How I conquered the world (and what I’ll do next) [Finland]

This is an exciting story about the life of The Rasmus’s singer Lauri Ylönen. Everything begins from the housing estate of Suutarila, where Lauri teach the street credibility way of spitting and remembers the sweat smelling teen disco. Then we move to Stockholm. At while Lauri works at the studio, but at nights he relaxes at bars and gambles. In the last chapter the persistence of the reader is rewarded with the information of how rich Lauri is and how he spends his money.
In last January the vocalist of The Rasmus, Lauri Ylönen stepped inside to a rock bar in Tokio and noticed, that in one table, there were sitting, two of his youths favorite bands (Guns N’ Roses) members, Matt Sorum and Duff McKagan.
The worn-out American rockers were left to mope in their table together, when on the other hand there were fans all around the young finns; The Rasmus’s gigs in Japan were came to see all the way from Great-Britain and Spain.
One Japanian man bursted into tears and mumbled to Lauri, how he couldn’t imagine to see The Rasmus at this bar. “I was like, what’s going on here? Matt Sorum glares at us, when this guy is crying at me. So mad! When Aki went to talk to Matt, he just pissed back. I myself didn’t go and talk to him, ‘cause he seemed like an asshole, and the whole situation was so “I’m a star” like”, Lauri tells at the window table of a restaurant at Helsinki, Rikhardinkatu. February is soon to end, and The Rasmus has come back from Japan. The band is currently practicing the songs for their next album, of which recording will begin in about two weeks, at a studio in Stockholm.
The Rasmus’s earlier album, in 2003 to the market came Dead Letters, has been sold enormous 1,5 million pieces. The song hit In The Shadows was last years most played song, in the radio stations, in many European countries and The Rasmus were touring around the world: In Japan, In the US, In Russia, In Mexico… In last year Lauri was away from Finland for more than 250 days.
The 25-year old Lauri Ylönen is the absolute leader figure of The Rasmus. He is the one asked for the foreign magazines interviews and pr-occasions, he is the Nro.1 idol of their fans.
Let’s check him out a bit closer.
Height is 169cm. Dressed in all black, a cap covers the head, which’s color and style has changed more than once during all these years.
He talks lively, with broken sentences, thinking of what he’s saying.
He is known as a control freak and a workaholic. The Rasmus is everything to him: other jobs he has never done, he even quit the upper secondary school.
He seems polite. No arrogance to be noticed, though he is a star, a real star.
“One British fan bought me a star from the sky. It is named after me. I have the certificate, where it says, where the star is”, Lauri says. Another fan, a thirty-year old, Italian women, has taken a tattoo of Lauris’ autograph, (which he gave her) to her arm. She had already Lauris’ face tattooed on her shoulder.
The Rasmus’s and Lauri’s measurement of fame can be found from the internet. From an Italian site, you can find an own Lauri- discussion, una sezione per parlare su Lauri. There are almost 40.000 messages sent there, where people declare their love towards Lauri.
Lauri Ylönen is a global Neumann.
This is a story about how he came like that. Let’s leave the noisy restaurant and move to Lauris’ childhood view, to Suutarila, a housing estate in northern Helsinki.

Chapter one
where we loaf around in Suutarila. Lauri teaches the right way of spitting and tells, how he freed himself from the claws of the mean policemen.
“Oh f**k. Parakki is gone”, Lauri Ylönen says and rises up from the backseat of a taxi to the snowy grounds of Suutarila High.
A sign tells you to leave your bicycles to the poles, a security camera, hang up to a eaves, films the brick wall.
Parakki was an important place for Lauri, when he was young. At its’ stairs he met his friends at evenings, skateboarded, smoked and spat. Lauri demonstrates the right way of spitting: Hands lean to your knees, and the spit hisses through your front-teeth. “I’ve puked there too” Lauri says and….
Lauris childhood was as a childhood in the middle class-families tend to be, his father was working with immigration, his mother was working in a kindergarden. When his mother took him to piano-lessons since the age of five, he didn’t know how to refuse. “I was thinking to myself that this is part of life, its just a new phase”.
Lauri is smiling when he remembers his piano-teacher, a 20-year old pony-tailed hippie. “She had this room that smelled like cigarettes, cans of beer everywhere, and I was playing “twinkle twinkle star..” (edit: a nursery rhyme). All the other guys were going to Judo-classes. I was playing the piano. A bit embarrassing.
Skating was of more interest to Lauri than playing piano. He went along building ramps and was hanging around for hours in a store called “kluuvin pro skate”. With skating along came also making graffities. He got caught once.
“I had these huge trousers full of paints and I explained I was off to paint my bicycle. At the police-station they asked me to write the word “zippo”. I presume they were trying to identify my way of painting. I wrote with big letters “ZIPPO”. Then my father came and picked me up.”
Even at school there were some troubles. When Lauri and Eero (the forthcoming bass-player of TR), for example, got the idea to announce through schools radio-central that “all the pupils are dismissed. All the teachers are having a meeting.”
In that same school-radio the first TR-demo was also played. The group was founded in Suutarila, where in addition to Lauri and Eero the guitarist Pauli Rantasalmi also lived. Their first training-place was in Paulis parents basement.
At the age of 13 Lauri had switched from piano to classical guitar. Against the advice given by Northern-Helsinki music-school, the guitar-teacher spent half of the time teaching Lauri how to play Led Zeppelin and other rock-classics.
“Around that time I started to like first bands, like Guns and Roses. Before that I had listened to music like Alla Pugatsova, my fathers recordings.”
Lauris elderly sister, 2-years older Hanna, made Lauri to sing and bring him to music. Graffitis and other messing around were gone, the circle of friends changed. The band came along.

Chapter two
…where Lauri claims TR being bigger than The Beatles.
We will also reveal, why Lauri used to pee in a lavarotory and why Kummeli is the show to thank for the bands popularity…
The house of the Orange Ry is located in Katajanokka/Helsinki. 16-year old Lauri Ylönen is working together with Pauli Rantasalmi and Eero Heinonen as volunteers in a café of the youth-house. The boys sell coffee and lemonade and spread madrasses to the guests, for the tired rugsack-travelers.
Lauri is care-free. It’s the summer of -95, autumn and the start of the studies in “Sibelius-academy” are far-away in the future. There is plenty of time to skate, dye ones hair, watch James Bond-movies and roam around the city as care-free as a young person who has just finished high-school can be.
Lauri and Pauli manage to talk over to their band Rasmus a gig at Oranssi-club. The chairman of the Orange-club, 25-year old Teja Kotilainen is observing the boys going crazy at the stage.
After the gig she announces that she will be their manager. “First we will conquer Helsinki, then the rest of Finland and then the whole world”, she says.
The boys are nodding their heads. Its been already half a year since their first performance.
The biggest hit they have had was at a Xmas party in Suutarila high-school was a Speedy Keinonens “hän-mies” (edit: a finnish comedy, I think). And now someone is talking about conquering the world.
In the beginning everything went quite fast.
The first single by TR, “1st”, was released in December 1995. To collect the money for it they had posted advertisements all around the city for Orange. The job was done at nights, with cold hands, and being afraid of policemen.
In February 1996 Rasmus made a record-deal with multi-national giant-company The Warner. The first record, funk-orientated “peep”, was released in May of the same year and during that summer Rasmus made a break-through in Finland. People in the festivals were going nuts about the trumpet-funk and got all exited about our own “Red Hot Chili Peppers”.
In an interview by the “soundi”-magazine reflect quite a lot of the attitude Rasmus had back then. Partly its due to their adolescent humour, but among that there were loads of self-determination. Many were saying that a sudden success has made them arrogant.
“That is the truth, we started thinking the world of ourselves. The feeling you get that someone loves you is so strong a drug, that it goes easily to your head. At that time we were still experimenting with alcohol and that also infected our psyches and all. Later I suddenly noticed, that I wasn’t any good company, anymore.” Lauri ponders.
Peep went gold. Lots of advisors and compliments started to be around Rasmus. The band made a deal with Pepsi: Lauri’s face appeared on pepsi-cans and bus-stop-commercials. In music-magazines many of the more experienced musicians made fun of them calling them as “Pepsi-can-players”, but the youth loved them. There were plenty of gigs. Lauri decided to quit gymnasium.
“I just got the feeling, that I have had it with school, I just want to play guitar from the moment I wake up. It was risky, but I just had the feeling, that I can do better with that than school”.
At the same time Lauri moved together with bass-player Eero to Helsinginkatu-street. The living was chaotic, the pizza-boxes in the corners told a lot from their diet as the young rock-stars.
From the very beginning the goal was to make success world-wide. In summer times the band went to London. The idea was to meet big-chiefs of the brand and do promotion, but their journeys usually wound up sitting in Hyde Park playing guitars and drinking beer.
After the third-album release “hell of a tester”, the band was quiet a long time. Some might even say crisis. Lauri recalls very well a concert in Tampere at Tulliklubi, where 25 people came.
“I got the feeling that people have had enough of us. I was thinking will we always be playing only at youth-clubs.”
The money was running out, every single member of the band was on welfare. Lauri borrowed money from their manager Kotilainen, to whom he told he had been eating “sand” in the past month.
“I started panicking. I wondered if I had made the right decision. Should I go back to school or to work.”
The Warner had already given up on Rasmus. There were no longer talks about qonquering the world. The members of the band were in there twenties, but already considered as washed-ups.
The drummer changed. Aki Hakala who had earlier played with Kwan and Killer got to sit behind the drum-kit. He got comments about changing his place to a dieing band. Lauri got mad.
“I was like I will show them, damn, let’s do some new songs. When we got a new deal, it restored the self-confidence.”
With the new deal he means a contract with a Swedish-record company, “the Playground Music” that was the turning point of the Rasmus.
The band added the “the” to their band name and simplified their music, decided to concentrate on the things they were good at, strong melodies based with rock. The Swedish record-company invited Lauri to come to visit Stockholm and arrange an American to improve his English skills. At the same time the manager of HIM, Seppo Vesterinen took them under their wings. We will soon go to Stockholm but first we have to pay a visit to Ann-Majs food-kiosk..

Chapter three
Where we think back to the rasberry candies that smelled like cigarettes and talk about two-faced toadies. We’re also going to find out why Lauri changed his apartment.
We have moved to the kiosk nearby the secondary school. Lauri is sitting on the wooden bench next to the wall and checks if he finds his own scrapings. Two young girls walk by. Their heads turn, then the whispering starts.
It is him.
“I remember when we bought rasberry candies, they smelled like cigarettes because the owner smoked inside”, Lauri laughs.
Behind our backs is Suutarila’s wastehill, that is also one of the important places in Lauri’s youth. Lauri tells how he made a nostalgic Suutarila-tour with his friend Esa.
“We bought beers and sat on the wastehill, at the mall and on the steps of parakki (=hut), when it was still up.”
Esa who works as a doorman is Lauri’s long-term friend.
“The most real and genuine people live here. I’ve met half-familiar people a lot. They’re usually nice company for a short while but I haven’t gotten many real new friends during the past ten years.”
According to Teja Kotilainen, Lauri has build even thicker wall around himself after the band started to succeed. He says it’s difficult for Lauri to trust new people.
Lauri tells he has been previously too gullible and trusting.
“There is a lot of double-dealing. You feel you can’t tell anyone too much about your dreams. I have become more careful. It would be good to be more forgiving.”
Lauri is happy to talk to fans – if he’s in the mood. Usually he isn’t and everybody don’t understand it. Then you better stay away from people.
Lauri tells he avoids some places. It isn’t wise to go to Tennispalatsi (Helsinki’s biggest movie theatre) on Friday night. He rather spends his nights with his friends listening to music.
Even home doesn’t guarantee enough privacy. A couple of years ago German Bravo-magazine printed pictures of Lauri’s apartment that located in Tarkk’ampujankatu and 7 Päivää -magazine (of course) bought the pictures (of course) without asking Lauri’s permission.
As a result Lauri had to move away because of the fans who practically lived behind his door.
The address of his new apartment is secret. He still has his lastname in the door. “Maybe I should take it off.”

Chapter four
Where we visit in Stockholm, give a small interview to the UK and tell what Lauri would do on his summer holiday, if he had one.
Industrial area of Bromma outside of Stockholm. Lauri Ylönen and guitarist Pauli Rantasalmi sit in the lounge of the Nord studios with their black beanies covering their ears. Pauli is picking tunes on his acoustic guitar and Lauri is humming a melody. The men are currently making a new song and tell about their idea to their producer Martin Hansen.
“Let’s put church bells here, even though it’s a cliche.”
“Yeah, and fire and explosions!”
“But so that there’s the same drumming as in the other songs.”
The song has a work title “Murhaballadi” (Murderballad). It is the middle of March and The Rasmus’ fourth day in the studio. They have made their two previous albums here with the same producers Hansen and Mikael Nordin.
They thought about finding a new producer for the new album at first but they couldn’t find the same tone with The Rasmus.
“It was a great feeling to come out here, just like you would have come to your home. You can pretty much walk in to the kitchen with your eyes closed and know which drawer has cookies”, Lauri tells at the same time as he’s introducing the studio.
Basist Eero Heinonen is putting his equipment together in the recording room. He’s about to start his own part. It’s almost six o’clock.
The Rasmus’ work moral is tough, they come to the studio at 9 am and they won’t leave before six or seven pm.
“In the evenings we have usually eaten candy and went to bed at 9:30 or 10 pm. Really rock ‘n’ roll!”
In their training place in Helsinki they follow the same rules, they begin their playing every morning at 10 am. In the record company The Rasmus is being called as the “office band”. The band has made long tours when no one, not even their light man, has been allowed to drink alcohol. After every gig they hold a criticism meeting where they go through all of their songs.
The Rasmus records their album in two parts: during the first two weeks they record the backups to seven songs and after a short break Lauri returns to Stockholm for his vocals. Now he should be writing lyrics. For an inspiration Lauri has packed Herman Hesse’s Arosude and Bible.
Lauri wouldn’t have to be here listening to drums and bass’ recordings, but he wants to see everything goes as it should. When they were making their previous album Lauri was the only member to be in the studio when the album was being mixed.
Lauri’s cell phone is blinking. He goes to the stairway to give a 10 question interview to England. It – as well as Image’s presence – is an exception. Otherwise the time is dedicated for recording, even though Swedish magazines have been wanting interviews after they’ve heard The Rasmus is in town.
The Rasmus is Playground Music’s most selling artist. The budget of the album is open, they work with it until they are happy. Only the recording costs are over 150,000 euros. The band’s trips and living in Stockholm as well as making music videos and marketing come on top of it.
The Rasmus’ cooperation with Playground Music didn’t start in a promising way. Their first album Into sold only a couple of thousand CDs in Sweden.
“We were back then on a gig in Eskilstuna and there were six people, four of them being from the record company. It cost 10,000 marks per day to move all of our equipment and two people buy a ticket, and they were probably Finns. We were pretty depressed. I thought we were gonna be starting to eat tunafish again.”
Not until Dead Letters album – and most of all the superhit In The Shadows – blew everyone away all around the Europe. The album they’re making at the moment is being released in 50 countries at the same time. It means a long promotional tour for Lauri.
“I had been thinking about spending a holiday in July. It would have been nice to enjoy Finnish summer and row a boat somewhere. But now I have to leave for a 15-20 day long tour to promote the new album.”
Lauri doesn’t want to complain. Marketing is part of his job and it’s better to get it over with before the real tour. On tour he doesn’t like to talk to reporters.
“I don’t want that the gig and that feeling gets hurt anyhow. If you give interviews during the day, it tires and pisses you off and then the gig is bad.”

Chapter five
Where we visit in the famous Cafe Opera and play roulette. Lauri also tells about stealing beer.
Young blond woman knocks on Lauri’s shoulder and whispers something in his ear in Swedish.
Lauri doesn’t understand. The woman asks in English if Lauri could take his beanie off. Lauri won’t do it.
Now we are in a bar called Kelly’s at Folkungagatan, in the trendy Söder.
Lauri is a bit confused. Usually he can drink his beer in peace around here.
“It’s easy in Sweden and Finland. Finns are too shy and Swedes too cool to come and talk to you.”
It’s different in Southern Europe and Mexico. In those places The Rasmus checks in the hotels with fake names and leaves the concert venue with security.
“Usually we fool people so that at first a black car with darkened windows
leaves the venue. Fans ran after it and we come in the trunk of some crappy van.”
It’s 7:30 pm. Boutiques on Götgatan are closing their doors and the bars fill up with trendy young adults. A noisy Finnish drunk passes us.
“A couple of years ago we stole beer from there for our after party”, Lauri points towards 7 Eleven. “I had just met BMX-bikers who invited me to their festival. In the after party there were bikes hanging from the ceiling and skating videos were playing on the TV. It was like a return to 1995.”
Lauri’s life was completely different in 1995 comparing to what it is now. Still, according to his friends, he is the same guy: happy, with a great sense of humor, caring.
In Stockholm he travels – alongside with taxis – with local train and subway. The band sleeps in apartment hotel where the showers stink because of the pipe problems.
For this night there is glamour. It is Playground Music’s new female artist Sandra’s release party in Cafe Opera, which is the place where Stockholm’s celebrities and even the Royals party.
“Ylo-nen?” the doorman confirms and goes through the guestlist. There is a group of people swarming under the crystal chandeliers and ceiling fresco, they would fit well into an american soap opera. Women smile with their teeth and gums shining, men are wearing suits and gel hair. Lauri is smiling.
“Let’s not stay long here. Let’s go to some rock club later.”
Lauri founds two familiar video directors behind the bar, Fredrik Löfberg and Niclas Fronda.
They are laughing each others heads off when Lauri imitates their video shooting trip for In My Life in Cuba. Lauri was suffering both tourist diarrhea and stomach illness (vomiting).
Sandra’s show is about to start. Her music sounds – as Aki Hakala says – very swedish. After the performance they are showing Sandra’s music video on the screens.
Lauri is laughing at the music video that is a full of cliches. Lauri is laughing at many things tonight, he is on a party mood. We are supposed to continue to Söder’s clubs. One jägermeisters before it, Lauri suggests.
Leaving isn’t obviously an option anymore. When the clock shows half past twelve, the limousines are bringing even more 30-year-old upstarters smoking cigars, and Lauri moves next to the roulette table. He gives the groupier a 500 krone bill and receives three piles of plastic chips.
Half an hour later he has lost all of them.

Chapter six
Where Lauri tells how he might need a shrink in the future. It is also revealed why he turned down a 750,000 € commercial deal.
There is an excited man sitting in the table at ten in the morning. Lauri is presenting the blueprint of the studio he is building to Sörnäinen, Helsinki together with Pauli.
“It’s going to be a club room or a lounge where you can hang out, just the kind I’ve always wanted. We are so excited about it now. We have had meetings about this every night in some bar”, Lauri says.
Building a studio is one way to use the money that Lauri has earned. In 2003 Lauri’s incomes were 226,548 euros, that makes his month salary almost 19,000 euros. And this was before the huge success. Lauri is known to be very careful with his money. For example he goes through the Teosto (= Finnish Composers’ Copyright Society)-papers carefully and has found mistakes from them.
Because of the complicated tax politics Lauri has started his own firm, Skeletor Oy. With his money he has bought an apartment. Sure he has spend money without looking back too.
“I do a lot of impulse shopping. You buy some expensive suit and never use it, actually I have bought several suits. Or then I’ll buy guitars when I want to reward myself.”
Lauri is clearly the wealthiest member of The Rasmus: he is the main writer in the band, so 75 per cent of the Teosto compensations belong to him.
Of course there would be easier money available. He has gotten valuble commercial deals, hair spray campaigns etc. but turned them all down. Posing in Pepsi commercials years ago tought him it isn’t good to run after money. Well, how much have you been offered? Lauri goes silent.
“I’m not gonna tell who offered but it was 750, 000 euros. With that kind of amount of money you could quit this job immediately.”
There is no need to talk about quitting. The Rasmus is doing well. Lauri says his well-being is compared to the band’s situation.
“The best thing about success is that it has finally happened. It feels like a job victory. There’s a huge machine running behind us. And this is just the beginning, you can really succeed everywhere. The effects can be an enourmous hangover. It might be that at some point you get the feeling that you have had enough of performing in public. Then you can figure out some other way to make music.”
Lauri drifts in to talking about the future: his dreams about getting old with dignity, own a bookstore or a house in Gibraltar. It would be nice to have kids too. There is no sign of wall around Lauri when he analyzes his own personality.
“I might lie that everything’s okay and still some person or thing leaves a huge hole somewhere. And then I’m kind of fooling myself too. I can live with it, I manage to bury it, but it makes me more serious. The more those things happen, the more serious I become.”
And what things Lauri might mean?
“They can be band things or personal stuff, that touch your old friends or loved ones. They might be things I have to go through with a shrink some day, if they start to pile up…”
Lauri takes a break, tabs the table with his hand and announces he has to go to the bathroom.
When he comes back, the wall is back.
And actually Lauri should be working already.

Now the comments in the pics:
Image 002
Idol and a fan: Lauri from The Rasmus is a big fan of already deceased actor Matti Pellonpää (in the picture).
Image 003
Lauri in Eerikinkatu’s Corona bar.
“I used to visit here often when I was in school. You could sit here all day long for the price of a cup of coffee. But we weren’t just skipping classes here, we also made homework. I think.”
Image 004
Lauri on the yard of Suutarila’s secondary school. “I’m used to being stared at. ‘Hey look, he’s buying toilet paper.’”
Image 005
Lauri at Ann-Maj’s kiosk.
“The last two years have been incredibly tough. It feels like I’ve aged 5 years.”
Lauri smoking a cigarette. “Middle aged women are the worst. I don’t get it, how they can have so many children. And when they come and kiss you. I’d rather receive kisses from some 20-year-olds.”
Lauri on Porkkalankatu where Lepakko used to locate. “One of the gigs I remember forever happened here, we were supporting Rancid. It was our first gig in Lepakko and I was so nervous about meeting the guys from Rancid.”
Image 006
Lauri walking around Hietalahti’s dockyard. “After the tour I like to be at home. It’s a weird thing how amazing it feels to vacuum your apartment or cook.”
Image 007
Lauri and Aki Hakala at the studios.
“We are trying to make our songs as ready as we can before going to studio. Here we only record them.”
Image 008
Lauri at their training place in Nosturi.
“I’m suprised how easy it was to write new stuff and how good it is. We would have gotten lots of pressure about making a new album if this wouldn’t have happened.”
Lauri waiting for the local train at the station of Sundbyberg.
“It’s important to make an album outside of Helsinki.”
Image 009
Lauri at the roulette table in Cafe Opera.
“I’m a very good boy at spending money. One night all your money can go to roulette, sometimes I reward myself by buying a guitar.”
Image 010
Lauri in the lounge of their studio.
“There may be a long time when I know nothing about what’s happening in the World. It’s nice you can cut all your connections to the reality and live in some cotton land.”

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