The Rasmus – it’s windy on the peak [Finland]

From Suutarila’s secondary school to platinband in India.
The Rasmus’ rise has happened with a breath taking speed. Soundi went to see the band trips in two weekends and listened to Eero Heinonen, Lauri Ylönen, Pauli Rantasalmi and Aki Hakala who has been member of the band for 5 years, and to their wild stories from England and from Baltia.
In The Shadows from The Rasmus has made it’s place with the biggest rock hits in this year.
Thanks to In The Shadows, Dead Letters, and tireless promotion and tight gigs, the band has became a main attraction in Europe and also in some parts of Sout-America. Also in USA the band has sold ten of thounsands records, wich leads in to that, that the band will go to North-America and also to Mexico to play gigs and meet the media at the end of this year.
From the importan areas only Japan and Australia have been safed from The Rasmus hurricane. For those countries to be part of the line, it’s olny matter of time, because the band will got to those countries during the beginning of next year. And well In The Shadows has rise to the top places to the charts in New Zeland, neighbouring country to Australia.
Lauri: And you shouldn’t forget the fact that we got platinrecord from India. Altought the limit for platin is only 20 000, -less than in Finland. And we are talking about country where lives billion people…Well pirate selling there is probably 10 times bigger than the leagl selling.
Aki: Talking about pirates, we had two gigs in London Astoria. Well after the seconds gig in the morning they were already selling the gig outside Astoria. It had all the printed covers and stuff in it. And for example in the Eastern Europe they have got all kind of collections from The Rasmus. They might even have a old picture of the band in the cover.
The Rasmus has also get familiar with the weird side of music bussines in different countries.
Aki: For exapmle in France NRJ is a really popular radio station. If they start to play a song, the single selling becomes bigger also. But also with this kind of succes it also has got the bad sides. Other stations don’t play that song anymore and so on. Single succes is momentary. We aim into a long-standing action.
Lauri: In record companys there is so much different kind of people. Our relationship into Playgrounds Lars Tengroth is it own class. When the gentleman comes to visit in Finland he almoust sleeps at my couch. Differents countries companies action stargedys become familiar quickly. Some look bravely in to the future when others live in this moment and with one hit single. I think it’s obvious that what we think. We have got many years behind us, but hopefully more years to come in the future.

Kummeli and Nirvana
Story of The Rasmus started from Suutarila’s secondary school, from Vantaa. Band played their first consert in their school partys in November 1994. So the bands 10th anniversary is on it’s way.
Lauri: In our live set we played Myself and Funky Jam from our own songs, and then Nirvana’s Polly and Hän from Kummeli (laughs).
Aki: I think that my first gig ever was in my grannys partys. I just had had my first drums and the only thing that I could play was comp from Juice Leskinen’s song Syksyn sävel. I played three songs with a fluitist, with that same comp.
Lauri: We just were in a radio interview and during that interview we listened to our old song Ghostbusterss. It sure made you feel nostalgic! (dunno if you spell it like that) In our first records there is lot of good things and fresh ideas, but those have been carryed trough…maybe even too spontaniously and with out a producer. Moods changed quickly so we did rock, pop, funk, grunge and even some reggae into the same record without a tought. You can see the innocens in it and everybody had fun but we hadn’t fond our own thing at all.
Those crazy days are far behind.
Aki: It was really funny when the guys were talking about their first record. I was pretty quiet, because I haven’t even heard the record and I only know names for few songs. But from the old songs, for example Playboys is really good. It gives you a really good feeling. It gives you a feeling, that the guys really have recorded the songs in a studio face to face. I also suggested that we would have started this summers festival set with Funky Jam. That would have been really cool.
Lauri: Many fans hope that we would play live more our old stuff. And it doesn’t bother at all, we aren’t hiding or shaming our past. Many people start their first band when they are 15, but usually it ends in some point. Then when you start another band later, the table is kinda like clean. Even tought there is bogey mans in the closets.

Winning team together
These days guys from The Rasmus are much wanted guest artists into other albums and different kind of gigs. But guys have had to say no almoust everytime.
Lauri: There is lots of demands, like come to sing into a gig with Hurriganes. Okey, interest is cool, but our schedule is just too tight for any projects.
Aki: During the last 4 years I have probably played 4 times with somebody else. Now days I have got this feeling that I wouldn’t even dare to go and play with strange musicians. I’m not like Jaska from Children Of Bodom, who can play anything. Well Jaska starts practising in Nosturi at nine and we start not untill at ten. (laughs)
But why straight away in the morning? Well during the first couple of hours it’s easy to concentrate. If we would play in the evening, all the things and toughts from the day would be in our minds disturbing. You can just go to the practise and start to rock. Thats’ great. Hard practising also comes from workes attitude. We are not going to stay to lay down and enjoy the good feeling.
During the last weeks The Rasmus has been practising the set for the European tour and also new songs.
Lauri: We are planing hard for the future. Next album has to be hell of a good. At the same time it’s also a showing for ourselves and thats also counts this groups nervs in pressure. We have got about 6 new songs and new keeps coming all the time, new songs seems to come pretty fast. The songs are melodic and based into to riffs. Also maybe little bit more aggressive.
Aki: Little bit harder and faster.
Lauri: I think that we will go to studio in march-april, and we are planning to record something like 16 songs. We have already done demos from some of the new songs, because we wanna keep the first feeling and avoid overproduction… Many times the first idea seems to be the best one, doesn’t matter how much you play or mix it. That’s why we record stuff all the time and then leave those to simmer. After our tour in autumn it’s good to go back to our training place and check that if the demos are still sounding good. And we also develope songs in the soundcheks of course. For example In The Shadows was born in a soundcheck.
Aki: And I think that we will keep working with the Swedes (Mikael Anderson and Martin Hansen) Why would we go and change the winning team? Between Into and Dead Letters there happened so much progressing in our band and also in them. If we can go forward as much now as we did then, the result will be hot stuff!

Gloomy stream of consciousness
At least at the moment Lauri Ylönen has got a feeling that The Rasmus’ next album lyrics will be totally different than the once wich are in Dead Letters.
Lauri: I haven’t write so much new stuff. Dead Letters was a personal album. But I think that the next one will be more about searching the depths of minds. There will be this stream of consciousness. Feelings have been up during this chaotic time I try to take those feelings in to pieces with lyrics. But I hope that those lyrics don’t become too oppressive, because there has happened so much good also. But some reason you want to catch into those dark things, even tough your life is going wonderfully… But mainly I would like to bring happy toughts to people.
Altough we are pretty melancholic band. Because best feedback is that when people say that our music has encourage them to keep going.
With a new studio album The Rasmus has also been thinking of a DVD-publication lately.
Aki: We have got many gig recordings, both festival and club gigs. And we ourselves have also filmed material probably 70 cassets. Checking and editing those will take time.
Lauri: But the DVD may also come during this year, even tought the final draft is still open. At least we will put promovideos and gigmaterial in it.
The Rasmus’ enourmos gig year will end up in the Red Cross charityevent at Monaco in December.
Lauri: Monaco’s royal family wanted us there to play. And at the same time we will look localitys plots and we will move there as a taxe exiles. (laughing)

Nottingham Rock City 28.8
Rock City is one of the famousts rock clubs in the world. From backstage you can find a huge list, wich tells you all the bands that have performed there: The Ramones, U2, Oasis, The Rolling Stones and so on. On the day that The Rasmus is performing there, the consert hall is just recovering from renovation and they are still cleaning the last sawdust when finnish bands stuff are carried to the stage. Rock City is familiar for The Rasmus from beginning of this year, but back then the band performed on the smaller side of the club. The Rasmus has got no problems to sell hall wich can take couple of thousands people in it.
Aki (laughing): In January we played at the small hall in downstairs. And it really was a small side! Technicians were amazed about for example were the stage mixer will go. And light show had to build only with few spots. Now the settings are little bit better.
The Rasmus is waiting for the gig peacefully. Road crew worked with all one’s might in the morning already, but musicians are only needed in the soundcheck. Aki, Eero and some of the technicians spend some time in the DVD section of their tourbus. AC/DC’s Live at Doningt is in the player. The drummer tells that yesterdays megafestival Leeds went well.
Aki: There were few bottles thrown to the stage, but I think that it’s somekind of a habbit here. Especially American bands are really suprised when people throw stuff to the stage, even tought they look like they are enjoying.
Band went straight to Leeds from brittish magazine Kerrang’s every year awards ceremony.
The Rasmus was nomited as the newcomer of the year, but the award went to Velvet Revolver wich is mostly build up from veterans. But later that evening Finns got recognition when Ville Valo went to exept award for best video from their video Funeral Of Hearts, directed by Stefan Lindfors. Event didn’t make bigger impression to the guys from The Rasmus.
Aki: Well…that partys werent’ anything special. We talked little bit with guys from Rammstein and from some other bands and drank little bit.
Lauri (smiling): There is one pretty funny memory about Kerrang. Reporters of the magazine came to Helsinki for a interview and wanted to take a picture of us in front of a grand church. So we take them everywhere but everytime they were like “no, that’s not good enough, we need more impressive one, in England you can see church like that in every corner”.
Pauli Rantasalmi looking at his calender and drinking coffee is sitting next to Rock City in a bar. Sometimes he checks the long fan line wich is winding outside the place. The Rasmus’ last few montsh have been really tight, but Rantasalmi’s activites hasn’t limited to the main band.
Musician has also been working on a Kwan’s coming album.
Pauli: Still only one time it has been really really tight. We just hade come back from some gigs and we had to leave straight away to England to do interviews for 3 days. Like tight program from morning to evening, no playing. Because you can play concerts as much as you want, that’s not a problem at all. We did that promotion but I remeber that I was really tired afterwards. And that thing that there’s no point to get any food to the fridge because they would just be spoiled, also describes the fact that how little time we spent home. And I have also marked all the days that we have spent abroad to my calender with a color pencil. My calender looks pretty red.
The audience that has get together to Rock City suprises with it’s multi-faceted. Behind girls in the first rows, there is all age and size of people partying. Even members of Hells’s Angles from England. The Rasmus plays over an hour set to the people who are really exited. At the end familiar bows and the finnishband is gone. Lauri and Eero go to the backstage straight away but Aki and Pauli stay for a minute to meet their fans and to drink beer. Partying is only superficial, because bands tourbus leaves to Reading at 6am. That doesn’t seem to bother the fans who have waited the whole night to see flash of the musicians when they drag to the buss from the hotel. But fans didn’t know to go to knock on their idols doors. Because The Rasmus logged in with fake names. Of course.

Reading festival 29.8
Morning at the Reading festivals dawns gray and windy. There is muddy creatures looking like humans wandering in the huge festival area. Eero is the first one awake and he begins to tell about the weather conditions in Turkey, France and in Switzerland. It seems that Finland wasn’t the only country in Europe that got overdose of rain and wind during this summer!
Other guys start to come out of their punks and Lauri who has seen nightmares goes to see the festival area after his morning coffee. Musician has been in these corners before, for example watching Red Hot Chili Peppers and Prodigy.
Lauri: During Prodigy the speed was really wild. In front the the main stage the huge field was full of dancing human mass and firetorch were shining.
The Rasmus’ autograph event in NME’s tent is going on really well even tought gates of the festival are has just been opened. Finnishbands autographs are wanted stuff and many people also want to speak few words with them.
Lauri: By far the most crazyest autograph events were during the promotion in Asia. First the fans looked that in wich hand we kept the pencils and then they shaked hands according to that. In that culture it’s also rude to turn your back to people, so the people who were asking autographs had to back up when they were leaving. I think that it was too weird.
Pauli: And what about that thing that they had sold peace of tape from our stage in Ebay with 20 €…I guess that there was someone’s foot print or something. But still it’s pretty crazy.
Reading festival is enjoying it’s legendary reputation and in addition to The Rasmus in the main stage are for example Green Day, The White Stripes, The Offspring, The Darkness and 50 Cent. Also the manager Seppo Vesterinen has arrived to see The Rasmus’ doings. At the same time the man also brings the new schedules for the rest of the year to the band.
Lauri: Seppo’s decisions have had a considerable effect on our career. He has organized things cleary, even though there has been so much going on. He’s also a good filter between us and the media.
Aki: Vesterinen knows what we want because he sees this band from the same perspective.
As finnish press also noticed, Reading shows it’s legendary face also to The Rasmus. In front of the main stage there has arrived at least 20.000 people, and most of them are screaming loudly finnishbands name 15 minutes before the gig is suppouse to start. Unfortunately there is also couple of hundred “not so excited” people and they start to throw mud, bottles and bang boms when The Rasmus’ intro begins. Throwing gets faster evenly and there is dozens of mud bombs when the musicians arrive to the stage. Pauli’s guitar stuff gets broken during the first song and at the same time bottle hits Eero to his corner of the eye. After this it’s obvious that The Rasmus can’t continue their gig. Readings advance story in Kerrang hits at least the nail on the head. “The Rasmus are about to spend their first bank holiday weekend in the UK. Getting them to understand our great British traditions, tought, isn’t easy.”
After the disaster in Reading, quiet and umbelieving is prevailing the atmosphere in the backstage of The Rasmus. Wondering musicians are leaning to their hands. “Hey, can somebody explain what just happened?” Lauri’s eyes seem to ask.
Aki breaks the silence: If we just go back to home. At least there you don’t get bang bombs in to your face.
“This will probably leave some kind of scratch in to your heart” Ylönen says and opens the third bottle of beer in 15 minutes.

Tallinn, Club Hollywood 2.9
Expression of The Rasmus is totally different only 4 days later after Reading. There is coming gigs at Estonia, Lithuania and in Latvia, Tallin’s sold out club pullss in 700 hundred ticket collectors. Gigs in Riga and in Vilnius are expexted about 15.000 people. Lauri goes back to the last weekends event, draging behind him a suitcase which is called “the ticking time bomb”.
Lauri: After Reading the best therapy was to go out for a beer with Eicca from Apocalyptica and with Ville from HIM. When guys like that say that the same has happened to them and adds after it that “never mind, life goes on”, you have to believe them. But like unnecessarry and this transparent pittying just mainly makes you to harass.
“Before noon we heard that we had rise to number one in New Zealand and a little bit later we got bomb out of the stage. Pretty incredible. But in some points you have to have a setback to value your winnigs.” Hakala remarks.
Artists afternoon passes doing radio interviews for local radios and hanging in the centrum.
Musicians also meet Rupusakki, which consists of finnish fans who travel behind The Rasmus.
Few members who have arrived to Tallin also saw the band in Nottingham. Sure there’s also estonian fans asking shily autographs and the most courage ones ask for possibility of a picture with the rockstars. Tallins reporter gets dissapointed asking about artists opinion about rally competitions: “We heard after the interview that the guy was really a sport reporter. First he(/she) asked little bit weird questions and after that he asked with a smiling face about Markus Grönholm. We said that we couldn’t care a less about sports. After that the reporters smile died and the interview was pretty much over.. .If really doesn’t interest you, what can you do?” Aki sheers and admires at the same time germany’s Vanilla Ninja’s poster.
Other reporter asks about that does the finnish fans feel like they have been left outside, when the band tours abroad. Man also wants to know something about the bands ancient song Rakkauslaulu.
“Probably yes, at least in some way. But our 8 first years we spend in Finland, so it’s about time to experience something new. Next gigs in Finalnd we will probably do after the new album is released.” Hakala says.
“Some english band just asked for a permission to do a cover from Rakkauslaulu. It will be nice to hear that will they play and arrange it as well as we did (laughing). Well our former record company wanted us to make more songs in finnish. At least they want us that sing in finnish, you will sell much more records than now. Luckily we didn’t listen to those.” Lauri says.
Bars of Tallinn which are open 24h are tempt for afterpartys and some of the tour crew follows the call of Club Hollywood after the gig. But the bus leaves to Riga familiary at 6 so partying progress pretty easily. Early morning’s funniest episode comes from Lauri and Aki. Hakala goes to wake up up Ylönen who is sleeping in the car, because the busdriver needs singers passport.
“I asked for Lauri’s passport several times, but he claimed drowsy that nose doesn’t need passport at all. This claim happened again many times. So it didn’t lead anywhere,” the drummer laughs.
“I sleep in the bus plugs in my ears. Sometimes there is really weird situations when I don’t remember that I’m sleeping there. You just wake up and someones mouth is moving in front of you but there’s no sound. You at least think that you have lost your mind” the singer smiles.

Riga, Mezapark 3.9
The Rasmus’ preporation for gigs happens admiring peacefully. Lauri plays acoustic guitar and rest of the band might conversate that will they play Kind Diamond or The Beatles as the cover song at the coming gigs. Also warm-up band Sugababes cancelled gig is brought up in to the conversation.
“Maybe they decided that they don’t want to come to Riga to promote pirate cd’s selling.” Eero says half seriously.
“Well why the hell are we here then?” Pauli says and the gang bursts in to laugh.
Every now and then the conversation goes to home Finland and to old gigs.
“We were playing at Tammerfest and Popeda was playing at the same stage. So we were in the backstage and suddenly Pate Mustajärvi comes in shouting that “What is this hippie meeting here?” I was just cleaning my shirt and Pate says right away that “What’s that, puke?”. Then he noticed a bottle of Jaloviina and opened the cap right away. There wasn’t much to say anymore.” Rantasalmi tells.
“Except then when Popedas gig was starting. All the other guys were already going to the stage but Mustajärvi was still happily at the backstage. Suddenly backstages door brokes up and Pate starts to go really fast, but first he went to totally wrong way. So we had to go and tell him that by the way, the stage is that way.” Aki looks back.
There’s only 15 minutes before the gig in Mezapark begins but still you can’t see any nervous in the guys. Despite the fact that 15.000 people are screaming the main act to the stage. Not until the tour manager Udo Milden arrives to the backstage the athmosphere starts to get static. Because it’s the familiar sign that the job is start to begin.
“During the years we have develope the certain work rutins, so there’s no need to panic. For example touring with HIM was very instructive. HIM was already then really big, but the guys kept their heads calm and their feets were in the ground.” Lauri thinks.
“We paid that touring with HIM from our own pockets, there wasn’t any help at all. First we did gigs in Finland and put the moneys that we got from those to safe. After the tour we were thinking that the moneys are gone, but where’s the benefit. But actually only now you realise that how much experience that tour gave us.” Aki marks and goes to mars to the bellow audience.

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