The story of Reckless Love
By Gary Downie
Jalle Verne, Pepe, Olli Herman and Hessu Maxx from Reckless Love at a Festival in 2010. (Credit: Getty Images)
On Sunday, the 21 of January, the Finnish hair metal band Reckless Love announced they would be going on a break due to splitting with their drummer and singer. But before we look at the end of this band, let’s take a look at where it all began, and their journey to becoming one of Finland's biggest hair metal bands.
The band was originally formed in 2001 in the Finnish town of Kuopio, where they originally started doping covers of Guns n’ Roses songs under their original name of reckless life, but with very little success. This saw the band with its original line up of Olli Herman (Frontman), Mikey Harley (Former Drummer), Pepe Reckless (lead guitar) and Jalle Verne (bass guitar). 2007 had seen Olli go on to help another band after their singer took their own life, and after about 18 months later he would return to Reckless Love.
2009 saw the band announce on their website announce the departure of Harley, with Hessu Maxx being announced as the replacement not even a week later. 2009 saw the band drop their first two singles, “One More Time” and “Beautiful Bomb”, earning them No.2 and No.4 in the charts, respectively. later in the year they filmed the music video for “Beautiful Bomb” which would debut in the December of 2009 on MTV. On the 24th of February, the band would release their debut and self-titled album, only four days after the release of their third single “Romance”, which was also accompanied with a music video.
The album would be a success, landing the band a No.13 place on Finland's official charts. The band would go on to release four more albums, as well as over 10 more singles in the next 14 years of their career. The band would go on multiple tours and even play a few festivals, doing their bit to keep glam metal alive and kicking.
However, on the 21st of January, Maxx and reckless love parted ways, this was his statement: “I want to say THANK YOU to all the fans and followers that Reckless Love have. You are the reason we made it all! For me these past 15 years have been amazing! I have loved every second of it. You all made it possible for us. You all have a place in my heart forever. I tried to meet you all every time when it was possible.
All the countries and all the shows we’ve had the pleasure to offer you our best, are precious to me. I hope you all could enjoy this life as much as I have enjoyed it in these past 15 years, even for a moment. Pepe Sedergren , Jalle Pääkkönen and Olli Herman Kosunen are my brothers always.
I want to thank them for all this time we spent together making Reckless Love, a pretty good band, right? […] I love to make music, I love to play drums, That is my passion and I will never stop. New era, new things. Let’s all enjoy it! Ps. I could quote many of the songs we have but one of the best for this feeling is ‘Edge Of Our Dreams’ -Reckless Love. Listen to it and have a moment.”
In the official statement from the band, they highlight that there are no hard feelings between them, and it was a decision they spent time on. But between this and front man Olli also singing for another band, Reckless Love is officially on a hiatus. They did say they will be back but only time will tell. All fans can do is wait and hope, for the band to hopefully make a comeback.