Interview with Lauri [Israel]

A long time has passed since The Rasmus came out of the cold Finland to their international way. Now they release a funky DVD, which gives a good review over what they’ve been going through the last years. Tomran watched and had to ask some questions.
The band The Rasmus didn’t start in big in here, a year and a half ago, with a huge hit In The Shadows, but not more than that. Every month the interest in the cool band from Finland, whith the videoclip of the crow and the vocalist who does “oh oh oh oh” started to raise up, and suddenly The Rasmus is one of the most appreciated rock band in Israel.
The 4 guys release now a DVD album, which totalize the great last 2 years, and undoubtely fits mostly to the biggest funs of them. Live concert in Switzerland, all the videoclips, behind the scenes shoots, pictures, interviews and alot of information about the band which has only one successfull international album.
If in the future The Rasmus will become a really successfull band, like those which successed for many years, it will be very cool to go back and watch the DVD, and see the innocence and lack of self-confidece that Lauri, Pauli, Eero and Aki still have. You know what? Let’s see what they’ve got to tell us about these times and the new DVD.

What’s the story behind the new DVD? Why you wanted to release it now?
The idea came because we’ve seen so many DVD films in our tour bus, and we enjoyed checking what other bands do. Actually, everytime we traveled from place to place, we watched another thing. It was interesting.
So we recorded the concert in Switzerland in the last summer and it was really good. Besides of that, we put in other stuff like all our videoclips, scenes where you can see how we made them, and many many pictures, a lot of stuff. I think it’s interesting to see behind the scenes, for the fans it’s really special.

What can you tell about the concert in the DVD?
It was recorded in a festival named “Gampel”, close to Zurich. It was a huge festival, like 40,000 people. We were the main act that day. We are doing pretty well in Switzerland.

Which parts of the DVD you think fans will like?
I think it’s interesting to see how we made the videoclips, when you hear the director’s comments who explaine what he’s doing, we are talking about profesional directors. Besides, we were involved in the process of making the videos all along. We had many ideas, we went to drink with the director and after that we thought about solutions for all sort of problems. The last years were pretty pressed of shooting videos in Finland, The US and Cuba.

The Main Act
Lauri, do you remember any storied from one of the videos?
We shoot under the rain in Finland, it was very cold, -5 degrees. I stood under a rain machine like 12 hours, I was all shaking. Apart of the videos there are many pictures in the DVD, we were surprised to find out how many. When I saw them, it brough me up many memories from recording we’ve done or places we’ve been in. It was nostalgic for me to see how young I was 3 years ago.

What’s your favorite Video?
I think it’s “Funeral Song”, which is different of the other videos. It’s the last song in the album, and it’s very slow. In my opinion is the sadest song in the album.

In one of the tracks in the DVD we can see you in a concert in Dubai. Was it a special experince?
We were supposed to play there along with Limp Bizkit but they cancelled in the last moment. From our part, it was good, because we became the main act. We played in the desert and it was a great and powerfull concert. We had also a beautiful day because we drove in the desert on a jeep, there was send everywhere around. We tried to do “sandboard”, wich is like snowboard but with sand, it was very weird. It was nice to fall and fill out mouth with sand.

Just to let you know that if you are looking for a desert, in Israel we have too. Anyway, why you put in the DVD all the version of ITS?
The first video was only for the Finnish market. It was for a soundtrack for a finnish movie “Bad boys” so we inclided in the video parts of the movie. We decided to make another version for the European market, it’s the one in the white room and crows, it has a matrix atmospehre. The 3rd version is like a fantasy, it’s the one for the American market.

Center Of The World
You had 2 successful years around the world. How’s life in your country?
Helsinki is a small town. We’ve been living there for all of our lives, and it’s a little, cute city with a lot of culture and an active music industry. We grew up on covers for Metalica, Nirvana and Jimmy Hendrix, and we even went to see Metalica live. There are a lot of Rock clubs in Helsinki, and lots of band and people play for fun, as a hobby. There is a strong Classical influence here, and many people know how to play on at least one instrument.

When you’re on tour, who you miss most at home?
I miss my family. But I think it’s a good thing to stay away for a few days sometimes. I also miss the character of people in Finland. They are very quiet, and sometimes it’s nice to be quiet, instead of talking all the time this little conversation… You know, small talks.

Have you considered moving outside of Finland?
I think Finalnd is becoming the center of world’s music right now, so it’s a good place to stay in. I never thought to move somewhere else, even though Finalnd is a very cold country in winter time and it’s dark, so it makes you think about moving to a warmer place. Yet, the Finnish summer is very beautiful, everything is blooming, the days are long and shiny. In fact, it’s quite inspiring.

Walking Toward Something Big
Maybe you’ll remind us how did you become a band?
We met at school when we were 14-15, and by then we used to play with bands that made covers. I think we got together for Christmas party at school. We said ‘Let’s try’ and we wrote a few songs for this party. It was nice and our friends encouraged us, then we said to ourselves ‘Okay, let’s see how long can we keep this going’. We were simply a group of people which were kinda serious, and we wanted to make music and to be able to get something through it. A little while later we got a contract with a record company from Finalnd and we released a mini album. One of our songs got to the radio, and that was our big start in Finland.

And when did you realized that The Rasmus are going to break through to the international market?
While ITS was in charts in Germany in summer 2003. That was the moment when we understood that we are walking toward something huge. It was kinda scary really, but I always remember that we are originally a simple guys who have fun and play for fun. Though we always knew that if we wanted to get somewhere, we should made bigger gigs and enjoy.
I remember the first years of the band, because when this all had started, it was great for everyone. It’s still like it, because everytime we play on new places or a new song is getting released everyone is ecxited.
Generaly, it’s always exaiting to do something new, and all this period is extremly exciting for us.

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