The Rasmus: Not the new-comer of the year! [Finland]

The vocalist of The Rasmus, Lauri Ylönen, tells about his band’s future plans in Kaista’s interview. And he is telling really interesting things…
The Rasmus did a couple of Finnish gigs in January.
In Tampere we were not in so good going, and it was 5 weeks since the last gig. I don’t know if people noticed it but anyway… We did see each other, that means the guys of the band and the roadcrew, all the time last year and it started to get distress of it although we are best friends. But it was really cool, when we hadn’t seen each other for a long time before Tampere gig and then the bus came to pick me up from Nosturi. It was great to hug each other and go to the gig. Tavastia (in Helsinki) was totally great gig, we did well there!
Now we get to Iceland too and it’s really cool. I thought that if I would have time, I stayed there for a couple of days. Diving has been my hobby for a couple of years and it would be great to test that kind of under ice diving… I’ve heard there are amazing views there.
The Rasmus has promised to give a show in Emma Gaala in Helsinki’s Kulttuuri talo at 21.2.
Well, in Finland we are doing things for second third or tenth time. It doesn’t feel anyway new or amazing. But I got a really good feeling, when I was there in the press meeting of Emmagaala. Everything was so small and people knew each other. Hiphop people chatted with heavy people and everything’s messed up. Easy and good feeling. And it does feel good that we are nominated for example for the record of the year and for the song of the year. We were supposed to have a gig in Switzerland in a snowboarding happening with Blink 182, but it’s not going ro happen now and we’re gonna get to Emmagaala. I guess we’re going to play Funeral Song there, we have made a new band version of it.

How many Emma-prizes are you going to get?
Well, those prizes are based most of the selling of recors.. I don’t know. I think we won’t won the prize of “the new-comer of the year”. (laughing)

What about after Emma gaala?
We will go to studio. We’re gonna do a new song. And I think we’re going to shoot a new video for Funeral song in England, before or after Emma gaala.
In this video we have kinda cool idea. I don’t know if the idea will come true in the end, but you can always talk about plans. I’m acting the angel of death in it. A street is stuck of cars and it rains cats and dogs. The there has been a car accident and a girl is lying there on her back, half way down from a car. I come there from somewhere between the people, and people have black umbrellas etc. Kind of like it is in Stigmata -movie. That type anyway, depressed feeling. Well, the song is a little bit dark! Yeah, I come there through the people to get the girl away… Pretty cool plan.

There are articles about The Rasmus in German goth magazines. In that mind, this video doesn’t sound odd at all to be The Rasmus’ video.
We aren’t counted as a goth band even in Germany, of course, but those magazines are more open-minded there. They dare to write about different bands. Though in Finland people see us in other way, cause we have this history here. We do have changes a lot from the beginning of the band… I was in a radio interview and they played some stuff from our first album. My voice sounded like I was a great mickey mouse! (laughing) That kind of small voice, which tries to rap. But in my opinion… If someone has a problem about it we are different now then ‘so not’! And we have to change if we want to keep all this interesting for ourselves. And in future there will be more changes.

What is this new song then like? That one, you’re taping soon…
Pretty painful. And going in the same time. I think there wasn’t any this fast song in Dead Letters. We use a good old trick in this song, the good old half-beat. It has a really great feeling in it. It rules, but still… It feels tough. It is more tough, than any of our older songs.
It’s not heavy or anything, but the feeling is tough and so on.
I have a lot of ideas of new songs, but we haven’t had time to test them with the guys yet.
And the other guys may have ideas too. I could say about the new songs… Well, hey are kind of harmonic, they have that kind of feeling of the end of the world. Well, at least in the lyrics of this first new sond there are feeling of the times of end. Not any straight things, but kind of happy sadness. In my opinion, it is the best feeling you can have.

Will the new single be released for example in spring?
If I could decide then we would do the same thing as last time, record all the songs first and then start to look, what would be a good single. But we now have to make the album in pieces, we don’t have time for any other kind of action. We are now in that kind of bad situation, that many bands fail just in this situation. That means we are going up, but then we tour and drink too much, and don’t have strength to do our job well enough. And don’t have strenght to train and play together. Well, I don’t have at least that problem that I wouldn’t have ideas. I get them right then, when there’s much happening around me.
Yeah, we are making the album in pieces. Somehow it might be good, although we haven’t tested working that way before. But when you do a couple of songs once then… We want to make this song as a test of our new sound world. I believe anyway, that our next album will be less processed stuff. Now we have that situation, that we would start looking for yankee producers etc. Like how would it be if we guys were like “yeah, we’ll get to Los Angeles to record for a month or two.” Yeah, it sounds good, we go there and maybe still make crap… We have now made a couple of albums in Stockholm with the same people and we have decided that why wouldn’t we make some more. It’s near, it is a good studio, people we know. Well ok, I wouldn’t mind trying to make a song for example with Rick Rubin. That would cost as much as making our whole album. Rubin has made great and many-sided stuff. Slayer, Beastie Boys and maybe the hardest, that is System of A Down.

When will your next studio album come then?
I would like if it was in this year. It is that much time from Dead Letters, that we would be ready to release a new album in Europe during late year. In USA, for sure not, if anything is even going to happen there. But of course we could release the album first in Europe and then a lot later in America. But if we do well in USA ot means that we will tour and give interviews there for a long time.

Text: Timo Isoaho

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