From out of nowhere [UK]

It started with a top three single. Suddenly, The Rasmus are being touted as the future of rock. Now they’re being mobbed by teenagers and attacked by angry crows. Can Lauri Ylönen and co handle overnight stardom?
It’s half-past nine on a bone-chilling February weekday. Most of central London is deserted, but muffled cymbal-crashes and head-rattling cheers are wafting out of the Astoria theatre. Finnish rockers HIM have packed the venue, and a sweating throng is awash in Valo-worshipping delirium.
But somewhere, deep in the shadows on the VIP balcony, another Finn has more on his mind than tonight’s show. He’s studying the frontman’s swagger; taking note of the way the crowd seems to hang off his every word; how they mouth and sing along to every guitar-drenched lyric.
This solitary Finn fronts a band himself, one of considerable repute and accomplishment, only not here. In fact, here this spectator’s decade of musical tribulation counts for nothing because he is utterly anonymous. Never mind that his latest album has already spread like a multi-platinum wildfire across Europe, reaching Number One in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Finland. And forget that he’s toured with the legendary likes of the Chilli Peppers and Rancid, not to mention the band playing before him.
Tonight he’s just another face in the crowd. But soon for Lauri Ylönen – frontman for The Rasmus – all of that is about to change.
“We’re on safe ground. We can deal with this.”
Right now Ylönen’s surveying the cavernous interior of Birmingham’s Carling Academy, kicking back near the soundboard. It’s a mere three months and one record contract later and “Dead Letters” – The Rasmus’ fifth effort – has already sold nearly 100,000 copies and climbing.
Their four-date tour of the UK is hopelessly sold out. Three of their four dates have already been upgraded to monumentally larger venues – this being one of them. Their single – the insidiously catchy “In the Shadows” – has steadfastly hovered in the UK’s Top 10 for the last four weeks, and a gigantic six-deep queue is already snaking around the venue despite the afternoon drizzle. For many bands the mere mention of the impending gig so close to stage-time would violate pre-gig superstition, but Ylönen couldn’t look calmer. He’s just blowing dragon-puffs of Marlboro smoke through his nostrils, savouring the moment.
“We’ve done this for a long time already so we know how to deal with it,” he says in a reassured tone. It’s convincing enough.
The animated singer is already decked out in nail polish, a jumble of crow’s feathers jutting from his tangled locks. Black contact lenses eerily block out the whites of his eyes. It makes it hard to see what he’s looking at, but the omnipresent grin on his face makes the bizarre effect far less sinister.
“The moment we do a soundcheck, that’s the moment we come to life,” he says of the afternoon’s events, stamping out one cigarette, lighting another. “The first chord opens your eyes. It wakes you up.”
He cartwheels his hands, struggling for words. His English is faltering, but the grinning anticipation on his face speaks volumes. He shifts from one foot to another and leans in, as if bursting with a secret.
“I am actually always quite nervous before the shows”.
We retreat to the leather-lined confines of his mammoth tour bus, where the rest of his Finnish foursome are lounging around lounge-tables, whiling away the time. For a rock star home away from home, it seems inordinately tidy. A “Hamburger Hill” DVD lies next to it’s case, striking a blow for the wild side.
See much of Birmingham?
“I woke up early and went out to a park,” says bassist Eero Heinonen. “There’s this cathedral, St Johns or something. I do yoga and it was a good place to meditate.”
He fingers a gold pendant around the neck that bears the likeness of a guru a friend introduced him to five years ago. The others eye each other knowingly. “It’s about balance and finding what is wrong with yourself,” he explains. “Okay, it’s not very common in the rock scene…”
“Yeah, we tried it too… once!” laughs Pauli Rantasalmi, sparking off the others.
You don’t seem like heavy partiers.
“No, never,” retorts Ylönen. The statement hangs in the air for a moment, but it only takes a disbelieving look to shoot it down.
“There’s a lot of booze after every show, but we learned from our mistakes,” he concedes. “In the beginning we’d drink before, throwing stuff off the stage and put on really s*itty shows, but that’s underestimating the audience. We’ve been around for awhile, and the only way we can do that is if we set up a balance, so we can keep on going.”
It’s a surprisingly veteran philosophy for a band in which every member was born in 1979. But as fresh-faced as they may appear they’ve already had their share of ordeals. One of them almost cost them their career.
“We’d just put out our third album (the aptly named “Hell Of A Tester” in 1996) and it wasn’t selling,” he says, his face twisting into a painful contortion. “We were touring the small places and nobody was buying it. And we thought ‘this band is dying’. We knew we would have to quit or find a way…”
“We’ve always been a little stupid-like,” interrupts Rantasalmi. “Too confident, in a way. We were so young we were like ‘of course this is what we’re going to do’. We never thought we’d do a bad record.”
But they had, and things were looking grim. The relatively diminutive size of the Finnish music scene meant that word was getting around. The Rasmus were over. Worse, their label – Warners Finland – was proving unsupportive. For them the only way forward was a risky move from Warners to a tiny Swedish label called Playground Music. It coincided with the acquisition of a new drummer, Aki Hakala, who brought with him a tighter sound and a more professional discipline. In a sense, they were starting over.
“I was playing in other bands and people would yell at me, ‘Don’t play with this band, they’re going down’,” smirks Hakala, clearly satisfied with his decision to ignore them. “I just had a feeling, though,” he continues. “I knew that these guys are good guys.”
And from the way that The Rasmus interact with each other it’s hard to disagree. The sense you get from them isn’t one of musical collaboration, but of brotherhood. They’ll finish each other’s sentences, nod encouragingly as others speak. As Rantasalmi explains it, the fact that they started off together when they were 15 means they’ve grown up together, and it’s the loyalty they have for each other that demands they see this thing through.
“It’s risky to join a band,” reflects Ylönen, flicking his lighter, staring into the flame. “It’s quite rebellious doing it for your living. When I quit my school to do this I was like, ‘Yes! I did it!’. He rises from his seat, his fist raised towards the ceiling in an exaggeratedly thespian gesture of triumph. “I do music because I need to. It’s me standing on top of the mountain and going, ‘Rahhh!’.”
Outside, the hundredfold queue has quadrupled, and the venue’s security are tranquilly pacing its length. The imminent door-time sends steady waves of excitement through the boisterous crowd, and at the front two haggard-looking 16-year-olds are standing at attention, guarding their place. They’ve been shivering in the rain since half-past six this morning.
“I love his music, and I love his looks,” says one of them, amorously. “He’s got a really cute face, but he looks a little different somehow.”
When did you first get into them?
“Oh, ages ago. Ages ago,” she declares emphatically.
“It’s great to see them getting so big,” adds the other. “But what I don’t like is all the mini-moshers getting into it, or seeing them in ‘Smash Hits’.”
Anything you want to know about them?
“Is he single?”
Just then another eavesdropping fan thrashes her way to the front.
“Can I ride his ten-inch c*ck?”
As if that was the magic word, the doors at last kick open and the drenched crowd eagerly spills into the venue. It’s a parade of HIM hoodies and smeared black mascara, but that’s hardly the final word on the evening’s demographic. The impatient queue-dwellers are soon met with a cross-section of listeners ranging from middle-aged metal-refugees to well-turned-out hipsters. It’s as if The Rasmus have grown so big so quickly that no one group has had the chance to appropriate them. The 2,500-plus crowd is churning like a single organism by the time The Rasmus hit the stage and suddenly it’s as if the ’90s never happened.
“I’ve never seen this place so packed,” says one mop-haired hoodie-wearing gig-goer. “They’re a great band. Of course, I only know the one song…”.
On cue The Rasmus dole out their rapturously received single ‘In the Shadows’, and the heaving room explodes into a fit of bouncing, hand-clapping adulation.
Ylönen’s voice soars over the din as he paces the stage, leaning into the empty space above the enraptured crowd. Through the pandemonium of the stage lighting and the room-wide forest of horns, Ylönen is visibly ecstatic. The crowd may not know what to make of it all, but they’re loving every minute.
“Ten Inches? She doesn’t know what she’s saying!”
Ylönen looks like he’s been slapped in the face. The Rasmus have just entered the darkened interior of London’s Mean Fiddler for a Kerrang! photo session. The Birmingham gig – just a day and a half in the past – is already a distant memory, and Ylönen’s got other things on his mind. Namely the show tonight, and a crow he’s set to co-star with in the shoot. He’s standing around the venue’s upper level, chain-smoking Marlboros, and deflecting ribbing from his other band mates.
Bigger?
A fleeting look of embarrassment crosses Ylönen’s face. He thinks about it a moment, and his face twists into a smile. “Bigger and better…”.
“Maybe she’s seen mine” laughs Heinonen.
Kerrang!’s snapper Paul Harries is preparing for the shoot, rapidly snapping Polaroids of yours truly to test the lighting. Hakala grabs one of the prints and sticks it in his pocket.
“It’s so we can remember what you look like,” he says, smirking. “After we read the article we might have some Hells Angels for you to meet.”
Just then the animal handler appears, cage in hand. An obsidian beak pokes through the grating. The inhabitant’s name is Baldric, and among other stints he’s set to appear in the upcoming ‘Harry Potter’ film. Now that’s class.
“Watch him, he’s a little b*stard,” says the handler, but Ylönen is already on all fours, peering into the cage, poking his fingers in.
“I love their…” he makes an impatient sweeping gesture away from his face.
“Their beaks,” volunteers K!’s art director Caroline Fish.
“Yeah,” he smiles. “They’re so beautiful. Such beautiful animals.”
The handler opens the cage, bemused at Ylönen’s fascination.
“Ow, f*ck!”
Baldric’s just nipped Ylönen on the wrist, and the singer suddenly looks a little less enthusiastic at the prospect of the shoot. He strolls over to the backdrop, and the handler places Baldric on his outstretched arm.
“Ah… s*it,” he moans, tilting his head as far away as possible. “It’s like when you look a dog in the eyes and they’ll f*cking bite you.”
But the bold frontman dutifully poses for the shots, glowering at the camera as if disdainful glares at nothing in particular are the most natural thing in the world for him. Quintessential rock-star expressions they may be, but they couldn’t be further from Ylönen’s outward personality. Still though, the sense that there’s far more beneath the surface is inescapable.
As the shoot wraps up he eagerly settles into some adjoining tables with his bandmates. Maybe he’s grateful for the momentary respite from the limelight. Then again, this could just be another day at the job for him. Given his band’s relative novelty in the UK it can be easy to forget that he’s already been doing this for the better part of the decade. And he reads his press.
“I loved Europe!” he giggles, referring to a suggestion that appeared in these very pages that The Rasmus are the resurrected Euro-hair-metallers of Yore. “When I was 10 I was really a big fan…”
“Yeah, and then you discovered Metallica and said that Europe is s*it,” elaborates Heinonen.
But it’s clear that such suggestions have been a point of some contention in the band.
“I think we really do have a lot of influences from the ’80s,” continues Ylönen. “The main thing is we’re not sorry to be onstage. Some people might think it’s too much, but we think that nothing is too much.”
But by now The Rasmus’ well-documented early days in Finland suggest otherwise. They were outcasts – members of a musically minded minority that weren’t into sports, or mainstream music.
Do you worry that your audience is a bit, well, trendy?
“Maybe we have different intentions in music,” says Ylönen. “Maybe we’re just making music that has lots of audience…”
“Of course, there’s these people from the alternative scene,” interrupts Heinonen. “It’s not just teenagers who come to our shows, though. They’re 40, with long hair, saying, ‘You guys rock!’.”
But if there’s a central theme to every press criticism foisted at The Rasmus, it’s that their music is blatantly commercial, that their unapologetically radio-friendly hooks are nothing more than an artless attempt at cashing in. The suggestion momentarily catches Ylönen off-guard, but he’s far from defensive. He’s heard it all before.
“As an example, ‘In the Shadows’ it’s a song that’s on the edge of being nothing,” he says, wincing as his cigarette’s smoky plume catches his eye. “It’s a bit of everything, and yes it’s a very radio playable song. But it’s made us very available for everybody. That’s the perfect thing to happen for our career, because we wouldn’t be playing this show tonight without that song, but it doesn’t really give the full picture of us.”
Isn’t that the definition of ‘selling out’?
“You can’t dream if you’re scared of being too big,” says Rantasalmi, soberly. “Why can’t you be the biggest? Whatever you do, still there will be people that will hate you, no matter how big you are. I think we stopped worrying about being sold out when we started.”
Spend some time with The Rasmus and you get the feeling that critics have missed the point. Taken at face value their motives could seem more than a tad cynical, but The Rasmus are hardly deceiving themselves or anyone else about them. Or perhaps trying to delve to deeply into how they make sense of their success hazards overlooking the obvious. As Ylönen explains, “This is the most selfish job in the world, to talk about yourself all day. Writing your own name on papers, playing your own songs, singing about yourself”.
But the one think that Ylönen hasn’t done is actually talk about himself. If he seems enigmatic, that’s no fault of his struggles to articulate what he’s thinking in his native tongue. He won’t say whether he is single, and he’ll stop cold when asked about his family.
“I draw a line between my personal life and the band,” he explains. “Once you start to talk about any of that, you start to loose something.”
But reluctant as Ylönen may be to reveal much, he’s the last person to deny he’s enjoyed some fringe benefits.
“Sometimes it’s useful to have a face,” he says, spreading a winning grin across his. “It gets you free drinks. I don’t know why but these Germans keep sending me cigarettes and bottles of Jim Beam.”
He pauses for a moment as he ponders whether to continue.
“And then there’s this woman I met in France who gave me her picture. She said, ‘I can give you some lessons in French kissing’. I’m saving it for a bad day.”
So what’s with the feathers?
“I have this crazy fixation with birds. They’re beautiful animals, but then there’s also that Alfred Hitchcσck movie,” he says, referring to the film-noir classic in which a hapless seaside community is mercilessly attacked by a gigantic flock of birds.
“They can be really creepy animals. They have this whole world above us, around us, and they watch you from above. If you think about it, it freaks you out.”
And if that doesn’t sound like a metaphor for what Ylönen thinks of the press, read that last line again. This is a game he’s played countless times before in countless other locales. But there’s no doubting that the real reason why he’s come to London today hasn’t lost any of it’s magic. Just then his tour manager appears. Some journalists are waiting to start his next interview. Oh, and there’s a huge queue outside the venue.
“I guess that means we’d better play a hell of a show.”
Ready for it?
“It’s going to be great” he beams, exhaling the last of his Marlboro, stamping it on the table. “This band reflects all the other things in my life. Right now it’s just a feeling of winning, of going somewhere really fast. I’m just trying to hold on.”

Share this article:

Tweet

Current&next releases

Latest news

© 2005-2004 The Rasmus Hellofasite | the Italian portal about The Rasmus | All rights reserved
This website is published under a Creative Commons Licence. It's strictly forbidden any unauthorized
reproduction partial or total of the layout and/or the contents.