Who started the band and how you met each other?
I started the band as a solo project outside my other band Hittegods. I found the other guys at muusikoiden.net, which is a Finnish site for musicians. I was very fortunate because we really work well together and share the same musical background and ideas. I met the guys before we played anything to get to know them a bit and to see if our chemistry would work out and it did!
This album has a lot of variety. Was this your purpose since the beginning or happened suddenly?
We never really planned to make a very versatile album, we just did the best we could with the ideas we had. But it was when we had to decide which songs to use on the album we realized that we have different kind of songs and that we want to make a combination that shows all sides of the band. So you could say that it happened naturally with a little bit of planning!
Talking about this sound variety. How was the writing process? Did you work all together? Was it all spontaneous?
I did all the writing on my own but of course the band tested the ideas together and agreed on arrangements together. I’m most comfortable when I write alone but I do accept new ideas and I’m ready to try them too. That did not happen very much for this album but who knows what’s going to happen next time. It takes me quite a long time to write a song because the world is full of possibilities and I want to consider all options over time to make up my mind about lyrics, structure, key etc. I have a lot of ideas on my mind all the time but it takes time to work them out and put the right ones together.
Who made the artwork? It is awesome! Can you tell us a little bit about how this artwork represents the album?
Thank you for the compliment regarding artwork, I think it’s awesome too! The painting was done by Joshua S. Levin, an American artist who lives in Las Vegas. Artwork is very important in many ways and it took me a long time to find this one. The original artwork is about the elixir of life, water, and how it should belong to everybody. For me that piece of art represents creative spirit and how making music is in many ways chasing rainbows, reaching for something you never get. It also combines my favorite colors orange, purple and turquoise not to mention how it connects with the title of the album and Graham’s history with Rainbow. Last but not least I wanted to come up with a positive and colorful cover instead of a dark and gloomy pictures so many metal bands use nowadays. It pops out nicely when next to those darker images in the internet. I’m very pleased with the artwork and I found it at deviantart.com, a great art website. It’s amazing how many great amateur artists there are in the world!
I noticed that only Peter James Goodman has a metal background. Am I right? Is there any other member who has been in the Finnish metal scene?
Pete has a long track record in Finnish metal. His band Conquest featured Marco Hietala on bass among many other well-known Finnish musicians. He’s also been a vocalist on many metal albums. The other guys really don’t have a metal past, more like hard rock and street rock bands. I really don’t consider us metal, we’re more like hard rock with an occasional metal vibe. We’re between a rock and a hard place!
How did you prepare to record the album? I read you practiced a lot. How much did the band practice? I read it took you only 10 days to record the album? Was it hard? I guess you all already had some kind of experience in the studio, isn’t it?
We practiced the songs for 3-4 months before we went to the studio for the first time, together and individually with Pete and Vesa. It’s always good to practice together but when preparing to go to studio it’s best to take some quality time with each player to make sure things go down well in the studio. Those ten studio days we used took place between July and October so it was not done in a row. Which was just fine, that’s how we had some extra time to consider arrangements, sounds and so on. We also recorded a couple of songs again because we weren’t quite ready in July plus we had to change keys to make them perfect for Pete to sing. We all have lots of studio experience but it’s always a new situation going there and trying to come up with the best possible thing on a tight time frame. It would be wonderful to be able to spend a month or two in the studio but that’s not possible with our budget, we’re not Guns N’ Roses!
This is a must question. How did you get Graham Bonnet in your album? Did you meet him?
Graham Bonnet thing happened without planning, just spontaneously in our rehearsal room with Vesa when we were playing Michael Schemer’s «Desert Song» for fun. We’re both big Assault Attack fans and think the album is fantastic. I then came up with a new riff influenced by «Desert Song» and we started jokingly talking that we should get Graham sing it. He’s always been my favorite singer and I knew he’d done stuff with many bands, including this Japanese band Anthem, whose «Midnight Sun» is a great song. So it really was a joke but the next day I decided to do something about it and found this German agency who’d dealt with Graham and Alcatrazz before. With them we then contacted Graham and it took a couple of months to negotiate cooperation and time frame. We even talked about recording the whole album with Graham but at the end of the day we decided to do just one song with him. We have not met him yet in person but we will!
Is it true that you composed more songs? What are you going to do with them?
I have a lot of material for the next record, both unused unrecorded full songs plus new songs without arrangement or lyrics. It’s going to be really difficult to select the songs for the next album but there is plenty of material and when the time is ripe we’ll start planning what to do next. Right now I have an idea to make another record with different kind of songs but it’s really too early to discuss that now, first I want people to hear these songs!
This is a very 70’s/80’s oriented album. However it is still enjoyable nowadays. How would you explain this property in music?
I think that 70’s and 80’s are quite different musically but still the same in hard rock and metal, because there was natural continuity from Black Sabbath and Judas Priest to Metallica and Faith No More, with the same basic idea but lots of different directions and experimenting. Music technology went on, MTV united audiences and so on. And the songs had hooks and choruses. Big hairs helped a bit too! That just was the right time after 60’s folk and psychedelia before grunge and hip hop. I still believe in songs with a proper melody and big chorus, maybe a guitar solo too!
Are you planning any tour or something to promote this album? Which is going to be your next step?
Right now we are marketing the new album in order to get as much publicity as possible. We have only one show booked now, that’s supporting Graham Bonnet in Helsinki in April. However, we are now planning our live set and suitable live dates for 2016. We need partners for that but we’re working on it. Our idea is also to come up with a couple of videos this spring so that people can hear more of our songs on the web.
Thanks a lot for your time! The last words are yours. Would you like to add something for all the readers who are just about to know your music?
I want to thank you very much for this interview, all the best to all Mexican hard rock and metal fans. Hopefully we can make some Mexican fans too! If you like our songs please share them and buy the album!
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[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjAUCJ5e4nk]
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