Thoughts about flight [Germany]

Sometimes one could really become desperate. After working like a mad hatter for months on a new album, throwing all of one’s heart into the compositions and the lyrics, and when one finally presents the finished creation to a broader public in form of some exclusive journalists also with a slightly queasy feeling how the resonance will be, the only thing these media people seem to be interested in is the make of the sun glasses one has still in his hair by chance.

Lauri Ylönen, singer and frontman of the Finnish quartet The Rasmus was hit by exactly this fate during his last promotion tour which he was doing in entire Europe due to the upcoming release of the momentary long player Hide From The Sun. Such moments unfortunately belong to daily business for the Finn, for at least since The Rasmus took the step to international superstars with the No.1 Hit In The Shadows and the album Dead Letters over night, so to say, the teenie magazines dived in on the four musicians, because it came out very quickly that the sales figures went up nicely, especially when the admittedly rather cute Lauri who was therefore nearly perfect as a projection for girls little innocent dreams was placed on the front cover.
In order to fill the pages of their magazines week for week, these would-be poets didn’t even wince to spread completely made-up stories about the vocalist with the always a bit mysterious-looking green eyes and even imputed him of having an affair with the German pop-starlet Jeanette Biedermann just because they had exchanged a few words casually on a party. Nobody took any notice of the fact that Lauri and his band colleagues would have preferred to talk about their music by far than about the exact date of their first kiss. That is why the quartet from Helsinki has decided early before the release of Hide From The Sun to reduce the run of teenie magazines as far as possible. But the band won’t let anything be said against their partially quite young fans, they are really great, as drummer Aki Hakala insists. He tells, visibly affected, of the very true fans that even take it upon themselves for their idols to follow them nearly along the whole tour. Only in southern Europe the adoration for him and the rest of the troop assumed rather bizarre shape, as some hysteric young girls had made up their minds to cut off a strand of their hair as souvenir; that definitely went too far.
Another group of people that crossed the borderlines were also those who followed frontman Lauri up to his front door and didn’t even leave him alone in his own house. “There were a lot of people who had somehow found out where I live”, the 26-year old tells us. “But my home is sacred to me. Maybe I will have to make my dream come true and buy myself a houseboat with which I can move from place to place then. That would be great.”
This does sound a little bit like a constant flight, and it’s no coincidence that the new album contains the two keywords “hide” and “escape” in nearly each of the very personal lyrics which are solely penned by Lauri. “That wasn’t something I’d intended, but when I had finished the lyrics I noticed that I had used these two ideas very often indeed”, the Scandinavian admits. “Maybe that reflects my incidental longing for a bit of privacy, during the long tour I quite often had the feeling that I would just like to have my peace for just five minutes, like in the Pantera song where this guy is really annoyed and says he just bloody well needs five shitty minutes for himself.”
If one is, like The Rasmus, on the road for months in a full tour bus, such wishes for peace are only hard to be fulfilled. Nevertheless Lauri prefers the tight night liner against any roomy and beautifully designed hotel room, for he can at least make his little bunk personal and cosy to a certain degree by putting his books from home and a few of his favourite belongings in there. Above all that the bus with its intimate surroundings provides one of the few things in tour life that always stay the same and helps to cope with being away from home for so long at least a little bit, if from time to time an attack of homesickness should arise. “And on top of that our live crew consists of old friends of ours that work for us and travel around with us”, Lauri adds. “All in all that makes twelve guys in the bus, and it feels as if a piece of Finland was always with us on tour.”
His friends mean a lot anyway to this often so quiet young man who seems to be so lost in thought every so often. He lovingly calls them his “little angels” and keeps up contact to them regularly as far as his innumerable appointments and duties allow this. Only a few years ago that looked completely different though. The Rasmus had just published their first two albums and were neither prepared for the sudden success nor the hype around themselves and with their less than 20 years of age understandably were absolutely not mature enough to be able to cope with the changed situation. “We behaved like superstars, like real assholes”, Lauri admits looking back. “With that behaviour we lost many good friends of course. And when our third disc was more or less a flop and the structure around us was breaking apart – our drummer then left the group, the record deal stood open-, I changed my mind and went back to my friends, but I had to realise I didn’t have friends anymore. I had rid myself of them by my own behaviour, and that shook me up and made it clear to me what is really important in life.”
The Rasmus in 2005 have become more grown-up, riper and more thoughtful. They have learned long ago to see their sensational success matter-of-factly and to estimate the fast pace and superficiality that has come up more and more also in the music market nowadays properly and instead keep focused on the essential things. This is visible in their lyrics and their music which on Hide From The Sun is not only quite an edge harder, but also darker and in spite of all the so-called “commerciality”, the chart rankings and all the young fans show clearly that The Rasmus are endlessly much more than that teenie band many small-minded contemporary wants to see in them.

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