Costello Hautamäki
Finnish singer and guitarist
Vesa Pekka "Costello" Hautamäki (born 11 September 1963) is a Finnish musician and composer. He is known especially for his career as a guitarist with Finnish rock group Popeda, but he has also forged an international career with Hanoi Rocks as their guitarist during 2001–2003 and has actively performed and recorded as a solo artist.
Hautamäki's first group was Sensuuri, who were active between 1978 and 1981. Hautamäki joined Popeda in 1981 after graduating from high school. He made an impact on Popeda's singer and founding member Pate Mustajärvi by buying all of Popeda's earlier records before his first rehearsal with the group. The guitarist at the time, Arwo Mikkonen feared that Costello could take his place in Popeda, however after Hautamäki's arrival Mikkonen remained in the group for years, until his departure in 1986. After Mikkonen left, Hautamäki became Popeda's sole guitarist and frontman.
In the course of his career Hautamäki has released three solo albums. The first of these, A Little Bit Crazy was released in 1988 was followed by 13 Reasons to Rock in 2003. His third and only Finnish-language album, Kun mies unelmoi, was released on 8 March 2013.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5793790. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1963, 2001, 2003 and 1978.
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This entry incorporates text from “Costello Hautamäki” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.