Interview
Apocalyptica: Interview
with Paavo (& Perttu) in Berlin 29.10.2007
by
Frances Amelie Sin™
Paavo: Pretty fine, yeah, we had been over three weeks on the road now
and day by day it started to feel like a TOUR! Of course after three
weeks it starts tireing you, every day is similar but this tour has
been really well, first we started in the Baltics and played every
evening for around fourthousand people and in Finland we had sold out
shows and Sweden was really well as soon.
At the moment we have a different team with us, but they are a super
team, some guys are from Rammstein so this is a excellent crew!
Our new light designer is one of the best known finnisch light
designers, he did the Eurovision Songcontest lightshow for example and
a lot of stuff all around the world. We have now a special kind of
lamps on stage, show lamps, and they are really cool looking
and
very bright!! We are the first band in the world to get those lamps.
They look like a revolver!!
Hows the sale of Worlds Collide going?
Paavo: Well I don’t know the exact sales, it’s now
in
stores for four weeks and it’s something around a twohundred
copies sold. Not really massive, but here we are !! The sales are
better than the sales of the last album, so there is a developement!
Well your publicity in Germany gets stronger...
Paavo: Yes we have a good airplay at the moment, I heard that.
I heard some strange stories about your recording sessions...
you are naked in the studio... tell me about that.
Paavo: *grinned* It is more like fan-stuff you know... some
overreacting... but yes we played some soundchecks naked!!
Oh but there are a lot of foreign people running around you...
Paavo: Yes!!! You know we are Finns, we have to be naked on the saunas
... it’s no problem!! And you know these things are just to
amuse
ourselves, when you are on such a long tour you need these funny things
sometimes, doing something not typical for every day, some harmless
fun!!
I guess it’s not making any harm for anybody.
What was the reason for you to work with Til Lindemann
(Rammstein) and why did you chose the Dawid Bowie song Heroes?
Paavo: You know we were playing as a support for them (Rammstein), two
years ago, and basically the first steps to get closer to Rammstein was
when we did the song Seemann with Nina Hagen. The guys from Rammstein
really liked the song, well I think it is four or five years ago, and
they liked us as a support and we like their music as well, and our
producer Jakob Hellner was the producer of Rammstein too!
Jacob have done all the Rammstein Albums and he was the one who wantetd
to do this special song, Helden, with Til. It was like a dream come
true to him.
We were not really sure about this song in the beginning, if you listen
to the original version of that song it’s a kind of loose,
quite
happy... you know. But there is also a sad side in the lyrics,
something tragical!
It sounds great , Tils voice is so characteristic, (Paavo
imitating Tils voice :D...) it’s really wonderful.
After working with so many great singers, is there any
musician left you wanna work together with?
Paavo: Of course there are a lot of names, like Tool (US- progressiv
metal band), you know they asked us about three times to support them,
but we were so stupid there *laughs* ... no, no, not stupid but we
dind’t have time then and well with them we would like to do
something together! There are a lot of names ...
What about a very obvious name?? Tarja Turunen??
Paavo: Well, during the Nightwish career of Tarja we were
asked
by people so many times if we can do something with her, but I think it
is even a little bit too obvious!! We like Tarja , she’s a
very
sweet girl, I would say this is too much cream on the top of the cake!
Ok, so tell me why did you learn cello??? What was the reason?
Paavo: Well I started playing cello when I was six years old, very
early, and music has been always a part of my life, and rock music came
to me later, in school I think, when I was in 8th grade I had
a
rockband and played base and Perttu played guitar too and Eicca played
the drums...we have always loved the rockmusic besides the classical
music. But cello was our main instrument at university. I am a master
in music, I have the finally university degree in music, but ist very
bad...
We were all together at the University, but we knew each other before!
Do you have any serious side projects??
Paavo: No not at the moment, we don’t have the time for that.
But Eicca did this movie, it was released in Finland two weeks ago, a
drama and Eicca did the music for it. Very good thing, I guess it could
be released in Germany as well... There is a sountrack
available
too, I like it a lot!
Do you still teach at the music school??
Paavo: Well I had vacancy at one music school, but now I have two years
off!! There is someone else doing my job now!
It is always possible that something strange happens on stage,
tell me some stories about things out of order!!
Paavo: Well there are always a lot of funny things happening around us.
(He‘s calling Perttu very loud all over the place explaining
in
finnish what I wanna know ... Perttu joins us...)
Perttu: You know if you get little poo to your pants while performing,
thats funny...
Paavo: Poo is a very nice word for that..
*gg*
Perttu: And then the audience is wondering why this guy is laughing.
Yeah well they had a really bad pasta in Moscow and my
stomach went really crazy. Food poisoned!!
It is also funny when somethin unexpectable happens! Like broken
strings and broken cellos.... it happens so often... and it makes the
others laugh! If Paavo breaks a string I laugh cause i know he has a
really hard time then...
Paavo to Perttu: Remeber, in Hamburg, you get lost in the Park! You had
that new wireless system.
He ran out from the stage in the Staatspark in Hamburg...
Perttu: I jumped off the stage and ran into the audience and then I ran
away from ther into some laberynth and I couldn’t find the
way
back then. I lost orientation, and finally I came back on stage after a
couple of songs and I kicked into my cello...
This was NOT funny *g*
Say something about your Support bands!
Paavo: There is Stam1na, they are from the east side of Finland, and
they are friends for long time and started playing music long ago. They
are a really good band!! Really powerful and good playing. They are
singing in finnish, but that does not matter! They just released a new
album, also here in Germany, last week I think!! And it is such a good
band, it’s heavy stuff but a lot of tonality and they really
can
mosh!! Maybe that's the best headbanging band in the world.
What advice would you give such a young band like Sturm und Drang for
their future??
Paavo: Don’t drink too much !! *g* Well
it’s difficult to give an advice. But they are cute...
Thank you!!
© Frances Amelie Sin™
www.northern-rockmusic.com
Pictures of the show are in the gallery!