Samu Haber

Hello dear world - I hope you’re all doing good. I’ve been offline for some time traveling on my own around Asia, but now I’m back in Helsinki. Damn I love this city. The days are so much longer and brighter than when I left and the streets smell like spring. It’s still a little colder than where I came from last night, but it’s just a matter of weeks before we’ll have leaves on the trees again and we can all get our motor bikes from winter garages. I like that. My helmets and driving gloves are more than ready. 
 
I felt quite exhausted before Christmas as all my duties were done and I realized I’d need some time by myself. The last few years have been just amazing, but they’ve also been quite hectic. I was always pretty good at filling my calendar but the times after the Corona pandemia years, I never really stopped and never really took a break. It’s difficult when you love what you do as much as I do. After the Sunrise Avenue farewell tour I had 11 days (!) before my Finnish operation started. And while we were touring with the Finnish songs, I was already preparing the international solo journey. And I would do nothing different. It has all been so much more amazing than I even could have dreamed of and it all went better than planned. Even the victorious Voice Of Germany season last year. Thank you once again for carrying me through all that with such loving arms. It was the best season for me ever. And the tour. I really have no words. But I really felt the load on my body and soul after everything was done. I actually did have some songwriting sessions booked for this spring too, but I cancelled them all and packed my bags and escaped my life and everything else too for a while. Good choice. Now it feels good to be back and I can feel the inspiration slowly growing in my heart again. 
 
I never had a long holiday trip all alone before. Of course I travelled a million days on my own in the past, but then I always had some studios, songwriting sessions or promotion booked. This time I had nothing. The only plan was to visit my brother who lives on this small island in Thailand. It’s a real jungle and the biggest anaconda around is 7 meters long. Her name is “King Casear” and she’s eaten many dogs and other animals, but not many humans though. I’m quite glad our paths didn’t cross in the dark night. Anyways. I ended up staying with my brother for a week and for the rest of the time I just explored cities, other jungles and beaches all over the place. It was a good experience. Being with your own thoughts really gives you a chance to listen to yourself and how you feel inside. It’s not all easy at the start as the stress and workload from past years crawl out from your soul, but as days go by, you start feeling more and more relaxed and you start seeing things clearer. At some point I started asking myself “what day it is” and then I knew I’m in a really good place. It’s actually quite cool waking up and deciding after breakfast what you wanna do that day and if you’re gonna stay for another few days or if you should move on to the next spot. You also meet so many interesting people at beaches, yoga studios, Thai boxing places and restaurants when you’re alone. I wanted to go somewhere far from Europe where people wouldn’t recognize me. I was 97 % successful with that ;) But everyone was so friendly and nice and they all understood that now they weren’t dealing with the TV or guitar Samu. 
 
A funny thing happened on my brother’s island. We were driving scooters topless and without helmets or glasses (as they do around there) every day and obviously some dust particle went so deep into my eyelid, that I needed surgery to get it out. Luckily I was on the mainland already as the infection got too bad. Was a cool experience lying on a Thai hospital surgery room, everyone Speaking only Thai. And they spoke a lot ;) And then they covered me completely with fabrics so only my left eye was visible and then one of the nurses said in English “Now come pain, you must tolerate…” The only English words I heard. After receiving my hospital photo in our group chat, guitarist Tomas said to me that my life isn’t definitely boring. Samu’s yearly surgery. My eye is Ok again and they obviously knew where to stick that knife. 
 
I just looked at my calendar for this year and it looks so great. Probably better than ever before. I don’t know if I’ve ever had this many shows in the summer, even at the busiest Sunrise Avenue times and that’s quite cool. On Monday we will get back together with Risto, Tomas and Janne and we’ll make new arrangements and plans on what we’re gonna do on stage with you all this summer. And these shows are the only big plan for this year. The rest of the time I will only enjoy life, get myself beaten up at the martial arts studios around Europe, ride a lot of motor bikes and of course I’ll also write new tunes. After the mega hectic two years, now is the time to enjoy the music I wrote with my friends and just being on stage with you all. I really really like how that sounds ;)
 
Even though I cancelled the writing sessions this spring, it doesn’t mean I won’t release new music before summer. I’m totally in love with releasing music with both English and Finnish and I definitely want to keep on going with both languages. It’s quite cool to lie in a hammock under a palm tree realizing you’re humming a melody that really inspires you. There have been many times in my life when I thought that I don’t have any more songs inside me to be written and I also accepted it many times. But no. The universe is strange and amazing and sometimes when you least expect it, it gives you something special and the only thing you need to have is a recorder with you to capture something  for later processing. 
 
Big love to you all and see you very soon. Remember to keep yourself in shape, because we’re gonna have a lot of  “Put your hands up” stuff in a few months when the nights are warm again ❤️
 
Hugs from Helsinki, 
 
Samu