As the crow flies [UK]

From a life of crime to police force aspirations, bird-filled apartments and chart-topping hits, life in The Rasmus camp is definitely strange as rock sound discovers…
“Black crows are spooky and you can’t really what’s on their minds – they look like they know something or have seen something,” announces Lauri Ylönen, the feather-wearing frontman of Finland’s latest musical export, The Rasmus. He could just as well be making reference to himself. Once nicknamed Lintu (Finnish for bird), the raven-clothed singer is already in fine voice despite the early hour. You could call him a bird lover – he already shares his Helsinki apartment with three feathered friends and one day hopes to fill it with them. “I collect stuffed birds,” he reveals. “I’m getting these big ones for my birthday – from our latest video shoot actually. They got them from the National Animal Museum to take pictures of for a computer animation in our latest video, but they never asked for them back so the director’s giving them to me as a present. Birds have their own kingdom around them – it’slike the ountouchables.”
It’s little after eight in the morning and we find ourselves in a West London photographic studio. Most popstars would be nesting in their beds after a night on the lash – not these boys. They retired early last night to be woken by the dawn chours, kick starting today’s demanding schedule which includes an apperance on Top Of The Pops. A bleary-eyed Lauri is being transformed into the mirror image of Brandon Lee as The Crow. “It’s cool,” he chirps. “We’re been watching The Crow on the tour bus. It’s a great movie. I remember it being more horrible but seeing it after five or 10 years it’s kind of funny – and there’s the fact that Brandon Lee really dies during the shoot, that’s quite strange.” In fact Brandon (son of martial arts icon Bruce Lee) died during a shoot-out in one of the flick’s later scenes. As filming had no yet come to a conclusion, his image was digitally manipulated in the remaining sequences and masked by pouring rain – the inspiration behind The Rasmus’ video for ‘Funeral Song’. “Our director came to me with that idea and we filmed it in the rain,” discloses Lauri. Filmed in Bondegatan in Stockholm, Sweden, although the imported New York taxis will have you believe otherwise, Lauri takes on a Brandon Lee-type character, drawn to a car accident. “Black crows fly out of my jacket – I’m like the Angel Of Death. I walk up to the person in the accident, take her in my arms and take her life.”
Crows have long been a feature of the darker side of folklore. According to legend, when someone dies a crow carries their soul to the land of the dead. But if something bad surrounds the circumstances of death, the crow can carry the soul back to the land of the linving to put the wrong right. “I don’t know if I believe that,” shrugs the singer, “I think the crows take advantage of the dead, like pecking the eyes out.” There’s certainly nothing romantic or supenatural in that, yet like most people the singer is intrigued by the unexplained. “I want to believe in it but I haven’t had any clear sing,” he admits. “I don’t really believe in life after dead; live the life you’re living now, you only have one go at it.” “If we just live like we want to live or how we think we should, it doesn’t matter what happens after life,” continues bassist Eero Heinonen. “Of course it’s a big question; some people worry if they go to heaven or go to hell. I wouldn’t bother thinking about it.”

The truth is out there
Coming from a non-religious household, Eero’s formative years were spent looking to the heavens for signs of life. “Space and the planets were always fascinating. I was always looking at books with pictures of different solar system in thinking ‘There must be something else there’.” Although he doesn’t believe in the existence of little green men, the size of the universe was a constant consideration. “I was fascinated by the fact this whole system is so big and we’re so small here on earth. Maybe I was seeking for some kind of truth or something,” recalls the man who maintains the most important thing in his life is practising Yoga. “It’s meditation. Every morning and evening I sit down for 15 minutes and calm down and try to get rid of my thoughts. I think most of our problems are created by our minds. Everyone has their own choises and everybody should have some goal in their life.”
While Yoga takes care of the bassist’s spiritual convictions, Lauri, who is also non-religious, fonds inspiration in his sleep… “I’ve had all kinds of dreams I can’t really explain that fascinate me. I’ve been trying to read about them in the library and getting lots of books out, but I think it’s based on people’s personal experience. If you go too deep and find solutions to it, it becomes boring, so it’s better to let your imagination flow. Although all the ghost stories that come up are very interesting.” It’s the singer’s fascination with his dreams that inspired the band’s current single, ‘In The Shadows’.
“It’s based on feelings about the dreams,” says Lauri. “It’s also wishing and looking into the future more than the past, being ambitious and making sacrifices to get somewhere in life. There’s a lot of hope even though it’s about being lost and seeking answers, but I’m not trying to sell my thoughts to anyone or say, ‘This is how to do things’. It’s more trying to get people to tink about themselves, trying to encourage people in hard times.” Featuring a downtrodden and unhappy Victorian maid working in a hauted house that shows reflections of the future in the mirrors, the video for ‘In The Shadows’ may seem something of a bizarre choice for a band who collectively aren’t believers in ghosts. “The idea came from the directors,” reveals guitarist Pauli Rantasalmi. “It’s something interesting – when you see it you want to see how it ends. The song has something mysterious about it.” “It’s been really nice to work with these Swedish guys (Niclas Fronda and Fredrik Löfberg),” adds the singer. “We’ve made three videos with them. They’re very young like us, they’re 24 and are very ambitious. Basically they work 24 hours a day and they don’t take any money to themselves, they just want to make the perfect video. That’s the right attitude. It’s the same thing with us.”

In my life
Ambition is something The Rasmus have in abundance. Forming 10 years ago whilst still at school, the band (completed by drummer Aki Hakala) have already become a household name in their native Finland – and been through a plethora of dodgy haircuts – before coming out of the shadows and landing slap-bang in the top of the UK charts. Signing a deal with Warner Music Finland at 16, the band, then with founding member Janne behind the kit, always believed they’d make it. “You could say we were over-confident,” states Pauli. “We’ve always been over-confident, there was no other opinion. We weren’t thinking, ‘If we fail…’ it was more like, ‘We have to do this…’ We didn’t even think anything else.” The quartet quit school for a life on the road, and while most parents would worry about their offspring’s lack of education, Pauli’s were behind him all the way. “They were like, ‘Okay that’s good – do what you want’. They were always so supportive. Basically, we became more professional, until then it was just a hobby.”
“We were full of this attitude of doing everything for ourselves and wouldn’t let anyone give us advice,” adds the bassist. “We had really strong opinions about everything – we still have! Even now, we have to argue because we don’t want to do something, like once there was one stupid deal where we had to mime three songs that were played in front of an audience. There were some kids who didn’t understand and they were like, ‘You guys rock!’”
Having said that, The Rasmus have also attracted comparosons to chart-topping boy-bands such as Busted. “I think people compare us to pop because we have melodies which are quite understandable and easy to sing,” parries Eero. “we play our own instruments and write everything by ourselves – everything is our own creation ” In fact, the troupe are all completent musicians. Pauli started out playing traditional Finnish instruments before picking up the guitar and Eero was violinist at six, strapping on his bass for the first time at nine. Aki’s early aspirations were a little different from what you’d expect. “I wanted to be a policeman, teacher or something that helps people,” he reveals. But it was seeing Guns N’ Roses on MTV when he was 10 that set Aki, the band’s merch guy before becoming a full-member in 99, on the straight and narrow, despite his mother’s pleas to play guitar because it was “nicer.” “I went to a musically-orientated shool bacause I wanted to play the drums,” he discloses. “In Finland schools support the kids who want to play music – there are classes where you can try all the instruments.”
Lauri was 14 before ho tought about being in a band – and The Rasmus saved him, quite literally, from a life of crime. “My school friends were a lot older than me,” he remembers. “We went skating, did graffiti and there was a very strong vibe of doing things together. Things started to go really wild, there was a lot of crime. If someone does something and you’re there, you’re part of it. I’m really happy I got separated from that as it sucks you in. Now I look back and these people are very heavily on drugs. Music saved me; I left the others behind when I met the guys in the band.” Turning his back on his self-destructive former mates, Lauri found a new, more positive, sense of purpose. “There was about 20 of us in school really into doing music, and it was an even stronger feeling to belong to that. When it came to ambition, people were allowed to dream about things – people supported one another. If someone had a crazy thought, no one said, ‘No, that’s impossible’, they were always like, ‘Wow, that sounds good’.” Lauri also found a positive influence in someone much closer to home. “My sister’s four years older than me, I was always closely watching her,” he reveals. “I looked up to her and the things she did. She went through a lot of phases and trouble before me and I learned a lot from her mistakes. She was listening to The Doors and introduced me to grunge and Björk.”
While most sibilings enjoy vicious cat-fights, Lauri and his sister are so close, they even lived together after the singer had left home at 17. “I’ve spent pretty much my whole life with her. We’ve never really argued. When we have it’s more like a creative process – you talk about something and learn something rather than just shouting at one another. She’s been a great muse for me, I’ve written many songs about her – there’s one on the new album.”
‘Dead Letters’ is The Rasmus’ fifth full-length, and the first to see an official release in the UK. It takes its moniker from a term used to describe a letter that cannot be delivered or returned to the sender, as Lauri explains. “It’s from a book on strange Finnish words. I really like receivings letters, it’s much more personal than getting an e-mail. You can see their handwriting, the stain of their coffee. The title came without thinking – the lyrics looked like letters, trying to reach people through different situations, asking for help, sometimes, trying to help or encourage someone,” he says. “There were things I wanted to spit out and I never really know if the message is getting through, things that maybe I couldn’t say aloud. It’s a lot of emotions and true stories that at least now have been said.”
While, thanks to HIM, the focus has shifted onto the Finnish scene, The Rasmus insist they don’t owe their success to Ville Valo and the boys, and they haven’t stepped out of HIM’s shadow. “I think it’s a little bit stupid for people to compare us to HIM,” notes the singer. “We have our own style that’s completely different to theirs. The main reason why people compare us is become we’re both Finnish and we have the same management. There’s nothing musically. I think the reason for this success is that this album has more depth in it. We’ve lived 10 years more than the first album; we have some life experience and have been in different situations. We’ve been through some really bad and really good stuff together and have tightened up as a group. We’ve lots of common experience and now it’s much easier to write a song about life because we’ve lived a bit.”

Living for tomorrows
Glancing to the future, with the promise of success on the horizon, The Rasmus have a lot to look forward to. They’ve just been confirmed for a main-stage spot at The Carling Weekend and are headed Stateside for a slew of shows. Their Finnish fans, however, will have to wait. “We’ve play in Finland only two times this year,” asserts the singer. “We’ve played in Finland for many years so we just want to go somewhere else now that we have got the chance. We’re looking into the future. It’s better not to look back too much. Like ‘In The Shadows’, we’ve living for tomorrows and that’s pretty much the attitude.” So where are The Rasmus’ goalposts now? “It’s hard to say, everything’s happening so fast,” says Lauri. “We’ve just trying to hang on – everything is going so well, something bad could well be coming soon! It’s better not to think about it so much.”
“What’s more important than all of that we still have fun playing together, writing new songs. That’s even greater that being in the charts or magazines because that’s how we started,” affirms the bassist, proving that, despite their lofty ambitions, they still have their feet planted firmly on terra firma.

Dynasty
Vocalist Lauri Ylönen’s tatoo on his right forearm isn’t a homage to the glitzy 80s soap, it’s a tribute to the group of friends who’ve become a brotherhood. “It’s a group of 20-30 people in Finland who do things together,” explains the singer. “About nine of us have the tattoo somewhere on our bodies. There’s people from differents bands – from hip-hop to rock, many of which have become successful in Finland in the last four years. Once, The Rasmus were number one in the Top 40, another band Killer were number two and the third band Kwan were number three. We had three positions for the Dynasty and were like, ‘This is cool’. We’ve been together and supporting each other always, I’m producing one of the band and it’s like family.”

Ronnie Kerswell
Photos: Nigel Crane

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.