This Punk Band Made Up of Musicians With Disabilities Is About to Make History

Pertti Kurikan Nimipäivät, better known as PKN, is a Finnish punk band whose members are all middle-aged men with intellectual disabilities.

As of Saturday, the band has officially been chosen to represent their county at the Eurovision Song Contest, an international televised singing competition, taking place this May in Vienna, Austria.

The Eurovision Song Contest has been ongoing in Europe since 1956 and boasts an estimated 180 million viewers every year, according to its website.

PKN will perform their 85-second song “Aina Mun Pitaa” (I Always Have To) for the competition, and they’re currently one of the predicted favorites to win, BBC News reported. They will also be the first punk band to compete at Eurovision.

“We are changing attitudes somewhat,” Sami Helle, the band’s bass player told The Guardian. “A lot of people are coming to our gigs, and we have a lot of fans. We don’t want people to vote for us to feel sorry for us, we are not that different from everybody else — just normal guys with a mental handicap.”

As The Mighty previously reported, PKN formed in 2009 but gained significant popularity after a documentary about them called “The Punk Syndrome” was released in Spring 2012.

“We bring a different kind of perspective into punk music; it’s our perspective,” Helle said in a press release. “We’re different, we’re four mentally handicapped guys so our perspective on the world of punk is a little different.”

Best of luck, guys!

Check out PKN in the trailer to “The Punk Syndrome” below:

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