's spring-concert, I won't get into details here but I can tell you it was hilarious. The same four men troop decided to continue playing together, this time with electrical instruments, and you probably know the rest.
Future will remain as a mystery for me. I have some plans for the future, but the more you plan the more likely your plans will get fucked up one way or another. At the moment I am studying environmental technology in the Lappeenranta University of Technology. Graduating will hopefully take place somewhere in the future? Besides studying I also want to spend time with my hobbies and activities I like the most.
Otto Block
