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Country in the UK

Vaasa on the West coast of Finland is definitely a hometown that we, ourselves have not heard about before from artists in country and Americana music. That is until we came across Mikaela Finne and her outlaw country sound just before this year’s UK Americana Music Week in Hackney. Inspired as much by heavy metal as she was by country music in her youth and now calling Stockholm in Sweden her home makes her musical story and the growth of country in Scandinavia even more fascinating.

Holler.

Finnish-born and Swedish-based singer/songwriter Mikaela Finne channels Nashville’s honky tonk sound in her new alt-country song ‘What If I’, premiering exclusively at Holler. Listen below.

Finne's Scandinavian approach to Americana offers listeners a fresh perspective. She captures the genre’s spirit and style while putting her own unique - and honest - spin on it.

the Boot

Finne's strong voice anchors "The Last Time," quivering with pain in all the right places. She's joined on the song by, among others, award-winning musician Al Perkins, who plays pedal steel guitar on the track.

"When I heard Al's playing on this song for the first time, I started crying," Finne shares. "His playing brought the song to another level and perfectly captured the mood of how I was feeling while writing it. The perfect mix of melancholy and beauty."

glide Magazine

It’s not unusual for the recording process to extricate an artist from the bummers of a pandemic, but Finne has always tried to rise above even in the most difficult of times. While Finne is righteously influenced by the American outlaw country movement, she’s been referred to “The Outlaw Queen of Finland” in her home country. Finne offers a gritty directness and fervently emotive draw that rekindles the punctuating sound of Lucinda Williams and Nanci Griffith.

Rolling Stone

Born in Vaasa in Finland and currently based in Stockholm, singer-songwriter Mikaela Finne also pledges allegiance to the country music hub of Nashville Tennessee and that’s heard on her new album Time Stands Still. Produced by Brady Blade, there’s a bit of alt-rock, country, Americana and blues across eight tracks, including standout songs like “What If I” and “Outlaw Women.” 

Americana UK

Where does the Outlaw Country of Mikaela Finne’s new album ‘Time Stands Still‘ (out on August 27th) come from?  Well – it sure ain’t Nashville.  Mikaela Finne grew up in Vaasa on the Finish coast, and now lives in Stockholm.  Her musical path is similarly not the straight line to a rocking country sound – Finne’s first love was Heavy Metal.  Not that there’s much heavy metal on ‘Outlaw Women‘ – “The country music comes from my dad,” she explains, recalling his love for Dolly Parton and Creedence. “The word ‘outlaw’, for me, [means] you do something that you love regardless of what anybody else thinks about what you’re doing. … When I was a teenager, the music and the heavy metal that I listened to were totally outlaw.”