Dancing in the dark [Spain]

In an uncertain discographic market, not even selling million and a half copies keeps you from moving with iron feet. Lauri Ylönen landed in Madrid in the first promo visit for “Hide From The Sun”, The Rasmus sixth album, the second international one, in which they’ll show if the success of “Dead Letters” was casualty or not.
I can’t believe my ears. It’s two months before their greatly expected album is launched and we still don’t have a single. Well, we do have it, it’s called “No Fear”, but we can’t hear it just yet. Lauri Ylönen excuses himself with exquisite education. -”It’s not ready to be heard yet. It’s still in the middle of the mixing process. Well, we already have it, but there is a version with a feminine voice whose identity’s I can’t disclose. We still have to sign contracts and decide whether we’ll use it or not.”- Anyway, it’s still fun to watch his face as we bombard him with the names of possible candidates like Dido, Amy Lee from Evanesence, Tarja from Nightwish, Björk or Mariah Carey, (they’re all signed in the same record label). Have we guessed?

From what we heard
When you read this interview you’ll probably know a whole lot more than we do about “Hide From The Sun” (Universal). In the end of june, when we talked to Lauri, we were only able to hear five songs from the album, and neither “No Fear” or “Dead Promises”, a song that has the collaboration of their country fellows from Apocalyptica, were among them. What a pity. Plus, the very same Lauri scared us. -”Out of all the songs that have been already masterized, we’re still not sure if they all will make it in the album. It is possible that one or two of them won’t be in it.”- We’re been warned. But we can’t resist the chance to ask him a tricky question. Isn’t it that we can only hear five songs because the rest of the record sucks and you don’t even dare to show it?
By then Lauri had two options: to take it as a joke and dodge it in a polite way or to finish off the interview. Of course, he laughed a lot with the question and he went with the tangent. -”If you’re asking if we’re delayed with the album, then you’re right. The release date was already settled and none of us wanted to delay it. We’ve taken our time with the mixing because we want it to be a good album. When we sat to talk about the new album, the pressure, the fans and everything else, we decided we had to transform all that into something positive. We said: “we’re not only a group of good friends, we’ll write some songs and then we’ll record a great album.” “- Yes, but we still can’t tell for sure, so we’ll focus on discussing the five songs we’ve had access to, with him.
For starters, “Night After night” sounds an awful lot like “In The Shadows”; it’s as if Lauri, Pauli Rantasalmi (guitar), Eero Heinonen (Bass) and Aki Hakala (Drums) made a sequel. -”Yes, it really is a sequel of the theme, it’s giving an exit to the story, an epilogue. I know many will say we’re repeating ourselves, but I think it’s more interesting to close the circle.”- The bass here sounds contusive and rhythmical, reminding us sometimes of Placebo. “Really?! Placebo?! Fuck! I like the song cause it has other influences like Muse, Weezer in the melodies or Radiohead in the concept… but Placebo???”- Well, we know opinions are like ass holes, each person has one.
The next song, “Dancer In The Dark” hardens the The Rasmus rock brushing a more manufactured sound with a sinister piano. -”Yeah, this song is different,”- Lauri agrees. -”We still don’t know if it fits with the record. We’ll have to wait until it’s mastered and see what happens then.”- Month and a half later we found out that, indeed, the song didn’t make it, but it’ll be a bonus track in the special limited edition in digipack. It’s a pity that a song like this is left as a bonus track when it could be one of the most interesting songs of the record, except for that ending with a little acoustic guitar that, by the way, is too much.
With “Shot” we are back with the 100% The Rasmus sound. -”It’s quite similar to the single, in fact, it might be the second single to come out. It also talks about protecting the people you love and trespassing the call of duty to do it, something I also talk about in “Inmortal”.”- At first sight it seems that this record will be darker than “Dead Letters”. -”I’ve been writing the lyrics in a crappy hotel room in Stockholm,”- The singer explains. -”But the vibes of that place were great. Perhaps that helped the lyrics to be darker. I was going through some of my new lyrics the other day and I realized the words “escape” and “hide” were repeated everywhere. For example, there is a song called “Lucifer’s Angel” that talks about prejudices. You know, hundreds of years ago witches were burnt, but now something similar happens. Nonconformists are locked or silenced to death. Most people are still afraid when somebody has totally new ideas.”
“Immortal” is the last song we’re able to hear, and perhaps the best sign of what The Rasmus will be in 2005. It has riffs that are quite Tool and that derive in a 80′s melody ala Guns n’ Roses. Besides, the voices reach sharper textures. Everything is quite 80′s. -”Of course, we love all those bands, I’d add Iron Maiden and Skid Row. They’re all part of a very important part of our lives, it’s our music and it makes the business less serious.”
Even though we haven’t heard it, we ask him to tell us something about “Dead Promises”. “When I wrote it I made some riffs and I thought about cellos, so it was the right moment for Apocalyptica to return the favor. When we arrived at the studio it seemed that we had a bunch of ideas for the song. I spent all the tour playing with pianos to kill the time, that’s where a lot of ideas for the record came from, including the sketch for “Dead Promises”.”- The favor he talks about is no other than his participation in the single “Bittersweet” by Apocalyptica, where HIM’s singer, Ville Valo, also sang. -”Apparently it was Valo who came with the idea of a duet, taking advantage of the fact I was recording another song with them. They’re long time friends, they just couldn’t find the time to make the collaboration. When all of them had a hole I was around and… you know, we have a small scene in Finland, and we support each other. Plus, we drank a lot of beer and everything was easier.”

The Production
“Hide From The Sun” was recorded at the Nord/Hansen studios in Stockholm with the producers Martin Hansen and Mikael Nord Andersson, the responsable duet of the band’s latest two albums, “Into” and “Dead Letters”. Lauri justifies their implication. -”We’ve progressed a lot with them, why would we break this winner team? Communication between us is total. It was very nice to record in Sweden instead of Finland, there we recorded and then we all split up and went home separatedly. Now we were more focused on the band and a lot of our best ideas came up after a whole day in the studio. We put everything in common as a group. We lived in the same flat in Stockholm and it was great to be able to continue working at home as a group, at night. That made the band feel stronger.”

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