Tom Tikka:

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"I had never put out solo material before 2020 and although I could have released the songs just under the name Tom Tikka, I didn’t want to do this because I was afraid that my music might appear under a namesake’s profile or vice versa. It’s not an unmanageable problem but once you’ve gone through that correction process with all streaming platforms a few times a year, it gets irritating.

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The band name was also chosen to honor my late father’s memory. I once accidentally busted one of his hubcaps when I helped him put on winter tires. This was when I was a teenager. He was a bit cheesed off with me as he was convinced that it happened due to my not paying attention to what we were doing. He was right! As usual, I was writing a song in my head.

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The fondest memory of that incident is my dad walking up to my room before I turned in. He wanted to apologize for yelling at me, so I’d know that we were good and everything was fine. Upon leaving my room, he jokingly suggested that I should call my band “Tommy & The Missing Hubcaps.” I thought it was the lamest name ever at the time but lo and behold after two and a half decades, it sounded pretty damn original and good.

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So in a way, with that band name, I killed two birds with one stone: I avoided the namesake issue and also, got to honor my father. Obviously, it’s the latter that makes the name special to me.

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I should point out that The Missing Hubcaps is a make-believe band. On this venture, it's my producer Janne Saksa and I who play all the instruments. I handle the lead vocals and lead guitars but other than that, it could be either one of us you hear on bass, keyboards or drums."