Saaresto was born in Helsinki. He was actively involved in music from a very young age and wrote several of his songs as a teenager. "Change", from the band's fourth number-one album Twilight Theater, was written by Saaresto in 1990. "Maybe Tomorrow is a Better Day" from Carnival of Rust is even older, dating back to 1988. Saaresto took up a course in graphic design and worked as a graphic designer until he was in his early thirties.^[1] Saaresto has a bass-baritone vocal range.^[2]

Saaresto formed a band called Playground in 2001 and wrote several songs with them. The songs were compiled into an album but they were unable to find a label to distribute it, and hence called it quits. Playground's primary members were Saaresto and Pohjoinen Syke jazz guitarist Olli Tukianen.

In early 2002, Saaresto was approached by Sam Lake, the writer of the Max Payne series of video games, to write the lead single for the second installment in the series, Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne. Saaresto agreed. Lake gave Saaresto a poem he had written and asked him to make a song out of it. Saaresto modified it, and along with former Playground bandmate Tukiainen, wrote the now-famous single "Late Goodbye". To assist them with production, Lake offered them the services of industrial musician Markus "Captain" Kaarlonen. Together, they recorded the song, and upon the release of the game, it garnered cult status. Thousands of requests were made by players all around the world to own a physical copy of the song. They then decided to formally create the band and named it Poets of the Fall.

With Poets of the Fall edit

• Signs of Life (2005)
• Carnival of Rust (2006)
• Revolution Roulette (2008)
• Twilight Theater (2010)
• Temple of Thought (2012)
• Jealous Gods (2014)
• Clearview (2016)
• Ultraviolet (2018)
• Ghostlight (2022)
• Rebirth – Greatest Hits (as Old Gods of Asgard, 2023)

With Playground edit

• Playground (unreleased, 2001)

As a featured artist edit

Audiobooks

• Words into Worlds by Flamelight (2021)^[8]