INTERVIEW: Waltari
BY Meisenkaiser
First the boring "history" - 2001 until now,
only two waltari-cds. Not much for one (or four)
creative person? What did you deal with in the
meantime. Sideprojects? Or did you only spend the
whole money, who earned before;-)? And what about
other projects of the band-members - yes, I know,
that "one guy" is playing in a well-known german
band. But what am I not knowing?
Hi! We had a break during 01-04 (the real break lasted only half year in
reality, fall -00). 2001 spring we released
a-therapy-kind-of rare punk vinyl ep
called Back To The Persepolis to loose the little-bit-tight-and-tired
atmosphere after the year 00 and 14 years without any break, did some small
touring in Finland 01 (unplugged tour and ep tour, maybe around 20 shows all
together) while demoing already songs for the
next Rare Species album (released March 04)
thinking about having that album out in 2002.
What then really happened that it took so long before the release? The
first point was changing the record company after a huge disappointment with
Edel (releasing our Radium Round album late -99). I went to Pop-Komm in
August 01 for getting us a new deal, and picked up a lot of good choices from
there. But, then another bad thing was coming up: our long term drummer Janne
decided to leave the ship spring 02 after 12
years. I was ready to bury the whole band without
having that familiar boy drumming there anymore,
but the other guys and our management convinced
me and Jariot to continue with a new drummer
saying: "hey, we still had the front of the
stage, three of us, remaining and original"
(after Sami joining the group again,with being
nowadays the Kreator guy as well, but still
loving to play with us also).
So, year 02 went pretty much with searching a new drummer, negotiating a deal
(which sometimes can also take a dead long time blaah...) and making some
more demoes for the "still coming next album" Rare Species. January 03 we
were then finally ready to go to the studio with a new deal, new drummer and
with a totally new bursting energy inside the band. We spent the whole year
03 more or less in the studio (we hadn´t used so much time ever in studio
before, that was fun and exiting!), for putting the single One Day out in
Finland during that summer followed by Life Without Love single in the same
fall in Germany. Finally Rare Species came out in Europe 04 and so we were
back in business. After that it´s been a full time job again with touring and
studio all the time (Blood Sample came out in Finland already Sept.05!) and
during the period 04-05 we also used a lot of
time putting up our first DVD which hasn´t come
out still in Germany unfortunately, but was a good
success in Finnish music dvd-charts summer 05.
During the break I also went for a totally new project called Wax- Real Time
Orchestra to keep on my stage fit, and have been gigging with the band since
then every time i have had some free time. We might also do some recordings
in close future. During the break I also had to make some money to keep
myself in bread coz the band was having a break, so i tried some soundtrack
music. With one friend in Finland Kimmo Kajasto we composed music to the
biggest selling entertaining product ever coming from Finland: computer game
Max Payne part 1 And 2 (having around 6 million copies sold worldwide so far,
we even got some prizes from States et.etc.). It was a nice different thing
to do, nothing dealing with rock music, but finally a real possibility to do
music only on computer screen (one of my musical dreams). Some theatre musici
composed too... and 2 solo singles. Anyway, we
never forgot Waltari during the break and did
meantime our best to get the ball run again
a.s.a.p. Waltari music kept us together. We still
had feeling that we have something to say to the
audience.
Try to describe the new CD in your own words?
And why is it interesting to mix up like hell
some many different styles/types of music?
After a pretty straight melodic gothic-industrial influenced album Rare
Species (with full of mainly simple
"rock-pop"-songs, pretty easy ones, in fact) we
had already an idea in our heads about doing next
a more complex album with all the typical land
marks of Waltaris unique crazyness, like
introducing our original crossover idea (from the
early 90´s!) to the new generation with an
updated sound. Anyway, it´s no retro album. It
sure has this original idea of us mixing all
kinds of different traditions of these
electronic-rock-metal styles in a pretty wild
way, but also it has many recent new incluences
in there, what we have took to our soup during
the last years too... a mix between older and
newer Waltari i would say. We call our music
nowadays "Mental Metal".
As i wrote you before, we still have our words to
say to rock business nowadays: We´re talking
about versatility, openmindness, freedom from
prejudice in music (as well as in life
generally!!), that´s what our band is about,
honesty! We want to show people, that it´s possible to be a musician with
a REAL rock credibility (this is not any boring art you know - it´s just
openminded rock music that´s all!), and still try to move on things in
music. Rock music nowadays is more or less just full of egotripping
retroiing entertainers with nothing more in mind than just a bunch of
clishees and a will to become rich in aweek, WE then STILL want to change the
world! We don´t want to stop thinking with
influencing people in a couraging way for a good
music experiences with a high quality. People
don´t feel music´s so important anymore, because
for most of the people it doesn´t really mean
anything anymore, just a nice background noise
coming from your radio speaker or from your
stereos while cleaning at home. No no, music is
much more, Real
rock music is much more, an endless adventure, like life itself should
be. Rock music can still be IMPORTANT for people, opening many new doors
in life, not just a safe entertainment 100 times heard ( and normally made
even in a more exciting way before ). Don´t get me wrong, the world is full
of great innovative music nowadays with lots of big talents (maybe even more
than before! ), it´s just more attitude thing, problem amongst the musicians,
maybe due to the illusion of peoples music tastes and listening habits
what music industry is offering today to the poor
young musicians when first time sending their
demoes to different labels. Waltari has proved
that all wrong. We have found very important the
need to get changed every now and then, you know,
to keep it more interesting also for the band
members.
Toast of course to AC/DC or Slayer and these kind of bands for keeping it
all the same 30 years without changing a bit... its very entertainting and
safe always to the listeners why not, but rock music generally is
getting old and tamed, and it needs a new direction to keep its wild
side living. For us good rock music is an endless
mind blowing adventure with each new album! For
us the rock revolution hasn´t died yet... it´s
been just sleeping... it´ll be always on in us as
long as we just dare to keep it on... as long as
we dare to search for more and more... when your
mind will stop moving you will die. And, i´m sure
that amongst metal/crossover people there are
also many ones who think exactly like i do.
AND, secondly, what is pretty important as well, we want to show people
that it´s also possible to earn living from THIS kind of musical
attitude, we don´t only have to learn to roll our
asses or to play "the same song" for the rest of
our lives to be able to live from own music!
A lot of patience and ambition will be needed, but if you REALLY want
you are able to create a long lasting professional career, like we have
had now god dammit 15 years.
What’s the meaning of "Blood Sample”?
.
Blood Sample is our first kind of concept album (if you don´t
count Yeah! Yeah! Die! Die! symphony), describing the mental state of
different corners of today´s Europe... kind of taking a blood sample of the
mental situation here. There have been lately lots of discussion (at
least in media) about pros and cons of the European union, is it really a
real thing or just a fake union between financial leaders. We,
personally, been feeling during the whole career of Waltari (15
years since the first album!), especially since ´91 when we first time
moved to Berlin to get ourselves the first international record deal, as
cosmopolitans travelling annually around Europe with playing to the
Europeans, enjoying and having fun with the Europeans, as an enormous
playground for our career, you know, the whole area has been very
precious to us always. On the CD there are songs about different corners of
Europe... and due to the idea of having stylewise a very versatile album, this
lyrical concept, i think, suits to this musical idea.
Tell me something about your lyrics and give
me some examples? I know, that some of the Songs
symbolize Countrys like Germany (Autobahn!),
Julia (England of course) and so on. But don´t
you think, it´s a little bit cliché, if you
reduce a land on his streets (by the way
constructed from the nazi-regime, what you do
know of course). isn´t it like: The finnish men
are pale and don´t talk, the French only eat
baguette and the italiens only make pizza and
drink wine?
Of course it is a cliche, but believe me or not, many times when you travel,
you, in fact, want to go to a country partly to see and feel all these
original clichees to reflect them to your own life or mentality of your
country. In that way it makes everything more understandable and easier to
get into the "mood" of local people i think...
Well, Helsinki-song, for example, of course is
about our home city, it is also very cliche kind
of story of a
general Finnish mentality, BUT turned it into a todays rock musicians mind. It
tells about a guy who is always longing for something, a very typical, even
a bit in a romantic way, state of depression inside Finns minds. Sitting in a
table with a pint as a friend, longing for his girlfriend who left, longing
for his musician mates travelling far in Europe at the moment, always longing
for... and feeling frail. Believe me, this is still a very stereotype feeling
inside a Finnish musicians heart.
Something about your image? In former times
you were a blue-painted-crazy-man. And now?
Now I´m crazy clown-like carrot top freak from Helsinki preaching the
people about openmindness in life!
Back to music: What about producing of the CD
Something interesting/ funny happened in the studio? br>
This time we decided to bring both the producer and the studio to Nosturi,
the rehearsal place of many Finnish bands (HIM,
Rasmus, 69 Eyes, etc.etc.) as well as ours. We
recorded there with our new producer Sami
Koivisto with his studio kit, so we had as much
time as needed (oh of course with
along the other bands rehearsing there he... always when the place was empty
we sneaked in to record and record and record). We recorded during the whole
spring of last year, little by little the songs
got their identities, it was easy to record there
because that was the place where we´ve also
rehearsed the
songs, very familiar place to work in, with all the amplifiers and the other
electric dust there. In fact we have used almost always other location than a
normal studio for recordings, we don´t really like the atmosfear of a cold
studio environment. To record somewhere which is nice surrounding or
otherwise familiar place give us much more better mood. I don´t really seeany
glamour in recording in a clean studio environment, to me its more like
working in the office or something. Now we had situations like: after
having lunch at home i could think. "hmm, now i could go and do vocal parts
to this or that song" and so on... very relaxing way of making music.
What about your chances in germany? I think
in soumi you sold / will sell one or two cds;-)
To be honest, the last time it was a bit quiet
around WALTARI - your biggest efforts I remember
back in the 90s. br>
You know, we sure have a very strong fan base everywhere in the world, and we
do sell still ok in Finland. But, of course, with bands who have been around
for such a while the biggest hype always calms a bit during the years. Today,
at least in Finland (and i think in Central Europe too) we enjoy huge
respect not only for making still very high quality albums but also being one
of the first Finnish bands to hit the charts in Europe already early 90´s and
still being around and feeling well. It´s sometimes even embarrasing to mea
bit, because i´m just thinking myself as a worker whose profession is music,
that´s all.
What about touring Europe?
We are now preparing the European tour for fall. We tend to do at least one
tour per year in Europe.
Do you play also some festivals?
We have now 5 festival confirmed for this summer in Europe (there might be
some more coming), a bit easier summer to us this time. But, of course,
festivals are the best! Roskilde sure is one of the best.
Helsinki! Some hints from your local scene?
Lost and Found.
Skandinavia and "your" country especially:
what means this for you? Describe your
native country.
Manic depressive people (due to the dramatic
changes of the weather), very happy summer time,
very depressive winter (cross over you know ha
ha), very beautiful
landscape any time of the year, best general quality with rock bands after
USA/UK.. yes, sports is very famous too! Clean streets and houses, lot of beer
drinking inside the apartments... beer beer beer.
Tell me something about your private life! The Beatles? What else?
I go to gym 3 times a week, i had a big knee
operation during the break 5 years ago, i have to
keep it fit with exercise... it might sound
boring but i´ve became a bit addicted to that,
it´s great break for the BIG HUSTLE going on all
the time. Otherwise i party and smoke pot. Jari
acts in a children´s theatre sometimes, he´s
getting good at that, otherwise he also parties
and smokes pot. Sami is always away, if he´s not
playing with us. Otherwise he parties and
occasionally smokes pot. Ville lives in Lahti,
100 kilometer from Helsinki. We citizens of the
capital don´t appreciate Lahti people very much
usually. But he plays drums every day with
somebody somewhere and also has learned to smoke
a bit with us. And Janne, the keyboardist, smokes
in his studio. A lot.
Plans for the future? Some new soundtracks
for which PC-Games? Ballet, Opera, something like
this?
Just plans for next ten years... meanwhile our next cd will happen next year
2007. We will go to a studio by the seaside in August (that´s the plan at the moment).
Bis später! KKK from WWW
