Beat a Go Go

Eicca Toppinen is a classically-educated cellist and composer with the hidden passion of playing drums. Eicca's music is like his voice. Sometimes when he is speaking it reminds me of the thundering on the horizon before a summer storm on the sea... He arranged all Metallica, Sepultura, Faith No More, Pantera and classic Edvard Grieg covers for Apocalyptica. Eicca started to compose original stuff for Apocalyptica on their second album, Inquisition Symphony, with "Harmageddon", "M.B.", and "Toreador I". His opus is expanding with every new Apocalyptica album -- from "Path", "Caamos", "Romances", "Pray", "Faraway" and "Ruska" to "Toreador II", "Somewhere Around Nothing" and "Deathzone", a dark Apocalyptica elegy. My impression of him from his music is that he acts like a very strong and powerful person on one side, but on the other side, he is indescribably gentle and emotional. He is very proud but also with strong desire as evidenced in "Epilogue(Relief)". He composed this song for a theatre performance of the last chapter of F. Dostoevski's Crime and Punishment. He possesses the ability to put delicate attention on every single tone and every person connected with the band, in one way or another. He is like a conductor in the orchestra, the "father archetype". He is a real gentleman by nature --one of the lords in today's rock and metal community.

Perttu Kivilaakso came to the band starting with the album Cult. He is the one who composed for Apocalyptica one of the most beautiful and infinitely sad songs, "Conclusion". Next to this song should be written "Attention: don't listen to this song if you are sad, because after listening you may cry." Actually, tears can be relief sometimes... He also composed another emotional tornado called "Farewell". "Resurrection" is one of the songs which brings out this special sound of Apocalyptica. "Fatal Error", speedy stuff on their self-titled album, dropped with excellent energy to "Betrayal/Forgiveness", a song with an unusual interesting structure which breaks to something completely different at the end -- of course, again, with absolute beauty. I would like to mention here also "Pandemonium" which matches so incredibly with Eicca's "Toreador II", which follows "Pandemonium" on the Reflections album. Because of this unusual way of playing cello, the expression is like swift bright rumbling shadows. A very fast running-rumbling cello melody, it shows up again under the trumpet in "Toreador II", but in a different way.

Paavo Lötjönen is a man without whom Apocalyptica would never sound as it does. He was with the band from the beginning In the bootleg of Plays Metallica by Four Cellos. We can read that he has at home a Gulbrand Enger cello, "Sugar Kane", anno. 1882... I guess this cello is probably sleeping as Sleeping Beauty, because her prince is away with another Chinese cello nearly all the time... The expression of his playing is like when you are really high up in the mountains where the snow is everywhere and it is really bright and then in the next moment, you drop into a dark canyon, with everything that might have happened between. He has the ability to follow everything and he possesses the ability to describe all details with an incredible gift. He is unique in some totally special way. As a cello teacher he is delivering his knowledge to the next generation of cellists.

Antero Manninen is hidden always behind his sunglasses. When I am watching him on the stage in his tidy evening suit, he reminds me that Apocalyptica comes from the world of classically-trained cellists. Only with their perfect skills of playing cellos, could their music sound so remarkable-wonderful-strange. Observing Antero during a concert is pure pleasure, seeing what technique he possesses in its entirety. He almost never moves from his chair during the concert. He is like the North Star, giving a course to the rest of the band and a space for creation. He was in the band at the beginning, as one of the original members, together with Eicca, Paavo and Max Lilja. He left the band after the Inquisition Symphony album. Antero is playing in a symphony orchestra now and he is a temporary band member of Apocalyptica.

Mikko Siren is a gorgeous drummer. If you don't see him playing and you can only hear the drums you would never know what is really happening with the drums - what is really going on? Is there one or two persons, or a machine playing the drums? Mikko with his gothic makeup remainds me a bit of goth-rock icon Alice Cooper - but with blonde hair. With the drums, the sound of Apocalyptica has been changed.

These divine cellists and their glorious drummer are in love with Music. They serve the Music Muse with all possible nobility and devotion -- like knights of the courtly age, with cellos instead of swords.

INTERVIEW WITH PERTTU KIVILAAKSO

Perttu Kivilaakso

(photo: Taisija P. Štupar)

Destiny was kind to me and brought Perttu on my way in Vienna last April. We met after the band's concert and spoke briefly. A few months later, I had a chance to interview him in Graz, Austria, and came to know him better. He is one of the most witty, amusing and at the same time wise people I have ever met in my life. He is very empathetic, emotional and charming. My suspicion is that when Perttu was born, fairies came around his cradle, looked at him and said: "This child will become an artist." And it really happened.

In Graz, I had an appointment to meet Perttu in the Orpheum for the interview. He was waiting for me in his dressing room, in the meantime painting the nails on his left hand in black. All over the sofas were his leather pants and belt with rivets, a towel, and the stuff he needs to border his eyes in black for the show. He somehow made some space for me. When I sat down, I saw on the floor right next to me, his boots --just the same kind of boots as I was wearing this rainy day. I was thinking, this is a good sign. Finally I looked at him better. His long dark hair with lighter stripes in it was ruffled. He threw it back and more on one side and smiled at me. He smiles in this very special way ­ not only with his mouth but also with his eyes. He has some golden or sun rays in the eyes, or maybe just his soul is glittering at the back. Very beautiful. I had a feeling that two »old souls« were having a meeting in the cellar of an old theatre, after a few hundred years, just to check once again, all the most important subjects in life ­ the beauty of Nature, Music and Love...

You have been playing many times in Slovenia. How do you like the country and the metal festival last year?

Last year we were playing at Metalcamp. I remember it was the first time they organized this festival. It is very nice to be at the beginning to set it up, like a line between the shows, today and yesterday. It is really great to see the newest festivals becoming powerful and the audience is finding them as well. So I am sure we shall come to Metalcamp again, maybe even already next year. Was really nice there. Unluckily it was raining like in hell, but it looked like it wasn't bothering anybody, because there was so good mood... it was really funny, the river was coming up and there were all this people stand-swimming...

Well, I don't know, but I think that stormy weather is just for your music...

We are always laughing about how wherever we go, we always bring rain with us. In Finland is always beautiful weather when we are away from home and when we come back at home is always ten degrees or it is raining, and when we again go on tour, weather in Finland is beautiful again... Maybe we have bad karma or whatever... (laughing)

I think it is just a kind of energy you have. A year before you were playing on Rock Otocec festival...

Yes.

And the show started really late at night, actually around two o'clock in the morning, because you had problems with electricity -- how to supply cellos with loudspeakers. When you came to the stage you weren't nervous or anything. The morning fog came from the fields and river with the first tones from cello. It was a mystical sight... I saw you many times.

Yes, Slovenia is really nice country for us always, we shall come back with pleasure all the time... It is really beautiful to play at places like Metalcamp, must be beautiful walking there in the fields, mountains, by the river and small city.

Yes, after the storm all the clouds and tops of the mountains becoming red.

Yes.

What is the difference between playing in Europe and States? This was your first tour there.

Ja, in March [2005] we were first time there. Basically playing is never really different, because music for us is every evening somehow a new experience. Even if the songs are the same, we really enjoy in playing, hopefully this can be seen as well. So, the music is as it is... Of course the audience is different in some places. We are very, very happy that also in US the response was really encouraging actually. Now we are going again there in September [2005], I guess. Of course, the first tour was in little -- very little places for a few hundred people, but still, in some way you have to begin. Yes, audience in States and Europe is not so different, but in Mexico it is different -- comparing with another world -- somehow more fanatic, there were screaming girls running after us everywhere... (both laughing) We had the feeling that we are a boy's band! I don't know it is from their mentality or something...

Maybe they just don't have so many blonde Finnish gods. (laughing)

Ja... (laughing)

Because you are really acting like you came from some Finnish legend. I saw you in the audience in Rock Otocec and you were just as you are, and I got this feeling...

Yes, you know, we are really many times even surprised when some people treated us as rock stars, because we really don't feel like this. The mission we are doing, this is really good ­confession, we love to play and it is really nice to share this feeling with the audience. To feel this is really great, to see that there are also people which really like our work... But there is still this queer behavior... maybe on the stage we are a little bit more like this, but on the other way we are never living like this so much -- this rock 'n' roll glamour or whatever it can be. Basically that is because we were never planning to be... Our dream when we were ten years old was not to become rock stars one day, but everything just happened. Besides our classical education, maybe we were just thinking that music is music and we are just people who do it and there is nothing really amazing about it. Now we are five on the stage, four cellos and drums. We need audience as much as they need us. It is always like this. The good show is built up with the audience. Because we are an instrumental group, we also feel that the audience is our vocalist. It is many times like that. There was always fun when they were singing with us Metallica's songs Now we have our own material, there are not so many vocal songs, but it is really nice to see that people know the lyrics as well and sing with us as well. I think that an effect in an Apocalyptica show is when it is really like a beautiful evening, it is really making some fun and love with the audience. This is one of the reasons why so many people like us - you know, that they feel we are together with them. This is very important for us. We try to be honest...

Whose idea was the name Apocalyptica?

At the beginning we hadn't a name.The group started in 1992 with a few students from the very famous Sibelius Academy. From 1992-1995 we played only a few shows a year. We were playing more for friends. During that time we started to call ourselves Cello House Band, because there must be something written in the paper. Then in 1995 we were playing one show in a rock club. It was cover evening. We were there playing some Metallica songs. It was funny that HIM had their first show also in that evening and they were playing songs of Type O Negative. There came a guy from a Netherlands record label and he liked that stuff and suggested to make a record out of it. And then I think it was his idea, the name. It is connected with Apocalyptica -- it took life from Metallica. We are very grateful to Metallica. We always loved their music so much that we started to play it with cellos. Now it is really funny and amazing to see what this has become. From a cover band, we were growing up to be our own band. We still play of course -- and we like to -- some Metallica songs in the live shows. But we also composed our own songs and records. At the moment it is the most interesting for us to develop our own style and create something totally new. I think it is a really nice combination. We have already five albums. We have enough good songs that our show can be an interesting combination of different songs and styles. I was away from the group for this first two albums. I was finishing my studies. I was really young at that time -- sixteen or something...

So, you finished Academy and graduated.

Yes, I made cello diploma. I was back to the band in 1999 for the Cult album. We were lucky two years ago -- two and a half years ago we found Mikko the drummer -- very lucky because he is really amazing drummer. He has jazz background. He was playing in one very famous Finnish group. He never played any heavy music before. He found very interesting style of playing drums because of this jazz thing. He is not playing typical heavy drumming. And typical heavy drumming is many times even boring, because everybody is playing quite the same. So, I think Mikko's drumming fits us because we are not typical heavy metal... (laughing) actually quite pop... I think we are nice combination.

You will also play in jazz festival in Switzerland.

Ja, Montreux next week.

It is interesting that they invited you. (total laughing both)

You know, it is funny to see that somehow this music works everywhere, it doesn't matter if it's a jazz festival or even classic festival or heavy gothic, because our music is so very varied that almost everybody can find something interesting out of it. Fun of one hilarious experience was in Estonia. We were invited to play at a festival and we didn't have a clue about what kind of festival it was. When we went to the stage, the people were gathering, and in the front road there was a really old man with a walking stick and someone was there with a baby, you know in a baby carriage. Audience was soooo queer-looking that they may have come there to listen to some folk music. (trying very hard not to laugh) Then we said, "Oh my God, now we start with 'Master Of Puppets', what the hell... old papa will get a heart attack, how will we play a show?" But at the end of the show his walking sticks were up in the air, everybody was freaking out! It is really amazing how this music is working out. Everywhere.

We were laughing and then the manager entered into the dressing room. He asked Perttu how he was feeling and he told me that I have two questions left, because 30 minutes had passed. Perttu explained to me that they were in the middle of sound check, which was very late that day.

I would like to ask you about your songs and your composing, Eicca and you are the main composers for Apocalyptica.

Actually I began doing music when I was really young, when I began listening to rock music. I was singing melody with guitar. We had some funny projects in the school and our teachers hated it. There was a parents' evening and we started to play "Smoke On The Water" [starts to sing with his perfect tone] and then we went to screaming DARK, DICK, FUCK!! [in punk manner] We wanted to shock people. [laughter] So, I was dreaming to make my own music for a long time already. Then of course with Apocalyptica it was possible to make songs for cello group. Now I have an interesting project, all the time between the tours I am working on my solo album.

Oh, can you?

Ja, I am trying to... Last year I was in my summer cottage five weeks to prepare for Apocalyptica album, writing songs for that and I find out as well, that I really wrote a lot of this kind of music which is not cello music, more maybe trash metal, even black metal and power metal. It was an experience for me. Finally I had sixteen new songs. It was trying to make something completely different -- totally away from Apocalyptica. There is cello somehow in some songs and maybe I will sing and play guitar -- a new chance.

I see you are also playing guitar.

Ja, I was playing guitar like as a hobby, not really concentrating but I always l have loved it. I love to play it always and naturally experimenting. Hopefully it will be a good album. My opinion is to make threeplex album. Two rock albums and one very moody almost classical melancholic depressive album, so...

Oh, depressive...

Ja, I am very depressive person... ja , I like dark music...

You know, this song "Betrayal/Forgiveness" from your last album, I really like the song, because the music is really connected with the title - I don't know, but it is all the time like fighting with something and at the end this beautiful melody comes up.

Yes, "Betrayal/Forgiveness", the title was existing for a long time. For many years I knew I wanted to do a song called like this, because of course everybody has these kinds of emotions, this feeling. Things during our lives... Actually then I wrote this lyric for "Betrayal"... I don't know (laughing)... Anyhow I felt this song needs something to say and this is the reason why we put the lyric to the bootleg. That encouraged me to start writing lyrics for my solo stuff. It is really funny to begin to write texts as well.

So, you are a poet.

No, definitely not a poet, but... something... (laughing)

At this point we broke off the interview so that Perttu could go to the soundcheck. I went with him. When I came back, there was not only Perttu, but also his cello in the corner, next to me and the bow on the sofa under him. I had a feeling like a third person was in the room.

Can you describe this natural phenomenon kaamos? I have never been in Finland and it sounds so special for me.

Kaamos... It is not actually in the area where we are living, in the south -- it is more in the North Atlantic area, but it is really beautiful. It falls somewhere in September. Before leaves fall from the trees, everything turns in yellow and red. It is a really beautiful time. And this is first and then comes the real dark when the sun doesn't come out at all for a few months. I don't know -- (laughing) I love this period (laughing)... I am a little bit like a "dark side of the sun"... Many people feel this period as depressive. Of course many people are happy when the sun is shining... In really northern part of Atlantic in winter time, before snow falls -- snow brings some light, it is real dark, it is amazing dark, so dark that you can see nothing ... incredible (laughing).

It is interesting to ask about this - what is the story about burning the cello?

It is a new experience -- I had never burned a cello before (laughing). We wanted to have some nice pictures for Reflections and I had a broken cello that I smashed in one concert. It was in such bad condition that there was no reason to repair it. So we only embellished it quickly to be in some shape. Then we went with it to a field, where we took other pictures for the album as well. We just put it to the ground, stick hold it there... we were throwing gasoline over it. It felt so cool to throw the match on it. But it burned unbelievably quickly. You know, a cello is such thin wood. It took fifteen seconds for the whole cello to go. The photographer had to be really fast with it, because it just disappeared -- nothing was left (laughing).

And what is with this blue cello -- I saw it in Vienna.

Mmm, the blue cello. We have some technical support from VoDaPhone in Germany. The main color of this cell operator is blue. So, we made a contract with them to play some songs with a blue cello. So, they have some advertising there. Now it works like our second instrument, if something goes wrong we can use it. I had a terrible experience on Rock On Ring festival this year -- my cello was like exploded because of some technical stuff -- it made a horrible noise, so, I couldn't use this cello at the moment. So, I took the blue one but the microphone cable of that was also broken. So, I was really angry, that two cellos were broken in one show (laughing) and such an important festival as Rock On Ring is... You know sometimes these things are happening.

And you have another cello at home.

Ja.

This one you are playing when you are with orchestra.

Ja, this one is quite old and really good. It is not the most expensive because nobody knows the maker, so it is a nameless cello, but it has a really beautiful sound, I like it. I have had this cello maybe fifteen years now. It was made at the beginning of the 1800s-- two hundred years ago.

Can you tell me some more about composing?

You know, composing is very funny in a sort of way, at least for me. I can't decide that now I will make a song. You know, if we decide we need a fast song -- where to begin? For me it is more that these ideas come to me from -- wherever. For example, during a walk. And after the walk, I try to remember how it went (laughing). But, it's composing -- like melodies, riffs and this kind of thing are circulating all the time in my head. And it is actually even annoying that always when you go to sleep you hear "some voices" (laughing). It never lets go. Composing is more for me to just let it happen somehow... I think about my life's biggest idols, some classical composers -- Giuseppe Verdi, Richard Wagner, Gustav Mahler in his symphonies. They said some beautiful phrases that I try to follow in my life. Giuseppe Verdi said that the melody is -- that you have a note and the note has only one option to go to the next... if it is a perfect melody it can't go anywhere else than to the next perfect note and there is one way, only one perfect note which can follow. So, it is quite natural, very natural way how they go, how they follow... And Mahler said that the composer's duty is not to create something -- notes, but you already have everything in front of you and you just have to take the unnecessary things off. It is like making a sculpture. You have a huge piece of stone and you just take the unnecessary things off and you have a beautiful sculpture. Sometimes composing feels like your head is full of a million ideas, but you have to select there just what you need for this one song. So, it is selecting, basically. The difficulty in composing rock music is that many times it is the simple songs that approach the listeners better. For me it is difficult to do these easy songs. Now that I have done this solo stuff, I was really free to do whatever. There are almost progressive things and long songs from 8 to 10 minutes with several different parts. There are classical parts like an orchestra and than really black metal and really weird parts... it is interesting to try to find out something strange. I like strange things. We were talking before about "Betrayal/Forgiveness" -- it is a long song, but it totally changes in the middle. In live we play "Betrayal", but not the "Forgiveness" part because we feel like (drops voice to low) "we have nothing to forgive -- we give no mercy and don't beg for mercy" (laughing). So, in the live situation it is more strong without its ending, even though it is beautiful and many people like it -- they are missing it. But , ja (laughing) we like to be nasty...

So, you like opera also.

Yes, I love it. I have grown up among opera, because my father is also cellist. He played in Finland at a very great festival in Savonlinna. There is a very old castle (1475). The festival is very legendary -- it has existed for a hundred years already. So, my father was playing there. He is not playing any more, but played that time when I was for the first time there, already in my mother's stomach. Many years after, since I was eighteen, we were there once in the year on this festival and l was listening to a lot of opera. My will to play cello or some instrument came also from that. I asked -- I don't remember, but my mother many times laughed about it, that when I was four years old, I asked, "What do I have to do that I will also come on stage?" I watched the singers there -- they were so cool, with their words and singing about love and dying and... Already I wanted to go on a stage also, but it was so early to start this things. The cello, I think, of all instruments is the closest to the human voice. And of course also because of my father -- it was a really natural choice for me to follow in his footsteps. Then I stayed with the cello. I also played piano for seven years, but then I stopped, because cello was definitely number one, I had no time. I still use piano a lot with composing. It is really easy to play chords with one hand and with the other the melody. Actually composing can be a lot like chamber music alone. I also made a lot of songs with guitar and singing melody up there. What I really love -- what makes me the most passionate -- is to make songs at the moment, then I can give something from my soul... I feel like that... and actually I am doing nothing else, either I am being on tour or working at home. I have my home studio so, it is easy to record it.

You have your own studio at home, but do you need a special studio to record Apocalyptica?

We have good enough equipment for the band. So we did our last records at our homes. Except the drums we recorded in Berlin. The equipment you can nowadays buy for home is already quite good and not even so expensive, so it is possible to record good-sounding stuff at home. But the mixing equipment costs so much if you want something good. So, this kind of thing must be done somewhere else. Last album we mixed in Sweden with the really great mixer Stefan Glaumann. He has done for example Rammstein's last two records and of course Rammstein's records' sound is the world's best. He is a really great guy. One of the biggest reasons why our new album sounds pretty powerful is that he mixed it. Yes, it is our strongest album.

Every new album of Apocalyptica is different, like one new step ahead. I liked the moment when you started playing your own music, it was actually the moment I was waiting for from the beginning. I liked the first album Plays Metallica By Four Cellos, but then all this beautiful music coming up...

You know what I still want to say about covering and composing -- my own songs almost always have certain emotions behind there and you have a feeling why you composed the song and that is why they feel like your own babies... it is really... ja, own babies is a good way to describe it. On the other side the covers are really fun to play, but there should be some great idea behind it. We are really openminded still to make some new covers, but we should find that kind of songs which really can bring something new in that. One really good thing we did was "Seemann" with Nina Hagen. It was really great -- wonderful song, wonderful vocalist, wonderful band. For this song we could bring our strange sound and I think it really came out well. We may do similar kind of things in the future. What we were talking about one day was that we should do more Metallica stuff, because they are still cool tracks. Even new albums -- something special is there. We want to play "Dayers Eve" and would be really cool to play "Blackened". Now we play "Seek And Destroy" because it is such hilarious fun. I love that song, so simple and haziness, really cool groove -- people really love it, everywhere. Yes, of course great songs, they are working. Without Metallica we would never have existed, so of course they are really the main reason... why we have to be away from home all the time... (laughing) Grrrrrr.

Did anybody from Metallica come to any of your concerts in States?

Yes, actually in San Francisco, Lars Ulrich was there on our last tour. We invited them all, but he was the only one who was in the town at that time. Ja, he was amazed by Mikko. After the concert he came to the back stage. He said to Mikko, "What the hell you are doing, oh my God..." (laughing) He is a really cool guy! Then we had a party.

To be honest, I prefer Apocalyptica without vocal, because of this primal energy from cellos, as you said before cello is the most similar to human voice. But it is nice and unusual to hear this male duet Ville Valo-Lauri Ylonen in "Bittersweet"... it sounds very sexy to me.

Ja.

And also the lyric is great. Do you think that love is really bittersweet?

I think that everybody is bittersweet, that every human person has this character. Bittersweet is maybe the nicer way to say it. I think it was really nice cooperation, we love these guys and we have know each other and our bands for ten years. Finland is a small country with only five million people, but nowadays there are many great bands which are doing pretty good abroad and have success in the world. It was really nice to combine HIM, Rasmus and Apocalyptica and make something special together. I love the song. In our shows we play the song instrumental and our audience is the vocalist.

Do you think that in human life is important to find somebody to be a perfect couple, or is more important to work on yourself to grow as a person?

Both are very important. I think the other person, to be a perfect couple, the perfect person is somebody who completes you. But, nobody can live life on behalf of you, so a person must be completed already, before somebody can finish it. I don't know, you have to be full and the other person is making it sweet... (laughing) I am really bad in human relations and these kind of things never succeeded very well... (laughing)

I think that we are all bad... I am just asking, because it is interesting to talk about all these love songs in rock music -- it is like international language, you know, rock is a kind of culture which is everywhere on the world. Doesn't matter who you are or where you are from. Everywhere you can meet the same kind of people.

Yes, people's emotions are the same, human needs are the same, it doesn't matter from where you are. It is really a pity that many times people don't understand it. They make the separations of different races and things are still the same. Why do you have to fight if you can also love, I don't understand, because love is such a great thing, everybody should try to reach it. Like they already said so well, "Make love not war." I think it is a cool sentence. Everybody can be loved... And the women are so beautiful all over the world, doesn't matter what color or what language they speak.

You know this rock culture is so connected with freedom, to be what you are, walking on the edge, etc. Apocalyptica doesn't have much songs with the lyric, but this rock ethic is absolutely in your music, this is interesting.

Mmmmmm, our instrumental songs... we tried to find, for the titles of our songs, some words which can be recycled idea about what the feeling behind the songs can be. But one of the greatest things in this music is that it leaves a freedom of the listener to imagine their own pictures and own kind of story and everybody has a little different story for something. My songs "Conclusion", "Farewell"... they have strong emotions of love or lost love behind and all farewell.... "Farewell", ja, behind this song is a lot of emotions, when I am thinking about it -- people who were separated or die, or some relations which were fucked up... So, I was thinking lots about this things and feeling like saying goodbye to this things. "Farewell" is this track and maybe everybody who it listens to it might be finding something, that they maybe can say farewell. The greatest feedback that you can hear is when somebody writes you that the music has helped them. Or people were listening in hard times to these songs and they found some comfort or whatever. That feels really great. You can give something to the people.

Very special thanks from Taisija:

to Destiny for Perttu

to Perttu for the interview and everything and all

to Apocalyptica for soundcheck - I will never forget

to Erwin and Ulysses for being so cool

Apocalyptica's official website, with song samples: http://www.apocalyptica.com/