Eicca: Discribe myself. Hm, that's difficult. *thinks* Difficult. I don't remember any word in English. *laughs* So what could I say? I'm quite social. And ähm get much focus outside as a personality and *things* .... and I'm like a typical Lion person. Leading... I always, in the good and bad, have a need to lead things, to guide things where they go. Also in the bad, it's also a bad habit I think. I'm quite fair to people... and in general. I'm quite fair in sharing things. Sometimes I'm selfish. I must be selfish because I'm touring so much *laughs*. It's very difficult to discribe yourself.
Eiccalyptica: What is about your position in the band? Where might be the differences to the other band members concerning your personal requirements and abilities?
Eicca: Let's say it is so that I always have the last word *laughs* in the final end. If we come to the point we have to decide something and cannot decide I normally have the last word. But that comes because I built everything up from the beginning so. And do the most of the work cause I ... you know, running a band is not only doing promotion and playing concerts or doing records. It's lots of other works so I'm basically doing most of the other work outside the band. For the band but you know, what is not the performing part. That's why I maybe get the last word because I have the best knowledge about all the things around the band. But I don't know... In the final end we are democratic but sometimes it's out of democratic. I do it the way I want.
Eiccalyptica: How is a song created, how does it develop from the idea to the finishing? Could you describe the progress of creation?
Eicca: On the different albums I wrote the songs little different ways. For Cult all the songs were based on the riffs. The riffs came first and you know that's why sometimes the melody lines in a sway. That's the interesting on the cult album. It's more based on the riffs and things on the low stuff. But for the last album I wrote most of the songs with piano. I bought a normal piano home because I like to work much more with real instruments as with keyboards. Living items. This time I work more with... how to get the main clue for the songs and then do the arrangements. So we work with melody and chorous and just as simple as possible. And after that making the arrangement of Apocalyptica for the song. I have this modal way I work this time. And for the future I think it's more challinging to try to find a way to keep the basic things very simple and still interesting. And than, you know, it's much more easy to write the progressive stuff. You know, an eight minutes long song and all the times new riffs coming in. I always want to get some challanges and as a songwriter it is the most difficult to try. Like a little ABBA or whatever, you know. It sometimes is very simple but on other days it is work like hell. That is my target as a songwriter - to learn more how to keep everything compact. That's why I work with piano. Because with piano I get the chourus and the melody at the same time. Of course some songs like "Life Burns" - it just came up - because it is so riff based song. So it was backed with some classical stuff. So it is different in every song how it goes. But then I make in the final end ... I make a demo of the song. I record the demo and present it the others and they might fit the song with the arrangement.
Eiccalyptica: Are you able to play any other instruments besides cello and piano?
Eicca: I don't know the piano too well.
Eiccalyptica: But you compose on it...
Eicca: Yeah yeah. You know, I do basically play whatever instrument. *laughs* I recorded all the contrabass and the doublebass parts on Cult. I never played a single note from contrabass before. I went to studio and recorded thirteen songs with the doublebass. But ähm... *thinks* I can play guitar little - very little, not really. I can play drums, but not really. I don't play anything else than cello so good. You know, if I could get an Okulelle or what ever *everybody laughs* I can do something with it but nothing... I can't really play any other instruments as the cello.
Eiccalyptica: Who wrote the drum parts for example Reflections or Apocalyptica?
Eicca: *thinks* In Reflections, I wrote most of those. Dave Lombardo made his own things but they were a little bit based on my demos as well. And the rest was that I asked the drummer to play what I was planning. It was because I played drums when I was kid I was able to do the drumparts. And also for the new album I gave demos of the songs and I think as a songwriter it should be there. But then Mikko worked with the drums and put in his creativity. So it was Mikko who did actually the drumpart for the new album.
Eiccalyptica: Could you point out any emotional difference between playing your own songs and songs written by others, whether it is Perttu or Metallica or what ever?
Eicca: Hm *nodding* Ja, I feel a big difference actually. Like *thinks* own songs are much more serious for me to play. I don't feel so much joking or partying in most of the own songs because they are more serious to me. As for Metallicasongs is just partytime. You know, nothing serious, just having fun to play them. And it depends on the Perttusong how I feel. But I think I feel also that serious because what comes out of Perttu to the Apocalyptica albums is like the songs where we have something common that we create a line. Because he is also writing stuff what is completely different style to what Apocalyptica is at the moment. So that's why we have some common feelings in the most of the songs. Sometimes I don't get any feeling on some Perttusong and it can turn the other way round that he can't get any feeling of my songs. But I think the biggest difference is that it is more serious to play own songs in a concert than coversongs. Of course Refuse / Resist is very serious *laughs* or Inquisition Symphony. They are very serious Sepultura covers. Sometimes they must fit together with your own feelings so strongly that ... or Creeping Death or Seek and Destroy... I can't be serious when I play those songs. *laughs*
Eiccalyptica: It seems as if you have a relative fixed progress of concert with a build-up of tension. Starting very calm and getting emotional and sometimes very wild.
Eicca: *laughs*
Eiccalyptica: Could you explain reasons for it?
Eicca: I think the main reason is that you have to have something more on the show all the time to keep the interest on the audience and for yourself. And you know, if you play the hardest parts in the beginning - what can we do after that? And that ... we have to find out in new songs and to change. And people know that we always play "Hall of the Mountain King" in the end. And than it gets very boring.
I'm so happy that now we put "Prologue" in the end and Refuse / Resist as another encore. We needed a difference. You know, we personally get easily bored of just repeating the same things all the time. I think once comes the day where there will be no "Enter Sandman" and "Hall of the Mountain King" anymore. *laughs* But it is always about which songs works after each other. You have to be quite sensitive. I think now we found a good set. It's the best set this year what we have now with only two ballards and all time going and all time something new coming up. Sometimes it is difficult to create a good setlist that you have enough changes there but not all the time going up and down. And I think now it is very good. And also... I think we were beginning to move this year much more on the stage. It comes more natural. You just want to do something and then you might repeat it other times and we had 140 shows and it is impossible to be every night different. It's impossible. When you find good things... So you can't get any new things. You are based actual. At the moment the show is that a lot based in the routine. I use to go to the drums and play there. I always like to go to play with Mikko.
I think that is why we need a long break because so many shows. And also the audience will get bored and we will get bored if we continue. It's just playing shows and no time to get new ideas, fresh ideas and change the show completely. *laughs*
Eiccalyptica: At the moment you don't look like as if you are bored. It doesn't look like.
Eicca: No we are not. Luckily we are not yet. *laughs* But we have to stop before so that we not get. And there are some shows, you know, that one of us has bad mood and is not interested. But it's just one person and you don't realize and the others are in a good mood and it doesn't make so much to the audience. You can feel the difference when everybody is really going for reason. You can feel the reaction of the audience as well. It's only small thinks which makes a big difference. But I think we have spent an amazing year in that meaning that in the end everybody is still motivated and happy. And we have not practiced this year so hard and what we did in France on this tour we were practicing every day and normally we don't. So every soundcheck begins like we play some song in half tempo and we try to make things better and better all the time. That feels good. After 140 shows we still want to practice enough to get things better.
Eiccalyptica: Once you said that it is sometimes difficult to get the audience behind you at festivals. Could you imagine people who don't know your music and who are far away from stage might leave the concert during this visually calm and dark beginning so that they will miss the best?
Eicca: Yeah, they miss the best *smiles* *laughs*
But... you know. It's our fault that we are not able to get the audience from the beginning. I think, stage performancewise the beginning is very calm but if you are far away from the stage the main thing you get is the sound ... beginning with Path, Master of Puppets, Somewhere around nothing and Fight Fire with Fire. It is not very calm *laughs* And it is better that we play not a ballard anymore as the fifth song. Because we always used to play a ballard as the fifth song. And now after Fight Fire with Fire you get more and more hungry and you want to get more and more and more and don't want to calm down for five minutes and that's why we decide not to play Farewell.
You know, that is why we always stay room for photographers in the concerts. It's like with every band you get the first three songs. We always said that you have to shoot the four last songs. And then we realize that at festivals we loose a lot of them because they have to go shooting the next band on some other stages. So we made the rules: Ok, you can shoot the first three and the four last songs. So please stay for the end if you can because then you will get much better photos.
Of course it's always a challange to catch new people and it 's impossible to expect on a festival that somebody who look the show from half a kilometer away to stay interested. You know, always people go and come and...
Eiccalyptica: Ok, this is a little strange question maybe:
Why did you integrate the German anthem into "Hall of the mountain king", especially we wondered in Kööpenhamina?
Eicca: It was the Finnish anthem, or was it the German?
Eiccalyptica: It was the German. You did it in the gigs in April in Germany and you did in Copenhagen in May.
Eicca: Perttu always plays whatever comes into his mind. *everybody laughs* Than we heard from people that maybe were Germans that it maybe is not a good thing to play the German anthem. Ok, than we don't play it in Germany. We just play the German anthem in some other countries. *laughs* But you know sometimes ... if Perttu just remembers instandly the anthem of the country we are playing at the moment he plays that. If not, then he plays something else. It's something what Paavo doesn't like at all. *everybody laughs* He hates it.
Eiccalyptica: Our last question: Do you have any explanation why some songs on "Cult" sound like Niina's squeaking kids?
Eicca: *laughs* It's quite agressive sound, yes. The Cult album. And ... there is an explaination because the producer, Hiili - we were producing the album together with Hiili - and he is a great guy and he likes things which are not to soft, to nice. And that was just the way we wanted to make a very agressive album, a very powerful album and the sound is not so... I think nowadays we have better sound. But on the other hand it was very special sound on the Cult album and sometimes it sounds very creepy. That's meant to be like. You know, sometimes ... music doesn't have to be always an enjoyable experience. And it's good that it sound very strong.
apocalyptica.com
1. Dezember 2005
Interview by Niina © eiccalyptica.com