Appetite for construction [France]

The popularity of The Rasmus has been as much sudden than unpredictable. For the second “Elysees Montmarte” of this year, we managed to get a few precious minutes with Lauri and Aki. After a year and a half of touring and non-stop success, here is the time for draw the balance.

18th of September
Warned the day before, the interview with the Rasmus is confirmed. We walked at a fast pace to the venue. At our arrival, the place is already opened to the public as it is too dangerous to to let fans who came numerous, stay on the pavement in front of the venue.
Our photographer has just finished his photo session and seems happy of the result. So it is our turn to spend 20 minutes in the company of Lauri (singer) and Aki(drums). The atmosphere is strangely calm, almost too calm. We ask ourselves if this is coming from the northern rigour. However the big smile on Lauri’s face prove that you cannot confuse discipline and coldness because our 2 finnish friends seem relaxed and ready to speak.

“Lauri, Lauri”
Still in the greatest of calm, we are directed behind the hall to do the interview. Then, a few high-pitched screams wake us up abruptly of this sweet dream.”Lauri, Lauri” Aki starts to mock Lauri about his success with girls. He tells us that one day, a fan has bought a star that now bears Lauri’s name!
So many restlessness, however we are not at our national “Lorie” (a french poppy singer) concert but at the Rasmus one and his very charismatic singer. None the less, don’t be mistaken, if the teenage press would like to grab the phenomenon, the finnish quatuor plays some rock on which we have to dwell on and not dismiss easily under the pretext that they have sold a lot of albums and therefore that they are commercial. Of course, if we want a band to release more records, the sales have to be good. Is it so reprehensible?

Scooters of nothing
I am surprised as Aki asks us nicely if we could do the interview on 2 scooters that are just in front of our eyes. Weird, but why not? At least, this interview will be memorable. So it is sat in an uncertain way (skirts are nice but not very practical), my mini-disc on my knees that they gave us an account of this lengthy tour.
“We have been on the road to promote this album for a year and a half. It is true that we have played the same songs an enormous amount of times, but it is always in different countries, the reactions are quite diverse. In Finland, we have released our fifth or sixth single from Dead Letters and in the UK, it’s the second one that has just been out. The audience does not react the same way depending on the songs we play” explains Aki, before going on to speak about their current life. “A day like today, we just have one gig left before going back to Finland, so it is a bit special but, in general, we wake up, chill out a bit or have a walk around. We have few interviews, not a lot as when we play, we prefer to concentrate on the gig so we just give interviews to the most important magazines.”
Thank you. Telling them about our first impression of calmness when we arrived, Lauri reassures us and explains that that they need a lot of concentration before “going on stage, we like to be alone with the rest of the band, be in the same room to play the guitar or do something else. We are concentrating before the gig to have the necessary energy.”
It is also for the same reason that they give few interviews when they are on the road.
“When we tour, we don’t like to disperse ourselves, we prefer having some time for ourselves before the rehearsal. We can then prepare our guitars and relax in watching the first parts (acts). We check the audience’s reaction and we try to put ourselves in the gig atmosphere. Today, we have a lot of finnish friends, my sister and a few others have come so we gonna party after the gig. We’re going home tomorrow so it’s not too bad”

In the shadows
Good (meaning sensible/wise), The Rasmus must have been. There is no doubt that they couldn’t be at the stage they are now if they had not imposed themselves a certain way of life.
Because I even though their success was a late one in France, they have started no less than 10 years ago. With hindsight, they even rather like the fact that this success has only happened now.
“We are finally very happy that this has happened and we do not feel frustated that this is so late. We have released 5 albums before this one, and this has allowed us to develop slowly. In fact, we have started very young , we were 15 and not ready for success. We have learnt a lot along the way with our experiences, which has been beneficial for the writing of the songs. So it is much better that this has happened only now”, says an enthusiastic Lauri.
Aki adds: “I also think that we have become much better at playing live. We now know better how to play on stage and it is true that we are very proud of this album”.
The success? Lauri cannot explain it. According to him, Dead Letters certainly possess “more songs that have touched the public. Our album is unique in the sense that it combines our influence from the 80′s with a fresh sound, as well as some grunge melodies and a more current sound.”
The success is a bout of luck that happens very often at the least expected moment . It is a little bit the same for the song writing. How many artists have admitted having written a song in a matter of minutes? It is more or less what happened for In The Shadows, which has been written just before a gig.

A next album
With little time at their disposal, The Rasmus have had to bear with it and try to compose as soon as they have a free moment. In general, the 10 minutes of soundcheck is a privileged moment to create. “We know really well our old tracks now so it is for this reason that when we do the soundcheck, we try new ideas because we have not really any other moments to experiment. We are touring all the time but after this winter, we’ll go back home and we will really have the time to work on the new tracks. Most of the time, the best songs happen by accident. We don’t think too much how we should play or how to do it. We start to play and we say: that sounds right, so we keep the idea. It is very spontaneous”, explains Lauri.
Aki follows in saying “Sometimes, it is stressful but never mind. We have decided when the next album will be released. We will finish the tour and after that we will go in studio, towards february. We already have 6 new tracks which are more at the demo stage.”
Ah, that is some info! The wait must be long for the fans.

More guitars
It is normal that our Scandinavian boys take their time making Dead Letters follow with a new album. Lauri admits to feel some kind of pressure. “I think it is good. That pushes us to work harder. I think that it is more us who put some pressure on ourselves because we want to do better than what we have done so far. But of course this album has sold at more than 1 million so many people have it and wait to see what will come next. People have their own ideas but it is very important to us to know if they are going to appreciate or not what we will have in store for them. We have a lot of things in mind, we just wait for the right time when we can be together and concentrate on the new tracks. We are always composing on the bus or backstage.”
So what can we expect? After the success of Dead Letters, it must be difficult to propose something different.
“We have new directions. There will be more guitars and it will be heavier with more aggressive stuff, compared to now”, Lauri informs us.
“Some tracks will be more rapid but we will keep the melodies, the melancholy and sadness. At the moment, I still haven’t written the lyrics. I have already the big lines in my head but it takes me a lot of efforts and time before it comes out. It is a little bit as if I would store up some ideas and once they are ripe, they come out, just like that. The next album could be a little different from this album (DL) on this level. This one is more based on real facts. It speaks about relationships between people but our new album will go further. I would like my lyrics to speak about more extraordinary subjects, of things that comes from dreams or from people’s mind, of stranger things in fact”.

The finnish guys won’t go in studio before having at least 10 good solid songs.”It is really important for us because this album Dead Letters, has been an international success and we would love to keep this status”. They know it well: some people are waiting to catch them out, the public first.

By Noemy Langlais, Rock One.

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