Interview with Plutonium Orange
The kings from Suolahti and the infinite four
Juha: I have no Idea.
Samuli: We don't remember.
Antti: We don't know.
Juha: I think it's only because it sounds so fucking good. It's like Plutonium and you have Orange in almost everything *points at his T-Shirt, from a company named Orange* I think there is no meaning in it.
Pasi: Not much, just Plutonium and Orange.
Finnbands: When did you found the Band originally?
*a pondering silence*
Pasi: In 2000, because that was when I moved to Jyväskylä.
Samuli: We met at a bar.
Pasi: and I called Juha "Do you have any band projects? I'm available!"
Finnbands: Whose idea was it to reunite Plutonium Orange?
Pasi: We were in a bar, as always. I was drunk as fuck. These guys were also sitting at the table. I said "Hey, lets get together and play some shows." and everyone was like "OK"
Juha: It's been two years...
Samuli: ...almost three.
Pasi: Four.
Antti: No,three.
Pasi: Four sounds better.
Samuli: *nodding* Four Years. *all guys start to grin*
Antti: Three.
Juha: Two and a half years.
Pasi: *laughing* Four.
Juha: *shrugging* OK, four.
Finnbands: Pasi and Juha have Swallow the Sun as active project. Do you two Samuli and Antti have any active projects at the moment?
Samuli: Yes, I play in a band called Kiro. We play fusion, so it's not so hard as Plutonium Orange.
Antti: I played in a band called Elisabeth Underground for one and a half years. It's a kind of trip hop.
Finnbands(to Antti): So no active projects at the moment?
Antti: We have one Band but it doesn't have a name yet.
Pasi: Rasmus. *all are laughing*
Samuli: No, it's Negative. This is Antti Anatomy. *everybody laughing*
Juha: *with a wave of the hand* Try to get some sense out of this.
Finnbands: So, you haven't played any live shows since three or four years?
Samuli: The last show was on January 2004.
Pasi: *sniggering* Four.
Samuli: Which means almost 3 years.
Juha: We haven't played any live shows in between and now it's this 3 shows and that's it for some time.
Finnbands: How many demos did you release?
Pasi: Four. Yes. *everybody laughing*
Samuli: Four.
Antti: Wasn't it more?
Samuli: Five but the last one wasn't really released.
Finnbands: So, tell the names then.
Pasi: Volume.
Juha: Was it Volume?
Samuli: No, Fruit of the Doom.
Pasi: No it was the second.
Samuli: First was 'Into the ground' and...
Juha: First was 'Fruit of the doom' and then we had the 'Fruit of the doom'-song on the second one 'Volume',
Then 'Waiting for the gun' and 'Killer by the road'.
Then we recorded the 5th one.
Finnbands: I heard that one of your songs, was also released on a Sampler, was it?
Pasi: Yeah, The Mighty Desert Rock Avenger, a stoner rock compilation and also on a Finnish youth against drugs compilation.
Juha: That CD had Nightwish on it too, but that was before they came big.
Finnbands: I found some Bands on Myspace that named you as influence. Did you know that?
Juha: There is all kind of crazy people. No, I didn't know that but I can't blame them. That's good. I think we got some good reputation from that time we were releasing, because it was like every six months or so. New songs all the time songs and good reviews.
Finnbands: But you didn't get a contract.
Antti: Yes, all that small talk and you know this things weren't supposed to happen.
Juha: All the guys were like: This is fucking great stuff. Why don't you have a contract? But they didn't offer one.
So, that's really strange. But we didn't fit the stoner rock thing and we didn't fit the metal thing and we didn't fit the rock thing. So that's Plutonium Rock! (laughter)
Finnbands: Are you going to play more shows than those 3 announced on Myspace?
Juha: I think that's it for some time there are no gigs coming up. But you never know. Maybe, if we get some good promotion from that and they pick us to play with some band and start up something.
Finnbands: So there are no offers.
Juha: No, this is so a small thing, that's just the band playing those old classics.
Finnbands: So there are not any new songs that you practiced.
Juha: No, we just play these old. I don't know how many songs we had I think it was like.
Pasi: Nineteen songs recorded.
Juha: So nineteen recorded Songs and a few others. That would be 2 and a half hours if we play everything. But tonight we just play like 40 minutes.
Samuli: 13 minutes.
Juha: 13 minutes of agony. *laughter*
Finnbands: When listening to the material of Plutonium Orange I could hear some similarities to Swallow the Sun, just in some short moments, basically in the guitars.
Juha: I think I have done basically all of the songs of Plutonium Orange, so you have to hear it in Swallow the Sun. Because that's almost all songs done by me. But the style is so totally different. We have a so much greater singer, so same shit in different package.
Finnbands: You said you wrote almost all songs, did the others write songs for Plutonium Orange too?
Samuli: Sometimes we wrote songs together.
Antti: Sometimes Juha brought some riffs and we kind of edited the songs.
Juha: Yeah, I think there are some of Samuli's riffs in it, but I can't remember anymore its so far away history. It's some Moses time when we did that.
Finnbands: Please, describe you're style of music in a couple of words.
Juha: Plutonium Rock! *grinning*
I think metallic rock. There are also influences of Stoner Rock too but not so much.
Samuli: In the first songs we have quite a big influence of Stoner Rock then we developed into our own thing.
Juha: I think we are Metallic Riff rock.
Finnbands: Could you tell me some thing about the biography of the Band?
Juha: Ok, to start it. I played in this progressive Rock/Metal band for many years and I got enough of it, playing those hard songs and I wanted to put a band up where I could drop down the guitar to here (moves his hands down to his knees) and just go and ROCK. So I knew Samuli because we are from the same City not from Jyväskylä from Suolahti. That's the place where the kings life. (laughter) You know Machine Men?
Finnbands: Yes!
Juha: Machine Men are from Suolahti and we are from Suolahti too and Pasi is from Suolahti too. I say this now when he's not here; let's say he's from Suolahti too. (Pasi left the room a few moments before.)
Anyway, I played in this progressive Metal band for so many years and I just wanted to rock! And then I asked Samuli if he would be interested to play this kind of music because I knew could sing really good and play guitar so fucking good. So I thought he's the man for the job.
and next thing I asked Antti from this Bar because I heard from our friend Tommi that he is a good bass player.
Antti: Actually my first encounter with Juha was after a party night, I was sleeping at Tommi's house and the morning Juha came there I didn't know him at that time and a few weeks later we met in that bar.
Juha: So we where three guy then, when was it? Wasn't it last millennium?
Antti: It was end of 99 beginning of 2000.
Juha: and then we had another drummer first.
*Samuli and Antti burst out laughing*
Antti: He was actually recommended by the drummer of Sunride. He said this guy should be good. They were already playing together and this guy came for a kind of audition to us. (laughter) He wasn't that good. (even more laughter)
Juha: and he wasn't that bad. He was even worse. *extreme laughter* He was beyond worse and then...
Antti: ...the next rehearsal was with Pasi.
Samuli: That's it!
Juha: We had some problems with the rehearsal room first in the beginning but it didn't take so long till the first demo came out. It was already in 2000.
Antti: We rehearsed at my ex-Bands place in downtime Jyväskylä, but after a few months we got a good place at Lutakko.
Finnbands: So it's quite a problem to get a rehearsal place then.
Antti: If you don't have any connections.
Juha: But basically that's every thing. and then just demos and demos and demos but the after so many years and all the demos and all the good reviews and then the atmosphere changed, what the fuck are we doing we don't get any deal let us stop.
Finnbands: So, that was the reason why you broke up then.
Juha: That wasn't the basic thing why we broke up. We got it up here.
No matter how good songs we do, they didn't get it. the People got it but the labels didn't and spending all that money. So, the break did good and now it's just fun. I started to feel like when I have to do even better songs what the fuck should I do? For me it started to feel like that, so no big drama.
Samuli: We just broke up.
Finnbands(to Juha): And then you started with the other band.
Juha: Swallow the Sun already started in 2000 almost at the same time.
I was talking with Pasi, that I have some songs and we should try this. But it wasn't exactly the same time.
Antti: I remember that after our rehearsals Juha and Pasi stayed and did the Swallow the Sun rehearsals right after ours.
Juha: But the start of Swallow the Sun hasn't got anything to do with the split of Plutonium Orange.
Antti: But things that evolved is that many well known bands from Jyväskylä started out as side projects. That's often the story.
Juha: But I think that in some point somebody will hear those songs and realise 'OK, I could make millions with this!' (all the guys burst into laughter)
Then after a short break.
Juha: Ok, That's it.
Finnbands: So, thank you for the interview!
22. November 2006
Interview by Lepakko © finnbands.com