Tom Rasila

It all started on October 11, 1960 in Finland. In the fall of 1969 the family moved to Canada. We lived in the city of Windsor Ontario. It was pretty hard at first not knowing how to speak the language. My father went to work for Chrylers as a pipefitter. We eventually bought a nice house near Lake St.Clair and even had a boat on a dock in the backyard. I had taken guitar lessons for a short while in about 1973. My formal music training didn't really start until the seventh grade when I started playing trombone in the school band. This lasted right through to the end of high school. I also played in the Lions Club concert and marching band. After high school I went back to Finland for a year. When I came back I worked at various low paying jobs while living at home. Got an opportunity to attend community college where I studied electronics repair. After graduating I eventually found work in this field and moved to a town called Orangeville. I worked and lived there for a couple of years doing antenna installation and audio/video repairs. I found a better job in the city of Mississauga working as an installer and service technician for a communications and security company. I worked there for about five years. My mother passed away during this time in 1991 from a brain tumor. A few years later in 1995 my father also died from cancer. I was able to quit my job and take some time off so I started recording some of my own songs. That's what I did for a couple of years until I went back to work again. I got a job working for a company installing card access and surveillance systems. I left that job after about a year and a half. Took some more time to work on my own music again. Went back to work for a small company working with retail security equipment. A few months later I switched to working for the same company as an independent contractor. I started working at home assembling small security devices. This is what I am doing right now and it still leaves me time to work on my music.