APOst - Eicca
This biography is based on interviews, forum conversations, websites… I'm not responsible for mistakes etc.
-Simke
We all know Eicca as our beloved president. And of course we all know he is a great cellist. But did you know he was born on the 5th of august 1975 in Vantaa, Finland? He wasn't born as Eicca but as Eino Matti Toppinen. He has a sister whose name is Aino and to avoid mix-ups, he called himself “Eikka” which evolved to “Eicca” because that is more international.
He started to play cello at the age of 9 and graduated from the Sibelius-academy in Helsinki. When he was asked what he liked most about Sibelus-academy his words were “getting drunken daily”.
He played in several orchestras like the Avanti! chamber orchestra, the symphonic orchestra of radio and the cello sextet.
Now he is the leader of Apo because he is the one who does the most work, aside from the recording. He writes and produces many of the songs. He also plays the most notes in concerts.
Eicca is married to Kirsi Ylijoki. She's a famous actress in Finland. She was on a couple of TV-shows and in some movies. They live on a farm (where he drives around in a tractor) with their two children, Eelis (7) and Ilmari (4). He's a real family guy who wants to be a role model for his kids, a man who is not afraid to show his emotions and who can say sorry.
Eicca is also not afraid to say what he likes or dislikes. He was asked in an interview if he had to choose a band to wipe off of the planet, which band it would be. After a long thought he said: “maybe… maybe cradle of filth… we played some gigs with them and they were so bad”.
Eicca has some famous quotes and one of them is “I want to bird you”. The band was playing at a German song contest together with Marta. But since they are Finns representing a German district they had to learn a little about Germany, so Marta first tries to teach them some things about Germany and then they exercise pronunciation. Eicca translates “Ich wil dich vögeln” to “I want to bird you”
A couple more Eicca facts:
• He likes to cook. His favourite is pasta with vegetable based sauce.
• When someone asked him in an interview what he would have chosen as a profession if he couldn't play cello and he answered that it was very difficult to say but that when he was younger he thought about becoming a horseback riding – instructor.
• His favourite book is “Crime and punishment” by Dostojevski.
• He once showed his… um… behind trough the window when they were recording.