Zen Café is a Finnish

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

 rock band that was founded in Turku

Turku

Turku is a city situated on the southwest coast of Finland at the mouth of the Aura River. It is located in the region of Finland Proper. It is believed that Turku came into existence during the end of the 13th century which makes it the oldest city in Finland...

 in 1992. Since the late 1990s, the band has been quite popular in Finland, but it hasn't gained popularity in other countries – then again, there has never been an attempt to export the band outside Finland, most likely simply because all of the group's songs are in Finnish

Finnish language

Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...

.

The band named itself after the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values is a 1974 philosophical novel, the first of Robert M. Pirsig's texts in which he explores his Metaphysics of Quality.The book sold 5 million copies worldwide...

by Robert M. Pirsig

Robert M. Pirsig

Robert Maynard Pirsig is an American writer and philosopher, and author of the philosophical novels Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values and Lila: An Inquiry into Morals .-Background:...

 at the suggestion of band's bassist

Bassist

A bass player, or bassist is a musician who plays a bass instrument such as a double bass, bass guitar, keyboard bass or a low brass instrument such as a tuba or sousaphone. Different musical genres tend to be associated with one or more of these instruments...

 Kari Nylander. Other original members were Samuli Putro (vocals

Singing

Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...

, guitar

Guitar

The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...

), Mikko Oesch (guitar) and Tuomo Mäkipaavola (drums). Oesch soon left the group and Mäki-paavola was replaced by Pete Parkkonen (drums

Drum kit

A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....

).

Their latest album STOP was released in 2006. Currently they're having a long pause from recording and doing gigs.

Current line-up

• Samuli Putro – vocals, guitar, lyrics
• Kari Nylander – bass
• Pete Parkkonen – drums

Albums

• Romuna (1997) (English: Wrecked)
• Idiootti (1998) (English: Idiot)
• Ua ua (1999)
• Helvetisti järkeä (2001) (English: Hell of a lot of sense)
• Vuokralainen (2002) (English: Tenant)
• Jättiläinen (2003, anthology) (English: Giant)
• Laiska, tyhmä ja saamaton (2005) (English: Lazy, stupid, and indolent)
• STOP (2006)