IRON RIVER, Wis. — The critic Sasha Frere-Jones once wrote about Neil Diamond that he has a range of vocal settings: "He can do less Neil or more Neil."
It's something like that with Steve Solkela, who is always set to Steve but, when on stage, turns the Steve to 11. He turned the Steve up from about six to eight when the camera started rolling for a September interview in a restored one-room schoolhouse at a Finnish heritage center.
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"Hi," Solkela boomed when asked to introduce himself. "I'm a Finnish-American musician-comedian, and we are here today at the Oulu Cultural and Heritage Center."
He pronounced the name OH-loo. "The locals pronounce it a little bit different, but I happen to speak Finnish. You're going to get the authentic pronunciation out of me."
Solkela has a voice like a character from a tall tale: almost impossibly deep, with an accent he describes as "Minnesotanese." Its foundation is the standard dialect of the Iron Range, spiked with the "Finnglish" intonations of vintage musical humorist Bobby Aro.
"I heard his voice in the hallway, and I said, 'Oh, that's a great, great bass,'" remembered Veda Zuponcic, founding artistic director of the Northern Lights Music Festival. "We need him in the chorus."
He has the well-muscled build to go with that voice, like an accordion-playing action figure with a broad, handsome face and a dimpled chin. "Sometimes I get a better workout from hauling around my band equipment than I do doing anything else," Solkela said.
Solkela has a lot of equipment to haul around. As "Steve Solkela's Overpopulated One-Man Band," he's rigged up to play 23 different instruments. The first to be included in his ever-growing solo band were an accordion and a cowbell, but his first instrument ever was a trombone.
"In fifth grade, I got a trombone, and I quickly realized (playing music) is the best thing ever," he remembered. "I loved the challenge."
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Growing up on a farm in Palo, Minnesota, Solkela had a "rough childhood" and assumed he'd end up in the military. Despite their strained circumstances, his relatives kept their sense of humor.
"My grandfather was a hilarious man. He had an archive of jokes just saved from a lifetime of being a goofy guy, and I always hung out with him," Solkela said. "When you grow up in a family where everyone's hilarious, you feel normal, and it's not until you go to school and you realize that some people are serious that you find you'd rather be seriously funny."
The contrast between Solkela's age and his grandpa jokes — at 28, the "Solkela Polkela" band leader is two years younger than Justin Bieber — is part of the performer's charm. Performing at the Oulu Fest, Solkela peppered the appreciative crowd with ethnic humor.
"When I was born, God said, ‘I’m sorry, we don’t have the budget to make you Norwegian,'" quipped Solkela from behind his accordion. Then the musician told the one about the person who asked to say the best thing about living in Finland. "Well, the flag’s a big plus."
"I do wonder what it was like for him out on the East Coast," said Kaylee Matuszak, one of Solkela's musical collaborators. "He went to college in New Jersey, which really shocks a lot of people."
That college was Rowan University, where Zuponcic is on the music faculty. Solkela applied to the school at Zuponcic's suggestion, and by 2017, the student newspaper was reporting, "Sophomore music major Steve Solkela can play nine instruments at once."
"We found him literally in the corridors of Mesabi East," remembered Zuponcic. The teenage Solkela first worked for the Northern Lights Music Festival building sets before Zuponcic recruited him to sing.
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That "changed my life," said Solkela, but even then, it didn't seem he could make a true career out of it. "In the opera company, I think I made 300 bucks singing in the chorus and 800 bucks building the set. So even at that time, early on in my music career, I was like, yeah, the pound-for-pound physical labor is what I have to do."
Over the years, Solkela has worked "everyday jobs," he said, from shingling to bottling water to working at a laundromat and an Arby's. Despite the musician's charisma, a stint as a substitute teacher didn't go well. "Just not my cup of tea," Solkela said. "I'm too confrontational. You need to be motherly, and I am not."
In the end, for Solkela, music turned out to be the "best-paying job I ever had." Touring from his current home in Duluth, Solkela performs at a rate that currently totals — yes, he's counting — 264 gigs a year.
"I don't drink, I don't smoke, I don't gamble," Solkela explained. "I'm single. I made the conscious decision years ago that I don't ever want to reproduce. Many women have tried anyway, but don't get me started on that."
Solkela can cover every artist from Frankie Yankovic to Shakira. By 2017, he told his college paper, he could play 14,000 songs. On top of that, said Matuszak, "he's a genius, honestly, with how quickly he can write original music."
Any satiric accordionist is going to be compared to another famous Yankovic. Solkela indeed admires "Weird Al," but adds that "Dolly Parton is always going to be my goal. ... If I can have even one percent of the impact, positively, she's had on the world, I'll consider my life worth living."
Matuszak and Solkela perform together as the Berzerk Blawndz; their 2024 self-titled album includes songs like "Citation Frustration," "Vibe Checking Old Folks" and "Beer Money" as well as a new version of Solkela's "Down by the Bay" rewrite, "Up On Da Range."
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"Were you keeping it in rhythm when you went to visit Chisholm?" sings Solkela on that duet. "You know, I really like Hibbing! Just kidding, I'm fibbing."
Despite the hyper-specific lyrical references, Solkela does take his act beyond the Northland. "I think in this year, I have 14 different U.S. states on my calendar," he said. "I went on tour in Finland in January."
Still, his act doesn't quite land the same outside of this region. Even in Minnesota's own Twin Cities, said Matuszak, "the cultural difference is just hilarious, to see people trying to digest him."
Matuszak recently saw Solkela perform at Can Can Wonderland in St. Paul, and said attendees were "mesmerized" with curiosity. "What am I watching? Where's this man from?"
Solkela is so used to reeling people in that it can be disorienting when he doesn't have to.
"This past year, when the Homegrown (Music Festival) schedule came out, he was placed at Zeitgeist," Matuszak remembered. "He was kind of freaking out about the idea of just being alone in front of a sit-down stage audience."
At Matuszak's encouragement, Solkela took the opportunity to play some quieter material. "It was fun to see him both do the really loud funny stuff," said Matuszak, "and also actually just do some of his more serious songwriting."
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Having performed opera since he was a teen, this year Solkela presented a contemporary English production of Giovanni Battista Pergolesi's 1733 opera intermezzo "La Serva Padrona." He has a few other musical projects as well.
"I have the one-man band (and) Berzerk Blawndz," Solkela enumerated. "I have a polka band, a gospel band. I did a metal band. I was in a barbershop group. And, I have an opera company."
One thing Solkela will never do is blend into the background. "He's never played solo at Sir Ben's," said Matuszak about the Duluth bar and sandwich spot where singer-songwriters often play laidback happy hour sets. "He's like, 'I'm not dinner music.'"
Solkela's indefatigable energy was on display at Oulu Fest. During setup, when asked how long he expected to play, the grinning accordionist declared, "I'll polka until somebody makes me stop!"
He and three bandmates proceeded to whip through 10 songs in under 30 minutes, and they were just getting warmed up. "It speeds up every single verse," he cracked while introducing one number, "until the band is starting to unionize, and then we end the song."
"Shame on anybody who tries to attack anyone who's trying to improve your day with humor," Solkela told the News Tribune. "I'm here to enjoy life. You might die tomorrow. Laugh!"
"Some people," said Matuszak about Solkela, "when they first meet him, they think that it's just completely an act, and are very put off ... then after a while, they're like, oh, no, you're just a goofy dude and you're really sweet."
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"I'm goofy from the second I wake up to the minute I go to bed. I'm making jokes even when I'm home alone," said Solkela. "That's how you get good, you rehearse nonstop. I probably rehearse eight hours a day, if you count the shows. It's just terrifying to think of what you can be if you really commit."
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