Yes, Finland is a metal country.
It´s amazing because, I remember so many times
coming from the airport and getting a taxi
and then
you go into the taxi and it´s not playing
Justin Bieber or
I don´t know, Katy Perry. It´s playing Dio,
Scorpions.
When thrash metal was new in the St. Francisco
Bay Area
there was never anything like this. It was
a bit more
like too scattered, you know...
Kids! And I wasn´t seen that really in a
lot of other
places on the planet at that time. Because
thrash metal
hadn´t made a big, let´s say, come back
yet but
here it already seemed to have done that in
the late 90´s
early 2000. Something in Finland, something
happened.
The scenario of heavy metal in Finland that
was there
was like a child play I think. It was like
very, very...
guys wearing tight pants and long hair and
some, some
how do you say, scars and everything, tattoos
and everything
I did see some videos of David Lee Roth making
moves on the stage and it was like: Wau!
for me and I was like: I want to be like him.
Then we were friends with Marco and
in the same studio we made music and Marco
was
mixing there and learning about the mixing.
We got a little bit closer there.
And if you could name your first references
when
you think about Finnish heavy metal musicians
regardless of what they do but heavy metal
musicians
who would they be?
Who are the first people who come to your
mind?
Of course Marco Hietala and Tarot
Tarot is maybe the first heavy metal band
from Finland
that I remember hearing.
-That´s like Stone and...
- Yes, exactly.
- Well I say this: Tarot, that kind of bands
-Exactly. Yeah it started with Tarot, it´s
true.
-They had the first metal gigs in Finland.
Amorphis of course, Stratovarius...
So would you say that Stratovarius is one
of the bands that
was more significant to take Finland abroad?
Finnish bands abroad?
Yeah, I mean Stratovarius was the first one
to do Latin America for instance
Stratovarius sort of, was a very big part
of building
the whole infra-structure of taking
bands like Nightwish or Children of Bodom
or
bands that came after.
So in this way I would consider, maybe, you know,
Stratovarius and Amorphis, they would be like
very
significant as the trailblazers.
From very early on in the 90´s you had bands
like
Amorphis obviously, Waltari
and...
But then by the end of the 90´s that´s kind
of
when it all kind of exploded into a bigger
thing
with bands like Children of Bodom
and Nightwish
and this kind of like, Him also.
Even if it´s not really a metal band you
know,
their impact is still being huge.
It was acknowledged quite quickly also globaly
that
wait a minute, there´s this small country
that people
didn´t know that existed.
All of a sudden there are these bands like
all the big metal medias in Europe
start to review their albums and, you know,
give them
you know, 10 out of 10 and stuff like that
so,
so definitely something happened.
We had Him, we had Children of Bodom, Nightwish.
They were born, most of them, in the later
part
of the 90´s so yeah, things definitely started
happening.
We had all kinds of genres also
appearing, and you know, we didn´t, you know
we never had it in Finland before
At there I was at a different level I was
used to
But then of course the biggest thing happened
with "Once" and "Nemo" single which like
put us bigly forward.
That was already when I was part of it.
There was a lot of shared pride and joy in
that.
Rock music was a big thing at that time.
Even our Prime Minister did this with Lordi
in 2006 or something like that.
So that´s when, that´s when rock n´roll
died.
Buy these records, metal is awesome
Let´s see our Finnish Prime Minister doing...
"How should I do it, like this?"
"Yeah I´m doing like this, I´m a metal man!"
And they were making copy bands of Stratovarius,
Children of Bodom, Him
just trying to get in with the people, in
with the money.
So then, you have to take away all these.
You remove all the money, all the bars, all
the fame,
all the business and what you have left is
real people
making real music.
