Complex emotional worlds [Germany]

Maricica Cornici had been tied up to a cross for days, the 23-year old nun was left vegetating without food or water before death released her from her infinite sufferings. None of the involved monks feels pity or repentance for their cruel deeds afterwards. The young woman had been possessed by the devil, the exorcists justify themselves, there had been no other choice for them but to free Maricica from Satan this way. However, it was not in the dark ages that the sister was tormented but in the year 2005, whereby she will be the youngest victim of an obsessive belief in witches, which began to spread in the 15th century and has cost the lives of tens of thousands of people. It was mainly women, who met their deaths on brightly burning stakes all over Europe after their confession had been extorted under torture that they were in league with the devil. That’s why they were called “Whores of Satan” or “Lucifer’s Angels”.

It was a book on the history of Scandinavia, which inspired Lauri Ylönen to write Lucifer’s Angel. Even though the heyday of witch hunt dates back about 500 years in history, according to the young Finn parallels can somehow be found in our days. “These people were acting with the best purposes back then wanting to help other people or heal them from their illnesses. They were aiming at changing the world, which scared their environment so much that the general opinion was to kill those freaks. In a way, it is still happening today that people with new ideas and visions are being repulsed since the great majority is afraid of changes.” Lauri explains. “At the same time, this was a new way of approach to writing a text for me since this almost implies a political statement. I had never done anything like this before. Besides that, it also has a personal meaning for me because I never directly write about my emotions but I generally try to relate to a film for example, as it was the case with Dancer in the Dark. The female main character goes blind but hides this from her fellow human beings to cope with her problem by herself. I could identify with this right away because I’m doing the same thing every day.”

Even though Dancer in the Dark, Lars von Trier’s award-winning dogma film, was not integrated in the regular track list of the current album Hide from the Sun, just as this song, every single song of the new album mirrors a part of Lauri’s personality and experiences, which is true for both the lyrics and the musical expression appearing full of seemingly incompatible contrasts. Poppy elements full of optimism meet dark, melancholic passages, soft melodies melt with massive, strong guitar riffs and thundering drums – Hide from the Sun is characterised by a consequent, overall harmonic contrariness. “I also consist of two different sides and can be two completely different persons within the same day.” Lauri reveals. One moment I’m strong and full of power just to feel totally fragile in the next again. Every day is full of so many different moods for me that the music matches my emotions very well.”

Somehow it has always done just that. But since the first albums expressed that youthful light heartedness of the back then not even 20-years old The Rasmus members, the sound worlds got noticeably darker with every new release, which is not only due to the artists turning older, more mature and more reflective through the years; with rising success, the quartet also saw themselves confronted with the shadow sides of popularity. As soon as the band achieved top chart positions with In the Shadows all over Europe, the teeny press literally jumped at the young men from Helsinki and especially at Lauri, since the picture of the singer, adored by various young girls, on the cover of the relevant magazines made the usual sales figures multiply. The responsible editors were not interested in that the musicians would much rather talk about their creative work in interviews than about their favourite colour and the name of their first girlfriend. And if it came to weekly filling the pages with some news about the Finnish shooting stars, the validity of the news didn’t exactly play a big role and without much ado, a rumour was made up about Lauri having an affair with the German pop starlet Jeanette Biedermann just because the two of them happened to have had some random chat at a party.

As a logical consequence, it would certainly be nice to reduce the guys’ presence in the teeny papers with the new publications, which however is not really practical since still a lot of young people belong to the fans of the Finnish quartet, who don’t have any problems with that either. Their fans were absolutely wonderful, as the guys keep being happy to confirm again and again, even if some southern European ladies armed with scissors wanting a strand of hair as a trophy have gone too far in their admiration for their idols as well as those who already have found their inglorious mentioning on the last album Dead Letters. “They follow me home, disturbing my sleep” as it says in Time to Burn, which, in spite of Lauri’s preference for allusive lyrics, is to be taken 100 percent literally. “There were a lot of people, who somehow found out where I was living”, the vocalist complains. “That is going to far then. But maybe I will finally have to make my dream come true and get a house boat where I can live and constantly move from one place to the other.”

What looks like the living of an overwhelming desire of freedom at first sight, reveals latent flight thoughts at a closer look; it’s not a coincidence that Hide from the Sun is built around the two key expressions of “hiding” and “escaping”, which find application in several variations in virtually every of the new tracks. “This was nothing I consciously planned, but when I was done with working on the lyrics and took another look at them, I noticed I had used the words ‘escape’ and ‘hide’ very often.” Lauri confirms. Probably my occasional need for some privacy comes through in this. At least I had exactly that feeling during the long tour, in which I would have loved to just have had five minutes for myself every now and then, similar to the song of Pantera, in which the guy yells about that he just wants five fucking minutes for himself.”

Not constantly being surrounded by people but being able to enjoy some silence every now and then is something that has reached a high value in Lauri’s now very hectic life. It is for a reason that Lauri’s vision of a perfect summer evening is to spend it in his weekend cottage, something basically every decent Finn owns, to row his boat on the lake and to listen to the birds twittering. Silence and seclusion however, is also what the 26-year old is looking for when it comes to collecting ideas for lyrics and new compositions. “I find it extremely difficult to write something together with someone. I only tried this once with Ville (Valo, HIM), which was quite funny because we both were wondering how to best go about this.” Lauri smilingly remembers the making of Bittersweet. “We met about 15 times, I think, until we could get started and needed a considerable quantum of liquid inspiration. Anyway it was a very positive experience because most of the time we talked about other things, such as books we read and exchanged among each other. I also came to realise, he had to go through some of the same situations as I did and when I was going through a suffering phase because of something he just went: Hey, I know that. In a few months, all’s going to be well again. It was extremely good to get some support from someone who knows exactly what he’s talking about.”

original article by Daniela Sickinger

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