Beat a Go Go

The encounter with Perttu Kivilaakso and Tom the tour manager was set at twilight time at the Apocalyptica tour bus in front of the Webster Theatre in Hartford, Connecticut. The sky was grey and it was sparkling with rain.

Tom came first. He is a pleasant guy. Heather-Rose and Tom started talking about New York City, where they are both from, and it was as if they had spent all their childhood together in the same playground building the castles from the sand...I love my American friends.

Then came Perttu. His tall slim silhouette was darker than the dusk around him when he came from the tour bus. He walked with careful grace, wrapped in a coat that hung almost to the ground. With his pale distant face, his long strands of black hair and his elegant artistic hands, he was a remarkable figure.

Since the first time I met him, many years ago, he reminds me of a mysterious ancient earl - somebody from another time and space, who nets you easily into the thrilling adventure.

We went into the Webster Theatre walking up the dark steps to the backstage area.  Tom left us in the big room and left the door open.

Interview by Taisija and Heather-Rose

Taisija: It's already more than two years since we were talking last time in my home town Ljubljana.

Perttu: Yes.

Taisija: Now you are promoting the last Apocalyptica's studio album Worlds Collide here in America. How do you feel on the tour ?

Perttu: At the moment I am really tired...

Taisija: Oh, yeah...

Perttu:  Yeah, you know it was quite heavy touring, and an intense schedule for us...for a long time already.  But otherwise it's really great.  It's wonderful to go to new places and we have played in a lot of new towns all around the USA where we have never been before.  Like today here in Hartford, first time here.  It's really nice to see people are happy everywhere we go.  Our message is well taken, all around the States as well.

Heather-Rose: Good.

Taisija: What would you say about changing of your music since Apocalyptica's Amplified...what happened in the meantime?

Perttu:  Actually then we didn't change anything because that was just a collection.  Of course the collection was just collecting basically the most important songs that we felt was describing the best for the new listener of what Apocalyptica is and what it has been - the purpose was to show the entire journey of the band and therefore it's actually quite a funny album because it contains material from our first and fifth record and they are sounding absolutely like a different group because we have added a lot of different elements to the band and one of the biggest changes, absolutely naturally, is the drums, which I know that many people they don't even like that they exist - me neither![laughter]

Heather-Rose: Oh really?

Perttu:  But uh - no no no -that was a lie - the drums were my idea.

Heather-Rose:  Good idea!

Perttu:  Um - but anyhow - so the Amplified was really nice thing for us to do for ourselves to celebrate the thing that we have been together for so long already, nowadays especially ten years to be able to do music in this kind of really shady business world where it's already like a nice achievement.  And we are still kind of friends with each other, so that's also good I think.   But if we compare our fifth and sixth studio albums, Worlds Collide to Apocalyptica, I think the biggest change was in how we went into the making of music - like arranging stuff.  This time with Worlds Collide we worked much more as a band, not like separate members.  And we were spending a lot of time in the rehearsal room playing through, actually, an insane lot of songs.  In the beginning, I'm not sure, there were like 50 or 60 tracks on which we were playing everything, maybe we took some good elements out from there to combine tracks - but - so I think it's really interesting - and of course adding a lot of influences outside the band, like more than with the previous album - that was a big change.  And basically the biggest effort came from our producer Jakob Hellner - he became as a kind of band member for the period.  It was interesting to find that kind of producer who took part in the rehearsing and he was in the practice room with us a long time and already arranging the songs with us.  Normally it happens that you have your own idea, you go to the studio and there is a stranger there basically producing who tries then to understand what you mean and then there is no common sense.  And then we were in the situation where we were hanging around with the producer for a long time and still we didn't understand each other! [laughter]

Taisija: It's happening, yes, it's crazy...[laughter]

Perttu: No - it is really interesting because Jakob, definitely his approach to making music is so different from ours.  And of course everyone in the band, we have a different world and way how we work, so that's the most tricky thing always, to combine those different kinds of ideas and everybody has of course their own visions, it's like a relationship.  It's a marriage between four men.  It already sounds Mission Impossible in this sense! [complete laughter] If there are problems with only two persons in any relationship, then you just multiply it.  [pause]  Luckily we don't need to sexually satisfy each other.  [laughter]

Heather-Rose:  Did the producer articulate a vision for the album?   Did he come out and say, "I want you guys to do this with this album"?

Perttu: No, actually no, he was more listening to the stuff that we had, and then picking his favorites, and then he began to guide us maybe somewhere.  But of course he was really good in this sense that he wanted the album to look still really our own.  And that's always really important to us as well.  We want that it is Apocalyptica in every sense even if it contains whatever element.  And therefore i think that actually there is something already existing in our music which is this Apocalyptica element and even you can say that we have twenty tracks that haven't anything to do with each other - stylewise, or whatever - that if it would have been done some other ways you wouldn't recognize them as being by the same group.  But in the way how we are doing - and of course the cello sound itself is the uniting thing that makes it the signature mark there, and even in Worlds Collide it works as a solid single unit, even if there are four different vocalists!  Which is again like a suicidal mission that no one should take this, and this, because it easily comes that there is not any more a line.  But I don't think that it's a problem in our case because at least for me, I have been - the cello is really like a part of my body so I'm not maybe the best one to say about it, to have an opinion about it, but of course I feel the cello so strongly in there, and hear it, even in those places where there are no cellos. [laughter]  Yes, there are cellos but sometimes the cellos are taken so far away from their original sound that you can't recognize that it is cello, even if it still is.  So that's of course the natural way that the band has developed, that we have found all the time more and more exciting effects and ways how to use cello, and again we come to another point where people are many times unsatisfied - "We can't hear the cellos!"  What the hell, what is wrong with your hearing, then?  They are just cellos, nothing else.  Except then some extras, of course.  [laughter]  But who wouldn't like to have some extras in there, if it is possible?  I think it's a wonderful opportunity to work with these kinds of vocalists, for example.  Every one of them brings something new to the album, and at least for myself, to consider me being a listener, and now there is this mission - listen to 50 minutes of music for this album - I don't manage this with any album, going through it.  Not even Metallica or Slipknot - my favorites.  I skip songs after the second, third already - I get bored with the sound so quickly.  And I think in general - it's not that - that doesn't mean that they would be bad records, but if nothing is happening, I'm so used in classical music, for example the long symphonies, there is all the time variation - it's going somewhere, and then something totally different is happening.  In rock music and pop music there are not those kinds of changes.  I think the changes are minor in this sense.  And therefore we try to do - Apocalyptica - not symphonical albums, but we still think more that it should be an album that you should last for the entire 50 minutes.  Not like "OK, I have heard two songs, I have heard already enough, next album please. "

Heather-Rose: More complexity.

Perttu:  Yeah.  So it's good to start then with an instrumental track, then there is another instrumental track - but already we had a guitar guy doing some weird things because we thought it's a good thing to introduce a new sound to the whole Apocalyptica world.  And I remember two years ago we swore that there would never be  any guitars on Apocalyptica albums - never ever! - because we hate and despise guitarists!  [laughter]   And now if I say that we would never work, for example, with R&B artists, that's then most likely to happen. [laughter]  So I don't say anything like that to you.  [laughter]

Heather-Rose:  It's good to change things.

Perttu:  Yeah, I remember - never vocals, never a drummer, never a guitar - we have said every one of these things.  

Heather-Rose:  Maybe an accordion next time.

[pause]

Perttu:  Nyckelharpa.

[laughter]

Heather-Rose: Yes, that would be interesting.

Perttu: So then the third song on the album is already a vocal track - and I think this is really good, it catches the listener - wow, now there is something really new happening.  Of course in Apocalyptica albums there were already vocal tracks on the record but this time it was more or less obvious in the beginning that some of the tracks are possible hits, in a bigger sense.  Of course, like "I'm Not Jesus", which kind of opened the US market to us.  The song is really strong, Corey Taylor is doing incredibly great work in there, and basically we knew it already in the studio just by listening that nothing can go wrong with this one - it was really obvious that we would make it the first single.  And then actually - [he gets up suddenly and goes to the door]

[loud shout from men in the hallway]

[he slams the door and comes back]

[quietly, smiling] They were showing their dicks.

Heather-Rose: Oh!

[laughter]

Heather-Rose: Tell them to come back!

Perttu:  [smiling] Yes... well....

Taisija: We were at the concert in Worcester.

Perttu:  Yes

Taisija:  It was the first time that I heard a singer with Apocalyptica on the stage.

Perttu:  Yeah.  And now of course then the album was released and "I'm Not Jesus" became like a really big success on the US radio, got a lot of airplay and it was obvious that there will be a lot of new Apocalyptica fans and audiences through the radio.  Because that has been a medium where we haven't basically existed earlier and we faced the problem of - we were thinking, what will we do when we go to USA then perform and people have the hit in their heads and they like it - "Yes, I like I'm Not Jesus by Apocalyptica, it's a wonderful track" and they come to the show and they don't even hear the song because basically we didn't like to play it instrumentally - it's boring with the cello, to be honest.  There came the idea - OK, let's try to find a cool guy who can do the job, and if he is there for that purpose then he can sing a couple more songs.  And I remember myself I had said there won't ever be any vocalist on stage with Apocalyptica - never, ever.  And that was not too many years ago, maybe three.  [smiling] And now we are touring with Toryn and it is really, really great fun because he's a wonderful guy, really good singer, a good-character person and he does a great job.  And obviously the audience is really liking him.

Heather-Rose: He fits in very well.

Toryn Green sings with Apocalyptica in Hartford

Perttu:  Yeah.  I don't know - we didn't do this experience in Europe, we didn't have any vocalists in Europe because there we are really - people know us as what we are, an instrumental band and there we haven't felt the need of it.  I think the European audience, they expect us to have the instrumental version.   They want to hear the instrumental version of the vocal track, probably.  More or less like that.  But here, we didn't want to disappoint anyone and therefore....  we found Toryn through our record company.  It's a pity that Toryn can't tour with us now for the second leg - we are coming back after two weeks - I don't remember how it goes - I think we go home after one week now, and then come back for still a few weeks more in the States.   But there will be this guy - we had this kind of competition for a vocalist to join us on the stage at Ozzfest and there was this one guy from Alabama, or Arkansas,or somewhere- Louisiana!  And he is coming for the second leg as well.

Heather-Rose: So the response on this tour has been good, to the singer and the single?

Perttu:  Yes, it has been really good.  No one has thrown rocks at us. [laughter] And we really respect that.

Heather-Rose:  Good.

Taisija:  So you were playing at Ozzfest - also Metallica was there.  Did you hear the last album of Metallica?

Perttu:  Yeah, I have listened to it a couple of times.  The first time I listened to it in an airplane, and what happened was like "Oh my God, what crap!"  i skipped the first song after maybe one and a half minutes, and the second after a couple of minutes, and then I was looking, "what is this, they last for seven and nine minutes, and there is no idea - oh, oh" then I forced myself to listen to it more and more, and even once through, and every time it got better.  And I would even say it is a great album.

Heather-Rose:  Wow.  OK.  is it just so much different from what they did before, or....

Perttu:  No, I think it is just kind of hard to get into it.  Because first the riffs, they feel like really simple, and even stupid sometimes.  But if you understand their - I think there is, like, an ironic approach to that stupidity.

Heather-Rose:  OK.  We will have to listen and see because it's hard to imagine.

Perttu: And also, in St Anger, that much - that is much better than Anger but I also respect St Anger as an album, lots, not because of what it is - no, actually yes, just because it IS so horrible - that they had the courage to do such an album!

[laughter]

Heather-Rose:  The courage to suck.

Perttu:  Yeah!  Like it's really - I think, it's pointing middle fingers in all directions - "Fucking hell, we are Metallica, we can do whatever we want!"  [laughter]
I think it's really cool. [laughter]

Heather-Rose:  That's one way to look at it, I guess.

Perttu:  Yeah.  And kind of like - because they are responsible for many things, for example what metal music is..Not just little things...They just created something totally new, basically..

[Heather-Rose's tape runs out]

Heather-Rose: Don't say anything interesting ! [laughter]

[Perttu talks super-slowly until Heather-Rose gets the new tape started - we laugh like crazy]

Perttu:  With St Anger, they definitely wanted to cut their chains, their own chains that they had created.  Especially with the sound.  Because everyone is agreeing that Metallica has the greatest sound on earth.  Metallica and Rammstein are the best-sounding bands.  And that is true.  And then with Anger, I'm sure they wanted to go and get rid of this kind of stamp, or whatever.... now I think in Death Magnetic it is once again a combination of many oldern elements.  The sound is more pleasant and songs are actually - there is good drive.  And Lars is playing actually really hilariously well.  

Taisija:  You know Heather was many times in Finland and also I did some interviews with Finnish musicians so....

Heather-Rose:  Yes I wanted to see if you would talk to us about Finland.  Do you get many responses from Americans about where Finland is and what kind of people you are?

Perttu:  Not really often - I don't hear a comment like "Finland, what is it, something to eat?" (laughter)  No, people basically know that Finland is something to do with either Sweden or Russia.  But of course we have been part of them both.

Heather-Rose:  It is interesting to me that in Finland they have such a strong history of teaching music to children.

Perttu:  I think one thing that has helped a lot - it must be ice hockey - where most of the people know that Finland is a country.  

Heather-Rose:  The Finnish language is very interesting.

Perttu:  Mm. Strange.

Heather-Rose:  Very strange.  Like something from Mars.  [laughter]  You should do a song in Finnish, now that you are doing songs in German....

Perttu:  Maybe one day.  There are a lot of great Finnish singers.

Heather-Rose:  Taisija says you are a big fan of opera.  What do you like to listen to?  Italian?

Perttu: Mostly italians, but Wagner... Fliegender Hollander.... musically maybe even Parsifal, but Hollander, [Flying] Dutchman, the opera besides Don Carlos by Verdi and Zauberflote by Mozart which I heard when I was a really really really small person, like one year old or something.  And I fell in love with certain elements of them - of course, I couldn't realize- and I can't remember anymore so well because I was really small - but I remember a couple of things from the Savonlinna opera festival, which is a opera festival in eastern Finland - my father used to play in it.  There were these animals in the Mozart opera, Papageno played his flute, and I was really happy for all kind of - sheep - what is a male sheep?

Heather-Rose: Ram.

Perttu:  Ram?  OK there were a lot of them.  And then the ghosts of the Dutchman, they made a huge impression on me.  As well as the inquisitor of Don Carlos.  I was so scared of this guy - he was this huge Swedish bass singer - I was always scared.  Because of course we followed, like, every rehearsal and the performances and.... yeah. There it all began.  I wanted to go to the stage as well.  And then they gave me the cello.

Heather-Rose:  Well, it is still dramatic.

Perttu:  Mm, but still I would prefer this world.  To die every evening saving my mother or whatever... I think the most beautiful ending is in Aida, absolutely.... the lovers are dying in the tomb together.

Heather-Rose:  I like Tosca.

Perttu:  Yes, Tosca is beautiful, really beautiful.... have you ever heard the story of Placido Domingo when he was at the Metropolitan and when they were about to come to shoot him the assistants never arrived - the execution party - because they were probably drinking beer! [laughter]  So the conductor was holding the music and looking around, like "what's happening, no one knows" - so Domingo took the pistol and shot himself.

[laughter]

It's cool.

Heather-Rose:  Whatever works!  Just go with the flow...  In your concerts does anything go wrong like that?

Perttu:  Many things go really wrong in our concerts, but of course we are not doing theater, a story, where it would be obvious.  But that I would really love to do, maybe .... something different.

Heather-Rose: You mean, to play a dramatic part.

Perttu:  Of course I wanted to be in opera.

Taisija:  Maybe you will compose an opera.

Perttu:  I will.

Heather-Rose:  Do you want to?

Perttu:  [firmly] Absolutely.

Heather-Rose: Aha!

Perttu:  That is my biggest dream.

Heather-Rose: Do you have some ideas about it?

Perttu:  Sure.  

Heather-Rose:  Tell us.

Perttu: [shakes head]  Too early.

[laughter]

Heather-Rose:  Give us a hint!

[Perttu shakes head]

Heather-Rose: OK.

Taisija:  Is there any news on your solo work....

Perttu:  it's also like this...

Taisija:  We are waiting for it.

Perttu:  I have been waiting for the time to do anything.

Heather-Rose:  Has it just been very busy, with these tours....

Perttu:  I have been away from home during the last 300 days- 220 days.

Heather-Rose:  I don't know how you guys do it.

Perttu:  So it's - the rest of the days that are left in the year I am not doing anything with music, just watching movies.

Taisija:  What do you need to relax in such an intense tour?

Perttu:  Basically to do something really normal.  Really normal things.  Sometimes even the housework is good - good for mentality, at least.

Heather-Rose:  Do you live in the city?

Perttu:  Yes, I live in the city.  Basically I like to watch movies, they are the best way to get rid of this world.... because I don't go anywhere like clubbing or bars anymore, I quit drinking like four and a half years ago and that has affected a lot of my time-spending.  Sometimes I have to admit that in life it's not - boring, but it's really different than it was years ago when it was always - always you had something to do in the evening, just open the first bottle and wonder how many weeks you were on the road.  I try to fill my escapistic needs with the movies.

Heather-Rose:  Which ones do you like?

Perttu:  The more strange, the better.  And therefore I like a lot of fantasy because it's something completely out of this world.  And also horror movies.  I would like comedies if someone would just make good ones!

Heather-Rose:  Yes, it would help if people made funny ones. [laughter]

Perttu:  Really, it's unbelievable how difficult it is to find a good comedy movie.  But even the worst horror movies are good comedies, so I like to watch really bad horror movies and laugh at them.  

[Perttu fixes Taisija's tape]

Taisija:  You are always taking care of this.  [laughter]

Heather-Rose:  We're not so good with the technical stuff.  We're more idea people. [laughter]

Heather-Rose:  Do you write anything? Fiction, stories?

Perttu:  Not any more, but actually, I used to.  When I was a teenager I wrote a lot of stories - always something weird going on.  But I guess in my sense, Apocalyptica, when I joined it, it came to fulfill something like that need - of course, in other ways, it kind of feels now creative.

Heather-Rose:  You mean creating a style, a vision with the band - you are kind of playing roles onstage.

Perttu:  Actually life itself is only a big theater.  [pause] And now we are going into really strange thoughts - what is real and not.

Heather-Rose:  Oh that's good, we like that.  [laughter]

Heather-Rose:  It must be very strange to be in a different city every night.

Perttu:  Of course we are quite used to that - actually it is more strange to be in the same place for more than one day [laughter]

Heather-Rose:  When you come home and you feel exhausted and you feel that all the pieces have been thrown all over the place - what kind of music do you listen to to bring that all back and weave the web together again?

Perttu:  Basically I try to avoid listening to anything.  I can't enjoy even opera in this intensive touring period, because my ears are just aching .... I am so full of music I become a music hater. [laughter]

Perttu:  I decided I hate humans.  

Heather-Rose:  You hate humans!

Perttu:  My bandmates, and myself.... everyone.  [laughter] Wait, that wasn't me talking!

Taisija:  But you like animals.

Heather-Rose:  You could become an animal.

Perttu:  I love puppies.  

Heather-Rose: Puppies?

Perttu:  Yes - they are tasty. (laughter)  What was I saying....  No - no music.  Oh - and yes, I think that is the curse - there are a lot of different kind of people and all the other guys are completely different persons but for me, the curse of being a musician is that it affects the way that I can enjoy it - other's art.  The fact that I am so into our own thing all the time and concentrating on that work - it doesn't feel like the same pleasure that it did fifteen years ago.  Especially rock music.  When there was no Apocalyptica I was a huge fan of rock music, but nowadays it's really difficult to let it go.  

Of course it's always different after a long break you hear the right song somewhere, just that right song and it gets you going.  But it's really difficult for me to enjoy it, long concerts....

Heather-Rose: Are you trying to analyze it too much?

Perttu:   Yeah, maybe, and I don't know if there are different kinds of ears that listen to things differently -

Heather-Rose: And now that it's your job it's different.

Perttu:  Yeah.  But music has been kind of my job since the beginning, because it was obvious already when I was 8 or 9 that I would be a professional musician.  But that was a surprise that it would turn out to be a rock scene where I .... that was an accident.

Heather-Rose:  What does your family feel about it - are they happy? Or did they really want you to be a classical musician?

Perttu:  I think they are really happy.  Even my father has become a fan of some rock acts.

Taisija:  Really?

Perttu:  Yeah.

Heather-Rose:  He never was before?

Perttu:  No.  We had a huge argument when I was a teenager - is it OK to listen to AC/DC, does it develop my cello skills in any way?

Heather-Rose: Uh-oh.  [laughter]

Perttu:  And I was like, fucking hell, what do I care if it's not developing them?  There was a time that I just wanted to quit the playing, of course, like I guess everyone once quits.  Yeah.  But nowadays - actually, my father stole all of my Rammstein CDs, I still haven't gotten them back and it's one year ago!  [laughter]  And then he likes Bloodhound Gang, and Black Eyed Peas....really different kind of stuff.  I think it's really kind of funny.

Taisija:  How was the tour in Europe - all the festivals?

Perttu:  It was hard - a lot of flying.  But it was very pleasant and there were a lot of gigs, but now I think the first thing that comes to mind is that it was too heavy and too many sleepless nights.  The amount of the concerts was not too much, but the travel logistics - it's really difficult because many festivals have been taken down and this year we were in some strange places and the traveling was like from this side to there - absolutely insane.  Many nights you couldn't sleep at all because straight from the stage you went already to the airport.

Taisija: One track you composed for this last album will be released only in Japan - Lies.

Perttu:  Really?  I didn't know.

Taisija: Well, I never heard it..

Perttu: You need that.  I think it was also on SOS single - I think so, I'm not sure.  Yeah, it's one of the slow songs again.  We had a bunch of slow songs.  An album can't be too slow.

Taisija:  Well, I missed your songs on World Collides album. I always enjoy listening to your beautiful songs - like Conclusion,Farawell, and all this stuff you wrote.  And this one is the same kind of song?

Perttu:  No, it's HARD and slow.  It's not a ballad.  It's heavy.

[Tom breaks in and says it's time to go]

Perttu: Maybe on the next album will be more ballads.  Who knows?

*****

Somewhere over the Ocean when we were flying in to the dark side of the earth, I started reading Arto Paasilinna's  Isoisää etsimässä ("Searching for Grandfather")-just the perfect book for my trip, with an unknown sleeping blond Spanish gentleman on one side and the view of the deep darkness under the sea in front of the jet's window and "Toreador II" in my headphones.

I found Perttu's "Lies" on the web and this "hard and slow" song touched me at once and became "a sound track of my life", at least for a while, as Joe Satriani once explained in one of our interviews. He taught Kirk Hammett guitar. Well, everything is connected...

Taisija

Very special thanks go to Perttu for the interview and to Apocalyptica for their miraculous/beautiful/thundering music,

also to great wonderful Isabel and dear Tom who arranged everything,

thank you!
Sincerely yours, T.& H.R.

Send an email to Taisija

Send an email to Heather-Rose

LINKS:

http://www.apocalyptica.com/

www.myspace.com/apocalyptica

Toryn Green(live with Apocalyptica -vid) http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=1645657

http://www.fuelweb.com/

http://www.metallica.com/

http://www.slipknot1.com

http://www.satriani.com/2004/

http://www.rammstein.com

http://www.acdc.com

http://bloodhoundgang.com

http://www.blackeyedpeas.com

http://www.myspace.com/origin666

http://www.rebelnyc.com

http://www.bitterend.com

http://www.thepalladium.net

http://webstertheatre.com

http://www.ozzfest.com

http://www.operafestival.fi

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arto_Paasilinna

http://virtual.finland.fi/netcomm/news/showarticle.asp?intNWSAID=26187

http://www.nyckelharpa.org