In the November 2025 issue of the Finnish American Reporter, I had the pleasure of interviewing my friend and Northwoods legend, Paul Metsa. This is an unedited version of that interaction. (c) Mark Munger, 2025
MM:
Let’s start with some background.
PM:
I was born in 1955 in Virginia, Minnesota. My mother’s heritage was English, Scots, and Irish. My father’s heritage was Finnish. His father’s parents were from northern Finland and immigrated to Soudan, Minnesota in the 1890’s. His mother’s parents were from southern Finland and also immigrated to northern Minnesota. Both families eventually settled in Angora where my grandparents met and my father was born in 1928 on the Metsa farm.
MM:
Were there cultural, food, linguistic, social, musical, or other elements of your Finnish childhood that impacted your upbringing?
PM:
My grandfather Emil was a huge influence on me. My dad, Elder, was a very busy guy selling insurance and real estate who also served on the Virginia School Board, Virginia City Council, and two terms as Mayor of Virginia. So, in a way, my Grandpa really filled in for the time my dad did not have time for. Grandpa Metsa had two sisters, Ellen and Eva, and two brothers, Eino and Eli. While I was growing up, Eva and Eli, both single, still lived on the Metsa homestead in Angora, MN. Eino lived right across the river. And Ellen lived in Virginia. We all celebrated holiday gatherings together and would also spend time at the Metsa cabin at Lake Vermilion in the summer. My great grandfather, John Metsa, went out in a canoe with a Native American guide and a real estate agent and bought a beautiful point on Wake-Em-Up Bay for $500. He paid for it on the spot with five, crisp one-hundred-dollar bills. That was big money as Great Grandpa John ran a working farm and was also a logger and a blacksmith. We still share the point with cousins. We’ve always had a sauna at the cabin, and as it’s grandfathered in, it’s only a few steps from the lake. I’ve been taking sauna’s since I was a baby and still take three-four saunas a week at the Duluth YMCA. I hope to eventually install one in the basement of my house in Lincoln Park. We also had a sauna in our basement in Virginia. During the winter months, all the relatives would come over for Sunday sauna night. Now the world is getting hip to the wonderful health benefits of Sauna. Bless them all for that!
My two aunts, Eva and Ellen, and grandmother Elna all made Finnish biscuits. We always debated which biscuit was the best. Eva’s was special as she cooked it on a wood stove at the farm. During visits with those Finnish relatives, biscuits and coffee were always served. We all started drinking coffee as young kids. My aunt Eva would put a sugar cube in her mouth and drink her coffee out of the saucer. Grandma Metsa would usually have a weekly batch of kalamojakka on the stove and made sure she put the head of a Northern pike in the batch replete with its eyes. That used to scare the hell out of me as a kid! She’d also have sybbit bread we’d dunk in the stew and villi (fermented milk) around for dessert.
MM:
Was Finnish spoken in your home or at family gatherings with Finnish relatives?
PM:
The older relatives spoke Finnish fluently as did my dad. My Grandma Metsa also corresponded with Finnish relatives in Finland, writing in Finn. Unfortunately, none of us kids learned the language. But I loved listening to them speak Finn as it has such a mellifluous flow.
Grandpa Metsa owned and ran the Roosevelt Bar in downtown Virginia from 1942-1965. He played accordion and, when he lived on the farm, occasionally walked through the woods to play at dances. He also had a great voice. He and Grandma got a Victrola as a wedding present in 1926 (he was 26; she was 18) and he had an amazing collection of 78s (we still have the Victrola and records at the cabin.) My first and favorite memory of appreciating music was listening to those records at the apartment above the bar in Virginia. We’d sit in the living room, just the two of us, and listen while Grandpa sang along. That’s where my love for minor keys came from. The jukebox in the bar was filled with classic country. I’d help Grandpa clean the bar on Sundays and listening to records by Johnny Cash, Ernest Tubb, and Merle Haggard (among others) inspired my love of storytelling songs. Grandpa was a big supporter of my music and bought me my first Silvertone F-hole guitar (I was in second grade). He also bought me my first amp and built me my first microphone stand. He inspired me in so many ways. When he owned the bar, the lumberjacks would come into town and give Grandpa their checks. Grandpa would monitor them and would make sure they had enough money to take home to their families after whooping it up. Many times over the years, he’d ask me to drive him up to funeral homes to say goodbye to friend, and many times we’d be one of just a few names on the visitors’ list. He was very loyal. When we’d drive around the Range for lunch or coffee, it was rare not to have somebody come up and say hello. I remember taking him to buy a new pick-up truck. The salesman assumed he was going to order it in Finlander Blue and was surprised when Grandpa ordered a green one. Grandpa’s motto was “It’s either right or it’s bullshit.” Never a week goes by when I don’t think about him.
MM:
Growing up in Virginia, did you have occasion to visit Kaleva Hall or attend any gatherings there?
PM:
My grandma was a Lady of the Kaleva. We went to the Hall for bake sales and dinners. My mother, Bess Metsa, was on the Old Finn Town committee that spearheaded the efforts to rehabilitate Kaleva Hall. I’ve played there several times. The acoustics in the second-floor concert hall are amazing.
Grandma Elna was also a member of the Unitarian Church. I played several events in the basement of the church beginning in grade school and on into high school. Many Finns were members. I loved their approach, a great combo of Christianity and Socialism. My grandma’s brother Ernie, a die-hard Communist (who was good friends with perennial Communist Presidential Candidate Gus Hall) helped run the Finnish American Worker when he lived in Superior. I loved Ernie. You could set your watch and after a few Tom and Jerry’s, he’d get into his Commie rap. My mother, a tried-and-true Republican, would always kick him out of the Christmas party. I also enjoyed reading the letters to the editor in the Mesabi Daily News from the old Socialists living out in the woods around the Iron Range.
Grandpa Metsa had a great sense of humor: subtle but ever-present. As a bar owner, he always had a great quip ready. I found early on humor is a great social lubricant. Our last name, when Great Grandpa John emigrated from Finland, was Metsavainio. They shortened it to Metsa at Ellis Island. I always knew Metsa meant woods or forest in Finn. Years ago I was at a party and a man from Finland was visiting. I asked him what Metsavainio stood for. Without skipping a beat he said, “oh, that means lost in the woods.”
I still laugh about that.
MM:
When and how did you start singing for folks in public?
PM:
I’ve always been attracted to the guitar. Many of the polka bands playing the Iron Range had guitar players. The great Bobby Aro (a fellow Finn) was an influence and I loved his radio show on WEVE out of Eveleth. I also did a couple of years as a DJ on WHLB in Virginia while in high school. Legendary radio and TV host Dennis Anderson (also a Virginia native) got his start there. I saw Elvis in It Happened at the World’s Fair at the MACO Theater in Virginia, MN in 1963 when I was in third grade. He was a handsome devil, played guitar, drove cool cars, won all his fights, and was surrounded by beautiful women. When I walked out of that theater, my course in life was set.
I’m primarily self-taught. When I was twelve, I took lessons from an amazing musician named Dennis Monroe. He taught me how to play finger-style guitar and turned me on to great American folk music. I wrote my first song “How Many Times Must I Cry” then. I was playing with my grade school buddy Chuck Christianson whose mom and dad were from Superior. We called ourselves Paul and Christian and thought we were the Iron Range’s answer to Simon and Garfunkel. We also started a band called the Positive Reaction that featured a young drummer from Mt. Iron named Gary Pagliaccetti who went on to become one of the youngest judges in Minnesota. I met Tim O’Keefe, also from Superior, on the first day of Senior High in 1973. We called ourselves Metsa and O’Keefe: billed as the only Finnish-Irish acoustic blues duo in the Upper Midwest. Then we formed a band called Cats Under the Stars. We’re celebrating the 50th anniversary of that band with several shows this year.
Early on, I was a huge fan of Leo Kottke. I saw a show of his at the Guthrie Theater and I was so knocked out by that show I decided to become a professional musician that night. My only goal was to play the Guthrie. I played there eight times, selling it out in 1994 with a ten-piece band. It was the last time my mother saw me play. Her work was done. I’ve always said, “All male musicians are Mama’s boys.”
I left Virginia for Minneapolis in 1977 to make my way into the music world. It’s one of the greatest music communities in America. I was like a kid in a candy store, out every night of the week listening to great, live, music. A few years later I started to play around town and played close to 6,000 gigs. Along the way, I wrote some songs and ended up winning eight Minnesota Music Awards. From there, I headed back north to Duluth where I now live.
MM:
How would you describe the process of becoming a musician, learning music, and venturing into songwriting?
PM:
Music is a calling not unlike becoming a priest; the best way to start is to take a vow of poverty. Like Brownie McGhee said, “My guitar is my weapon against the world.” Though it can be a tough way to make a living, I’ve survived over forty years in the ‘biz on sisu, described as “determination beyond all reason.” There’s no greater high when things are going well. I’ve made lifelong friends through music, played with many of my heroes, including Jorma Kaukonen who invited me to sit in with him at the Union Bar in Minneapolis in 1986. Another highlight was opening up for Gordon Lightfoot at Conners Point in Superior, WI in 1987. It was pure magic. It was an honor and a lifelong dream. Right before he hit the opening chords to “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”, a fog horn from a ghost ship in the harbor sounded. When he finished there was about twenty-nine sea gulls flew in low, over the stage, seeming to represent the sailors that went down on the Fitz. Moments like that are only experienced if you’ve devoted your life to music.
MM:
Other highlight to your lengthy career?
PM:
One of the first songs I learned was “Where Have All the Flowers Gone” by Pete Seeger. In 1996, I had the honor of hanging out with Pete and jamming with him at the Tribute to Woody Guthrie at Case Western University sponsored by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He told me the story of how he and Woody Guthrie toured Duluth in 1941 and played at a lumber camp in front of a dozen Finnish lumberjacks. They played all night long. The next morning they were getting ready to leave and the camp foreman asked why they were leaving. Pete said, “We played all night and got no response.” The foreman replied, “What do you mean? They loved you!” While we Finns are known to keep our emotions close to their vest, I may be an exception. I like to tell people I might be the only musician in America to have played both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio and the United States Hockey Hall of Fame in Eveleth, MN!
MM:
You’re a published author as well as a singer/songwriter.
PM:
I’ve authored three books and released twelve original recording projects. Folks can find out more info at www.paulmetsa.com .
MM:
You’re visible, audible, and active in the Duluth music scene and have interest in history, politics, and social justice.
PM:
Finnish Socialists helped create the first labor unions on the Iron Range as well as food and electrical co-operatives. I recently found the card that was given out at my Great Grandmothers Selma’s funeral held at the Metsa homestead in Angora. It was put on by the Range Mortuary Co-operative which I found interesting. Leave it to the Finns to unite to save costs when saying final goodbyes to relatives!
I’ve always admired how Finns fight for social justice. I was inspired by that, along with the Civil Rights movement and other progressive social movements. Those sentiments and movements have shaped my political views and my songwriting. Part of my original repertoire includes songs about social justice. This fall, I’m releasing a collection of a dozen songs I’ve recorded over the years called Songs of Resistance and Respect which will hopefully include a songbook. I describe myself exactly like respected United States District Court Judge Miles Lord, who called himself an “Iron Range prairie populist.”
In terms of live music and catching me on the radio, I play every Friday at Carmody’s Irish Pub at 308 East Superior Street in Duluth from 5:30-7:30pm backed by the Tilt Town Titanettes. I also host a weekly radio show, “Stars Over the Prairie”, airing on Saturday mornings from 11am-Noon on KDAL 610AM-103.9FM. The show can also be streamed via www.kdal610.com .
You can watch Paul and the great Al Sparhawk of Low in this fine new video of Paul’s new protest song, “No Kings.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkMLoJ7ZQgA&list=RDMkMLoJ7ZQgA&start_radio=1
