The Finnish invasion [UK]

Along with country mates Nightwish, The Rasmus are another band to suddenly burst onto the scene in the UK from nowhere. Although perhaps a little on the borders of the Goth scene, they do have their lovers and haters within the Goth scene, and some even tout that The Rasmus could introduce ‘newbies’ to the scene.
Last October the band did a full UK tour and we caught up with singer Lauri and drummer Aki to talk about the bands new DVD ‘Live Letters’ and why they no longer worry about the press…

How are you doing?
Aki: Fine.
Lauri: We’ve just come from Edinburgh, which was the first show on this part of the tour we’re now playing a few shows in England, Ireland, Scotland.
Aki: Around ten or something. We just came back from Miami from the MTV Latin awards there, so we’re still a bit jet-lagged.

This time last year England didn’t know who you were, how do you feel about taking off over here?
Lauri: Yeah, I know it happened so very rapidly in England. This was the first album we’d released here from our five albums, it’s quite weird. I think it’s also weird for the people because it happened so fast, but also for us, because we’ve been doing this for ten years now, this is kind of an anniversary tour for us, in a way. Because we started in 1994 in October, so now it’s finally happened we’re like ….’OK’.
Aki: And of course England is always the country where people are looking to go and try to make it happen.

It has to be an achievement to crack the UK really.
Lauri: Yeah, it’s a really good fix, I don’t really realise it now that we are here playing the show, figures and numbers don’t mean anything to me until I’m here playing the shows.

How does it feel to be part of the current big Finnish movement?
Lauri: Obviously it’s nice to be one of those bands doing well in Finland, we’ve just done a collaboration with three bands from Finland; Apocalyptica, HIM and us. I sing a duet with Ville Valo, I think we have a good attitude in Finland. Bands are not really jealous of each other, it’s more the other way round, that bands like to support each other which is unusual. In Finland we do not have this kind of Oasis/Blur rivalry thing you know, maybe because it is still all new for us that everyone is still doing their own thing, it’s healthy.
Aki: Like we were supporting HIM a couple of years ago in Scandanavia and now if we have a chance we would like to take a Finnish band on tour with us, it would be nice. We did once in Germany, it’s nice to help out other bands as well.

How have you been picked up on the rest of the continent?
Lauri: It’s been really good, so far we’ve mainly been playing tours in Europe, sometimes in America, but only small places after this English tour we’re going back to England and then to Canada for four or five shows, then down to Mexico City for two shows there, so it’s slowly growing outside of Europe.

Do you think America could be cracked next?
Lauri: Latin America looks quite promising. Argentina and all these countries so that’s nice. We came from Miami, it was nice being there because it was warm and we were driving in a limousine, it was like “OH YEAH! This is America!”

How do you feel about being associated with the Goth scene?
Lauri: That just happened.
Aki: That came more from the fans’ side.
Lauri: Yeah, they kind of picked us, along with the media, possibly from the way we look. But I think some elements of our music are quite desperate and there are a lot of emotions that go quite deep in the feelings side. But myself, I also like this kind of Gothic music, a lot of the dark interiors, it’s quite interesting.

Do you get fed up with talking about Dead Letters?
Lauri: Well, we are movng on all of the time. We’ve just finished a DVD. We’ve just watched through it. I think that is going to be the last thing we do with this album. It is our first ever DVD release and it’s quite interesting for us and for the fans as well so that’s basically where we stop touring. Maybe we’ll do some shows in New Zealand and Japan at the beginning of next year, but then after that we’ll be moving to the studio to begin work on our next album.

So where do you think you’re going to move on to?
Lauri: Right now we’ve got around 6 demos. Generally they’re a bit faster, a little heavier, more guitar riffs and things like that. But we still have the melodies, so far all of the songs are in minor, but that could stay for the next album. We tried to mix different feelings, there’s lot of sentimental and beautiful melodies to create a heavier background, kind of like combining this, very beauty and the beast!

What sort of things influence you?
Lauri: There’s a lot of music. I was just listening to the new album from The 69 Eyes. I picked it up from the album launch party two days ago. I was there in Finland, now I’ve got time on the tour bus I’ve been listening to the whole album sucking out every little detail. I like it, especially, when I know the guys in the band, it becomes more interesting. I enjoy listening to music on the bus, especially when there is so much waiting. I think I may be influenced from that album, somehow.
Aki: Also there are all sorts of things happening when we are playing shows. Interesting stuff.
Lauri: Especially for writing lyrics, there are lots of happy moments and also a lot of drama and everything happening back home, like relationships. Its hard to handle things when over here. Now we are on the road for 27 days again.

How do you deal with the increased touring?
Lauri: I think we like to celebrate things and go to lots of bars and have after parties. But for this tour we’ve decided to have absolutely no alcohol, just to have sanity. It’s going to be quite tough.
Aki: Also, for the first time, we’re not just playing the main cities but also a lot of the smaller ones and that’s important, we want to focus on the shows and give the energy.

Where do you think you’ll be in the future?
Lauri: The next album will be a big thing for us, especially for countries like the UK where we are seen as a newcomer. We came out of nowhere and all of a sudden got huge success and it’s not easy to judge the next album. It it’s a good album with good songs and a good tight atmosphere then there’s no problems with continuing, but in countries like Finland we’ve been around for a long time. People don’t forget about us in just one day because we’ve been, like, growing and growing and the fans have grown with us since the first days. It’s a healthier situation in Finland than in the UK, but the next album will be the same in all of the countries. It will be interesting to see how it goes, but I have no doubts about it, you know, the music we have done so far is fucking good.

What do you think when you look back to some of your older material?
Lauri: Well, it feels quite funny to be honest. I mean we’ve been enjoying listening to the stuff. Our bass player has all of the old albums on his computer and we’ve been listening to the old tracks, but we were so young when we started! It was ten years ago, we were 15 or 16 years old. I think a lot of guys and girls have bands at around that age; they play in a band and then they go and do something else when they’re around 22 or 23. But we came back together again and found our own style and it’s easier to do your own thing. We we have done is we’ve taken all the experience and tried all of the music styles. I mean we’ve done everything and we’ve found the right way. Some people might see it that our old albums are like skeletons in our closets, but we don’t see it that way. We’re like “Hey, that’s part of our history and that’s where we come from”.
Aki: And also like today we even played one song from the first album, although with a bit of a new arrangement. We also play songs from our second and third, from all of our old albums we still play some songs.
Lauri: Now it’s easier to write about things than when I was 15 and didn’t have many experiences.

What do you like doing outside of the band?
Aki: At the moment we do not have much time for hobbies, but back in Helsinki I like to go out with my friends for a beer. When we have time off, like in December we had four weeks off so I will travel away somewhere for around three weeks, it’ll be nice to get away from it all for a moment but it is nice to come back when you are relaxed.
Lauri: I don’t think we have many hobbies except music, our bass player practices his meditation, that is a very big thing for him. He has been totally sober for seven years now, he’s like really calm. He meditates every morning.
Aki: It is more like a life style for him.

What has been your hightlight of 2004, as it was a busy year for you?
Aki: I really enjoyed the two shows we played at the Astoria in the summer, twice sold out Astoria, and that’s a legendary club and that was quite nice. That was something I will always remember.
Lauri: That was only a couple of months after releasing ‘In the Shadows’ and then all of a sudden we’ve got two shows at the Astoria, so we were like ‘What?!’

Obviously many bands have to keep the press on side, the press have been known to make or break careers. Do you ever get worried that the press might turn on you?
Lauri: Well we get lots of calls from magazines asking to do stuff, but now that the music is out and the videos are out, we are actually in a position where we can say that we will do the press we want to do. It’s a very winning situation and a lot of bands can’t do that. But now it’s interesting to be able to do the magazines that we would like to be in, such as TWF Magazine. I think the best way to promote the band is to play the live shows and then the second thing is to have the songs on the radio, then the rest comes after that.

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