Drummer Reigo Ahven says anything can happen onstage

Drummer Reigo Ahven has fallen off stages, seen his drums topple and once watched a cymbal burn a hole in itself during a soundcheck. Speaking on Vikerraadio’s “Heli nälg” programme, he told ERR that behind the drums, “everything that can happen has happened.”

Ahven said he was born prematurely and doctors told his mother he would never walk. She was frightened and did everything she could to prove them wrong, he recalled, taking him swimming and exercising with him. He was also enrolled in activities including folk dancing, football and judo.

“I was an Õismäe troublemaker,” Ahven said, adding that Õismäe remains one of the places dearest to him. He went to Tabasalu music school four times a week as a child, and said his father was a keen music fan.

Ahven described himself as a methodical learner who enjoyed practising scales repeatedly. His solfège teacher, Helmut Aniko, once mentioned that he also played drums. Ahven had never seen a drum kit at Tabasalu music school, so his older sister suggested he visit the Georg Otsa Tallinn Music School to try one. He said he decided within seconds that he wanted to be a drummer.

He later studied drums at the Georg Otsa Tallinn Music School and continued his training at the University of Tartu’s Viljandi Culture Academy and the Sibelius Academy at the University of the Arts Helsinki. He began playing in a band while still at school, and recalled travelling to Latvia with his father to buy his first drums.

After finishing secondary school at 18, Ahven also studied semiotics and cultural studies at the University of Tartu. His drum teacher, Roland Puusepp, who plays with the band Terminaator, advised him to learn another profession as well. Ahven said he has been able to apply what he learned at university to his life and work, and does not regret the time he spent there.

Among the mishaps he described was a soundcheck with Karl-Erik Taukar’s band, where he was filling in for drummer Hans. Ahven said he hit so hard that a cymbal and its stand fell onto the main cable. The electrical incident burned a hole in the cymbal, cut the cable and left the stage in silence. A replacement cable had to be brought from the other end of Estonia.