Samu Haber

I’m biting my nails in an office in Helsinki. In three days (Feb 15th) we will release the first ever Sunrise Avenue single in Finland and even though I’ve been building my confidence with big talks to my bathroom mirror every evening, I’m nervous as f**k. It’s year 2006 and we’ve been working on our first album with Sunrise Avenue for two years with producer Jukka Backlund and it has been the best time of my life. Jukka has opened me doors to a brand new world of harmonies and sounds and I’m in love with them all. My friend has sold his house to pay the studio. I’ll pay him back someday somehow. Our written goal is to reach gold status in Finland (15.000 copies) with our album and we also hope to have a few shows outside Finland too. Sweden or Germany would be cool. It feels a bit stupid dreaming this big as we all know the odds, but why not. Are there rules how crazy dreams can be? 
 
The evening before the release of  “All Because Of You” single I go to my secret stone by the sea, the same stone I still visit when I need to clear my head. I stare at the horizon and breathe in the future. I don’t know wonderland but I know it’s out there. I’ve done my best and even more, everyone around me has. The album is ready and soon our lives might change. I’m listening to all kinds of power songs on my headphones. If Siawould have released “Unstoppable” ten years earlier, it would be playing. Many people see me sitting there in the cold evening of my home town. But nobody recognizes me. I’m not a public person yet.
 
XX Twenty Years In The Business
 
Now 20 years later I’m sitting on a plane to Helsinki. I’ve been traveling this whole winter and I really needed the escape. The summer tour last year was just unbelievable, but the autumn after it went in a strange fog. I only met with a few people I felt safe with and just like everyone in my band, I was also totally out of energy and somehow down. The storm we flew through with you all last year was so damn beautiful, but getting back to the real world wasn’t easy at all. I stayed quite much at home alone. I held on to my martial arts training (Got two new higher belts) and finished every second evening with a sauna session with closest friends. That’s my favourite therapy. I saw my real therapist again too. The last five years leaving Sunrise Avenue and returning as a solo artist with both English and Finnish languages felt like running seventy six marathons each year. Was worth every step and I would do it again. 
 
It feels so good flying back to Finland. Palm trees and beaches are nice, but I miss home. Last week I checked the weather and Helsinki was 55 degrees colder than where I was having my fresh coconut. I miss my family and my friends and my own bed too. What gives me the biggest goose bumps is that I’m having hunger for studio work again. Very much. There were a few weeks in November I didn’t want to hear any songs or even to see a piano, but now I’m counting hours to my music sessions in the weekend. I have a thousand melodies inside me and I hope the producers are ready for Tarzan-Samu returning from the jungle with his travel-story-bag. 
 
XX. Twenty in roman numbers. Strong. This Sunday (15/2/2026) will be my 20 year anniversary in the show business. Twenty years from my first song being released. Looking back at that guy alone on that cold rock before it all happened… It’s all like a movie. To celebrate this, I released a special Haber MMA XX t-shirt and it’s available only until Monday. If you ask me, it’s the coolest shirt I ever had in my store. I already got some funny messages from some professional MMA fighters from different counties. This is as close to MMA ring I’ll ever get ;)
 
I have decided to change the 2026 autumn tour name to “XX.” I have to. The dates and cities stay the same. And as next summer will be an easy one for me and I’m gonna do just a very few festivals, my hunger before the tour starting in September is gonna be huge. I won’t do any big TV shows this year either. After the XX Tour I have no plans at all and that feels right. I will make new plans when I have a full album ready someday. I will not push it and I’ll just focus on enjoying what is going on already. 
 
I’m sitting in the first row business seat on Finnair Airbus 350. I’m the only one here in the front wearing a Mickey Mouse t-shirt and a “Booa Helsinki” baseball cap and I’m banging my head and playing air drums. “Like the clowds I’m flying and I’m…” Just listen to the damn song. So honest and so pure and so full of hope. And I sound like a life hungry chipmunk. I listened to “All Because Of You” many times on my trip. It made me both cry and laugh, sometimes at the same time. It somehow feels like it came out last week and still so much has happened after that day. That metal CD single box we thought was so cool back then. CD box… Some things have changed.
 
But what hasn’t changed is that I’m gonna climb on stage to see you all soon and just like back then, I’ll be nervous before the show. God I miss those butterflies. And just like back then, I’ll love every second of it. And just like those early times, I’ll be getting off my stage clothes after the show asking myself at the backstage “How can I ever deserve all this with these people around me…” 
 
I hope I live to see another twenty years of this show business madness. There are days it almost kills me and I know it rains on you too sometimes. But in the end, it heals and gives so much more than it takes. So as long as it works like that, it would be a crime not to ride this highway.
 
We’re landing. Captain just said -7degrees and clear skies. I haven’t held an instrument for a few months and let’s see if I’ll even take my shoes off before grabbing my living room Gibson at home. 
 
Thank you people for the first 20 years together. Hoping there’s many more to come. I can’t wait to see you all in April in Berlin. My big birthday in the city that has given so much. Full house and just one night.
 
I love you all very much. By being there you have given me this little life of mine and you have made that crazy dream come true. My words can never thank you enough.
 
Forever Yous,
 
XX
 
Samu
 
PS: We found a way and my friend got his house back. And we actually also managed to reach gold limit in Finland and to play a few shows outside Finland too…