Part 1 http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=RSOppfRPISs&feature=related - Can you tell me a few words about the concept of Venus Doom?
- There’s no really… We never have a concept when making an album. Usually an album starts with a riff, or… Last time it was… Linde was somewhere on the vacation, Burton was changing diapers or whatever… And me and Mige and Gas, we were just hanging out and then we got bored, and we wanted to go to our rehearsal place and there we were jamming. And while jamming, I got the riff for Love in Cold Blood. And that’s how the whole thing started, you know. It just sounded something really Cathedral, and Monster Magnety, and Black Sabbathy, and we’ve got the idea from there to make the whole album a bit more guitar orientated. The guitars are a bit stronger comparing to the Dark Light. We didn’t want to do the same thing. Anyway, it’s impossible to do the same thing again, and then, we didn’t want to do anything more poppy. Because the DL was like on the verge, it’s so straightforward, most of the album that we wanted to make something a bit more weird.
- That’s very good; I’ve heard.
- Lovely
- Which song from Venus Doom is your favourite and why?
- Well, I think it’s the whole album. I have been listening to it. Normally it takes… When we start preparing for the next album, that’s when I’ll probably take to listen to Venus Doom, and maybe to Dark Light. And, something like listening to them and thinking: ‘ah, that was a good thing, ah, that we could have done better’ or whatever (aaaa, krokodily begemoty, aaaa obezjany kashaloty, aaaa i zelionyj popugaj). But it’s not that I would spend my free time listening to our own music. So, now we’re playing a few tracks live, and from a live perspective I like Sleepwalking Past Hope since it’s a bit different, it’s a very long track, and…I don’t fucking know. It’s all good for me.
- And what inspires you when it comes to songwriting?
- The stories you hear in a pub. There’s a lot of stories, you know. If you just watch the news and keep your ears and your eyes open there’s a lot of things to write about. Obviously, it does filter through you very personal, you know, filter through your own experiences. So, it turns out to be very personal. But, you know, I don’t know. Life in general, I guess. There’s no method to it, meaning that I would sit down and start reading and then get very inspired. Inspiration happens…you know. It’s like boners, it just happens.
- So life in general.
- I guess so.
- HIM exists already for 10 years and has a big success in so many different countries. Is this just something you wanted to achieve?
- Ah, yeah – to make a couple of good albums. Obviously, we could be a lot bigger, and more well known band, but it has to happen on right terms. We have to be happy with what we’re doing. Yeah, making classic rock album that would change the world of rock. I guess everyone wants to do that, so. We’ve done 6 albums already we’re happy with and. It’s a constant challenge, so you’d do better what you do. You need a lot of luck to release an album at the right time, people’s ears need to be right, or on the same wave as musicians, so… It’s like gamble; it’s like playing Russian roulette with 5 bullets instead of 1.
- The band’s line-up hasn’t been the same from the beginning. What are former band members doing and are you still in contact with them?
- The former ones? Well, Patka, the drummer, he’s working in a bar, I guess, in Helsinki. He had a few bands. I don’t see him a lot, because we kinda kicked him out in a very very nasty way. But we didn’t know any better at that time. We should have talked, and… But, we did most stupid things, and we talked about it with people behind his back, and that was a fucking stupid mistake to do. You know, it’s kinda like, the wound is healing. You know, we said to him that we were very sorry and it was just stupid mistake we did, we didn’t know any better when we were younger, or whatever. It was just stupid thing. Stupid mistake, but… He’s doing fairly well. Anto, the guy who used to play keyboards with us on our first album, he’s a… he owns 2 restaurant now in Helsinki. He’s been chef for 8 years. He’s been working in Japan, in London, and all around the world, and in France. And, he’s doing very well with the food, food department. And, I haven’t seen Juska, the guy who played keyboards after him. I haven’t seen him 2 years, or something. I don’t know, it’s just (??)
Part 2 http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=NTa7OJAKVzE&feature=related - What is your personal opinion, how has the band changed over the last 3 years?
- Oh, you know, we’re getting older. People are getting families and kids. (pauza, zadumalsia o smysle zhyzni i est li zhyzn na Marse) It’s all tough. People change anyway, whether they would be on a band or not. You know, we started a band when we were maybe 14, so obviously I went through a lot of changes between 14 and 31, you know. Everybody does. You go through your teenage years, and you go through grown-up a bit, and I’ve started a middle life crisis, I guess. Well, I’m not the only one, but… So, it’s hard to separate what’s changed because of the band, but… ah…I don’t fucking know… You should ask a friend, or something like that, what’s changed. A lot of things change all the time
- Has there ever been a point in your career that you thought you were losing ground?
- Losing ground in what sense?
- I don’t know… ‘I can’t do this anymore…’
- Oh, everyday. That’s really why I carry an acoustic guitar with me. When I’m kinda losing my faith in the whole thing, you know, I start (???) with guitar and hopefully come up with something new. It is fairly tough at times, (???) being on tour. It’s very boring and not very inspirational. Because, you know, you’re… You know, I’ve been deceived many times, and I’ve seen a lot of things around the world, so… Nowadays I prefer being back home. It’s quiet, peaceful, not so much traveling. So, we tried enough to overwork ourselves, what we did before. We’re still keep on touring a lot, and we’ve been releasing albums every 2-2.5 years, which is still…it’s fast pace for a band nowadays. But we try to keep as many breaks as possible. Just to keep everybody’s heads (???)
- Ok. What annoys you mostly in the music business?
- It doesn’t annoy me. Maybe, because I understand that music is music, and business is business. And the music business is about selling art. So, it’s like being an art gallerist. You know, you’re putting pieces of art on the walls and hoping that someone’s gonna buy it. And, there’s a lot of great people working in music industry, but also there’s a lot of people who think that since they are in the business, they know something about music. And then there’s a lot of musicians that think they know a lot about business, and… There’s very few who actually do. I’m not a businessman myself, you know. I do read all the contracts and I know what’s going on, and that’s in that sense, but… My life is not that, my life is writing music, so… I’m glad that we have the opportunity of working with people who take care of that side for us.
- Many fans travel to other countries, especially to enjoy there a concert from you. Do you have a band you did the same for?
- Kiss. You know, it was when they got their masks back in the mid 90s, it was 94-95-96 or whatever. I traveled to Stockholm; so, that was probably the only one. I was supposed to fly over to, was it Belgium, to see Iggi… Iggi Pop with Linde, but then we’ve heard the gig won’t happen. So, because of lot of tour we don’t have time. I was supposed over to London after our gig in Tilburg to see (Mission ??), their last gig. But we had to play 6 gigs right after that… so I didn’t wanna... I have one day off, so I’d rather rest. There are a lot of bands I would travel for, so… Well, I haven’t traveled, let’s say, from Finland to America, not yet. But maybe one day I will.
- What bands would you like to see?
- (Interpol -??) I haven’t seen (Interpol ??), that’d be good. We’ve just got Fields of (??) playing on Helldone, our festival during New Years Eve in Helsinki, and that was great. I saw them back in, was it 2000 or 2001, playing on the, I guess it was MeraLuna festival, so that was good, but… that’s a thing, you just see a band you don’t know anything about and then you’re like “wow! That’s great”. And it usually just happens by an accident, you know, while being in a club with a buzz going on.
- Ok, and the last question. If you were a journalist, what question would you ask yourself?
- “Why do you do interviews?” that’s what I would ask myself.
- Because you have to do.
- Well, I don’t have to do. We don’t have to play – we want to play. At times it’s funny, you know, it seems at times you do… Normally, you do interviews for a reason, which is that people would know more about the band and hopefully get interested in the band. But at time, you do interviews without really knowing it yourself… for nothing. You just do interviews and they [interviews] don’t do anything. Because, you know, we are not trying to build a media face, we’re trying to be musicians, and through the media, we’re glad that there are so many people interested in what we do, so we wanna spread the word about our existence, that we’re still around and making albums and all that. But at times it’s very weird, when people start asking about my shoe-size or something like that… it’s 9 and a half. (43 s polovinoj, po nashemu, vrode by)
- Ok, good…Thank you so much for the interview.
- My pleasure.
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