|
|
|
|
|
<< на главную страницу
<< назад в Кабинет
origin - himforfans.de
H.I.M. and The Rasmus: Trying to break in America
(Helsingin Sanomat 2004 online)
Finland's rock export leaders on tour in the U.S. and Canada
By Vesa Sirйn in Philadelphia and New York City
"This life ain't worth living!"
The crowd of around 2,500 at the Electric Factory in Philadelphia belt out the refrain to Finnish love-metal band H.I.M.'s best-known number, the anthemic Join Me (In Death)
One of those singing along is 11-year-old Ryan Wortz, whose mother Trudy has just bought him a H.I.M. woolly hat and a H.I.M. Heartagram T-shirt. Another is 18-year-old Daniella Denny, who drove all of 18 hours to get here from Florida to see the band's front man and vocalist Ville Valo up close and personal.
And Jim and Matt Kee, too, who came down from across the Canadian border because "the band are never going to play Canada".
Up there on the Philly stage is a Finnish band that has shifted 2.3 million records worldwide. It counts for something in the U.S., but not so very much. The other big name in recent Finnish rock exports - The Rasmus - are thus far still around 1 million CDs short of this figure, but they are also trying to break the lucrative but oh-so-difficult North American market.
Neither band has really been given the heavy marketing treatment in the United States. For all that, H.I.M.'s Razorblade Romance album has sold around 200,000 copies here, and The Rasmus's Dead Letters something under 100,000.
H.I.M. are already a big enough draw in the States that Melissa auf de Maur and heavy outfit Monster Magnet, who have gone gold on these shores, have been roped in as the night's warm-up acts, or 'special guests' as is the standard parlance these days.
"The acts on stage this evening have one thing in common, and that is Black Sabbath. You can skip our next concert and spend the ticket money on vinyl copies of old Black Sabbath recordings", Ville Valo tells the fans.
Valo comes across as a more relaxed and less rarified figure than he did a couple of years ago at the giant Velodrome in Berlin. Now he mumbles stage-patter about Philly cheeseburgers and sings with a definite twinkle in his eye.
"Good band, but an outstanding vocalist", Electric Factory manager Geoff Gordon nods appreciatively from the wings. "Valo is already a star in every respect."
The sound mix is pretty awful, like muddy porridge, even right up by the mixing desk, but this is of little relevance to the audience. Everyone seems to know all the lyrics by heart.
This of itself is an achievement, since for instance neither Love Metal nor the newer hits compilation Love Said No have yet been released in the U.S., and fans have had to rely on imports. In spite of this handicap, Love Metal's Soul on Fire and the band's version of the classic Neil Diamond hit Solitary Man (from Love Said No) seem to be the highpoints of the gig for many.
"Take your shirts off", pleads Valo in come-hither fashion from stage front at the end of the gig, as he removes his own top to reveal his imposing (and alarming) collection of tattoos.
The sea of upturned faces roils back and forth and yells for more, but not many in this old Pennsylvania Quaker town actually indulge in ripping off their tops on command.
"This is the band's second tour in the U.S.", explains manager Seppo Vesterinen in the backstage area.
"The general idea is to keep things ticking over, to keep people aware of the band's existence before they take a break. In the spring they will go into the studio to lay down a new album, and next fall it will be back to the States, perhaps as part of a larger tour package, for example Ozzfest or the Jдgermeister Music Tour."
Vesterinen explains H.I.M.'s complex contractual arrangements. The band had a recording deal with BMG in Finland, but the American end of BMG did not want to release the band over here. After an agreed quarantine period, H.I.M. handed over their back catalogue to Universal to distribute in the U.S. market.
"But then when H.I.M. signed a worldwide deal with Warner's Sire label, Universal put out the boys' third album Deep Shadows and Brilliant Highlights without any promotion on their part. Even sold 'cold' like this, it made it into the U.S. Top 200. Love Metal and the newer album may get a Universal release when Warner starts to push their own first H.I.M. album", figures Vesterinen.
Thus far at least, Warner's promo work on behalf of the band meets with Vesterinen's approval: "They show up to all the gigs, and in New York City they got the media on board, from High Times to The New York Times."
H.I.M. are currently touring halls with a capacity of between roughly 1,000 and 3,500, even if in New York they could easily have sold out a bigger venue than the 1,100-seater Irving Plaza.
"Rather than booking big halls, it's much smarter to sell out a place like the Irving Plaza in New яork or the Avalon in Los Angeles just like that, and then add an extra tour date, which you then sell out in a flash, too. Newspaper announcements with the 'Sold Out' logo plastered across them are good for the band's image", says Vesterinen cannily.
Whereas The Rasmus are a radio-friendly band, getting a good deal of airplay, H.I.M.'s music is not played on FM to anything like the extent the band's live support would justify.
"Word has spread to the U.S. audience via the Net and through the jungle telegraph. Young people have become fed up with the top-down radio playlist promo tactics of the record companies. They want something else, and H.I.M. fills this gap."
What else does the band offer, then, in addition to traditional chord progressions composed with acoustic guitar, some attractive vocal lines, and a heavy electric guitar wall of sound?
"It's a kind of mix of Tapio Rautavaara meets AC/DC's Back in Black, figures Ville Valo, who is responsible for the song-writing as well as the vocal delivery and much of the band's stage image.
But hang on a second…Tapio Rautavaara? The 1940s Olympic javelin champion turned troubadour? Does this mean the old Finnish-Slavic-Germanic Schlager tradition is the love-metal band's secret weapon?
This sort of material, after all, was long regarded as the biggest obstacle to taking Finnish rock and pop abroad.
"But hey, that's precisely what sets us apart from the mass of the rest! We are offering up sautйed reindeer, but with a stiff shot of sake on the side. In other words, we are fusing standards that are not generally put together."
Valo has been putting together some new songs for the next studio sessions and he hopes "to scrape the shit off the diamond" with the band's next album.
In search of inspiration for the lyrics, he says he has been reading the rough-hewn works of troubled Lappish author Timo K. Mukka, the Symbolist poetry of Charles Baudelaire, and Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time.
"The Hawking opened up on the empirical level. I've always rebelled against a linear concept of time. I believe in the Native Indian vision of cyclical time."
And what about Mukka or Baudelaire, both of whom were powerfully and sometimes perversely attracted to the words "love" and "death"?
"Well, it was always claimed that they'd influenced my writing, so I thought I'd better read them, and I did find some good material in there. If the Eskimos are supposed to have 27 different words for 'snow', then I'm trying to do the same with the word 'love'", muses Ville Valo.
The relatively large tour of the U.S. that the band is currently undertaking does not seem to have fazed Valo in the least. Then again, the group has already amassed an enormous following in Germany and major successes in the Mediterranean countries and in Eastern Europe.
"Sure, it's great to be touring as a headliner with Monster Magnet, since it was at one of their gigs that I first went to the Tavastia Club venue in Helsinki - as a punter and not as an artist", says Valo. "But even if after a couple of beers you can start imagining you're living out some kind of rockstar fantasy, I mean, let's face it, I still have to buy toilet paper and all that stuff."
H.I.M. try to make sure they remain on the most cordial of terms with all their warm-up acts.
"Hey, it could be the roles are reversed next time out. And my voice could go west tomorrow, or any one of us could get hit by a truck".
When one looks at the goings-on in the dressing room backstage it offers an opportunity to assess the painstaking work of Seppo Vesterinen over the years.
In their day, the glam-rock outfit Hanoi Rocks were not averse to getting trashed on booze and pills, before during and after gigs, whereas here are H.I.M. sitting down in their slightly seedy backstage quarters tucking in to the vegetarian fare cooked up for them by their personal chef Antto Melasniemi.
"Only around 20 years ago Finnish bands went on the road to get legless. The working culture has changed out of all recognition, and people have started to recognise the virtues of the long haul", says Vesterinen. On top of that, Finns have written some hit songs.
The Rasmus broke through internationally with the single In The Shadows. H.I.M.'s biggest European hit is still Join Me from the band's second album, but in Britain it is only the most recent Solitary Man single that has broken into the Top 10.
"Hits are a bit of a double-edged sword. They help you to break a band with a wider audience, but they can also get the artists typecast as a result. The most important thing is continuity and a long career arc, not a short sharp sales peak", is Vesterinen's analysis.
H.I.M. live through the fanaticism of their fans. Hours after the gig is over, a couple of dozen youngsters are still waiting outside the Electric Factory, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Finnish musicians. "Look, I got a Heartagram tattoo done today", says Daniella Denny, and she shows off her new acquisition. "And I'd do anything, absolutely anything, to get backstage."
The long wait was in vain, however. After their dinner, the band all packed into the tour bus and drove to New York to sleep. Before their traditional New Year's Eve gig in Helsinki (at the same Tavastia venue Ville Valo was referring to), they will have to live this life from Detroit to Denver and from Las Vegas to Los Angeles.
| главная | библиотека | спальня | фотоальбом | гостиная | балкон |
