I secretly hope that it will run even better for us [Germany]

SMASH-MAG.com: Lauri, do you like promotion like this?
Lauri: Sometimes it is nice to talk about the music. Today, on the other hand I don’t feel good particularly since I have an a little sore throat.

SMASH-MAG.com: Is there a difference between interviews for you, like a bigger one in front of a TV camera or – as us now here – with the dictation set?
Lauri: I prefer to sit here with you and the running dictation set than being filmed by the camera. I don’t feel well in front of cameras and simply don’t like it to see me in the TV then later. It’s simply terrible.

SMASH-MAG.com: Are there questions which you absolutely don’t like?
Lauri: I don’t like it to talk about my private life and my relationship. It’s my well sheltered secret and I wanna keep this out of the public. The main reason to give an interview is to talk about the new album “Hide from the sun”, like today. I shouldn’t be asked about my private life. Many people ask these but I don’t like to answer these questions.

SMASH-MAG.com: You have been in the niche of the pop-rock initially, but with “Dead Letters” it got funkier and your image also changed. I can remember when I have seen you live the first time. This was here in the Cologne Prime Club as support of Dover. At that time you had still dyed blonde hair and looked different than now here in black. Definitely the black makes people to put you into an a little darker corner. You are described as a Gothic band, what I cannot comprehend so properly, seen musically. The titles of the new album like “Lucifer’s angel”, “Night after Night”, or “Dancer in The Dark” nevertheless reflect something dark again.
Lauri: You are right there. I would never come onto the idea describing us as a Gothic. I don’t know exactly either how one comes onto it. The songs arise out of my own emotions which are negative sometimes. Nevertheless it’s my aim to make people see the positive sites in it and also to bring it over in this way. Listen to the songs as sort of a therapie to understand things better. My aim is finding a positive way out of my negative thinking. But there are also pop songs, such as “Sail Away”, which seems quite different. I think that as a band we have made the right choice of the songs which reflect our musical spectrum very well.

SMASH-MAG.com: Obviously “Night after night (out of the shadows)” won’t be published as the first single. But it actually seems reasonable with this title as you can see it as a continuation of “In the Shadows”.
Lauri: Yeah, actually it is the continuation of “In the Shadows”. I wanted to continue the story of “In the shadows” and create a new song about it. When I wrote “in The Shadows” I felt down and was seeking for help. I asked a lot of questions, but couldn’t find the suitable answers nowhere.

SMASH-MAG.com: Why have you been in such a helpless situation?
Lauri: That’s something personal and does not belong into the public. Besides that I think that “Night after night” is a continuation textually, but we have managed to form it musically differently than “In the Shadows”.

SMASH-MAG.com: “Dead letters” was an immense success. How confident are you that you can continue to this success?
Lauri: I hope that it will run well. I have a very good feeling about it, because the songs are simply good. On the other hand it’s difficult to give a suitable answer to this question. We’ll judge by the resonance of the audience when we’re on European tour in autumn. I secretly hope that it will run even better than “Dead Letters”.

SMASH-MAG.com: Don’t you stand under pressure with that yourself?
Lauri: Of course I have my personal aims and am a dreamer in various ways. I put my aims – which I would like to achieve – more highly from time to time. With the new album I would like to have success in the USA finally. We sold there over 100,000 albums of “Dead Letters” what isn’t too bad actually. But if you consider how big this country is, then 100,000 units aren’t really many. It is a big dream of me to have success there and I hope so much that it works.

SMASH-MAG.com: The USA aren’t easy at all for European bands.
Lauri: Correctly. I don’t know many bands which have success there either. Coldplay e.g. belong to the short-term top bands over there.

SMASH-MAG.com: I also still would add The Hives to it.
Lauri: Right. Their album sold also very well in the States.

SMASH-MAG.com: What was the biggest difference between the development of “Hide From for The Sun” and “Dead letters” for you?
Lauri: All the songs for the new album have arisen on the tour. Everything went much faster than normally. We’ve been together all the time and everybody could bring in his ideas directly. On such a long tour so many things happen that are worthwhile to write about.
We’ve experienced so many positive things on this tour and seldom something negative – what happened also of course.

SMASH-MAG.com: The development of the individual songs also seems very spontaneously, isn’t it?
Lauri: Yes, of course. “Immortal” is an older melody which we used to play at our soundchecks. Some fans who have won a Meet & Greet were allowed to take part at a soundcheck. They suddenly sung something on this melody, which was totally strange. I have grasped this situation. At the same time the lyrics for the melody came very spontaneously and a new song was born.

SMASH-MAG.com: For the production of the new album you have worked together with the same producer duo as with “Dead letters”, like the motto: Never change a winning team.
Lauri: Exactly! It was great to work with them together again. After the huge success of “Dead letters” we had many possibilities. Suddenly there was enough money to work with an American producer in L.A.. But I am glad that we haven’t done it. The spirits in our team is great and we do know our way how to work together. I am not a technology freak at all and don’t have much idea of the whole equipment particularly. If I had an imagination how something should sound, I said it and it was clear what I meant with that and it was converted directly. It is much more uncomplicated to work again with a well-adjusted team than starting all new again.

SMASH-MAG.com: You have many support bands when you’re on tour for so long. Are there things which have influenced you?
Lauri: No, not really. We were on tour with Trapt in fall 2003 and I cannot say that they would have influenced us in any way musically. But when we were support band of Dover we have learnt a lot from them. I was surprised about this, in my opinion, excellent band. They were very kind, simply and very calm. We were very proud that they took us on tour at that time. I liked how this band treated us and that’s what I keep in my mind.

SMASH-MAG.com: You have just mentioned that there also were some negative things on the tour. You must have broken off set at the English Reading festival after 20 minutes because the spectators bombarded you with objects.
Lauri: This was the absolute low of the tour. I always had been a big fan of this festival. A dream came true for me as the inquiry came to play there at that time. I was extremely happy at this moment and only worked for this day the months before. You must imagine: They have thrown with everything which was available. It was really kinda shocking and did hurt in my heart. After all the positive things we experienced then this came. On the other hand this event has taken us down to earth again. Nevertheless it took me a week to recover and to realize what happened.

SMASH-MAG.com: Is this the other side of the medallion? On one side the gigantic success in the charts and then this resonance on such a popular festival?
Lauri: Well, I really don’t know, what was going through the minds of these people. When I stood on the stage I thought that 50,000 people hate me and want to kill me. I know that couldn’t be actually. There were a lot of people on this festival who wanted to see us. Therefore I hope that we will play this festival in UK next year again, once more to show us to our fans there.

SMASH-MAG.com: You live in Helsinki. What is the greatest advantage for you to live in this town?
Lauri: It is simply and very peaceful. If I consider having to live in towns like Tokyo, New York or London, I get ill. The lifestyle there is too fast for me. In Helsinki you’ll surely also find some places where it’s kinda hectic. But it is a little town with 500,000 inhabitants and within 15 minutes you can reach the forest. There I also have got myself a little house which is located directly at a lake. If I feel like this, I drive with a little boat over the sea, relaxe and enjoy the nature. This is my little intact world.

Share this article:

Tweet

Current&next releases

Latest news

© 2005-2005 The Rasmus Hellofasite | the Italian portal about The Rasmus | All rights reserved
This website is published under a Creative Commons Licence. It's strictly forbidden any unauthorized
reproduction partial or total of the layout and/or the contents.