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Tampere, Klubi, Thursday 15. Nov. 2007
Tampere, Klubi, Thursday 15. Nov. 2007
Wet snowflakes and hard wind outside made this November evening feel even colder than it really was. Antti Anatomy seemed a bit tired from a long day of work, but still eager to answer all the questions I had lined up for him.
After the necessary small talk, we began the interview by going through today's schedule.
- I was in Helsinki with Jonne. We were shooting a TV interview for a programme called "Wintteri". I think it will come out sometime close to the New Year's eve. I've never seen or heard of this kinda TV show, but that's what we were filming over there. We also did an interview for a magazine called "Koululainen". The record company guys did some promoting at a radio station, but we weren't there with Jonne.
I also remembered to ask about Antti's visit to Kokkola last week. He told me that there was an exposition called "Rock Your Life" and it was for teenagers. It was an informative happening about professional schools.
- This exposition was organized by Vallu Valpio (a finnish celebrity) and we have known each other for a very long time. Vallu was searching for musicians that have professional education and when he remembered that I have studied metal industry, he called me up and asked me to come over. I think I'm the only one from our band that has graduated from professional school.
- Also Siiri Nordin from Killer was there, as well as Tea (a finnish singer) who is studying to be a nurse. We were all sitting in a big hall, talking about our professions and Vallu was asking all kinds of interesting questions. The teenagers seemed to be interested when I told them stuff I know. I guess it was cool when a dude from a real rock band comes over and talks about this kinda stuff. There were also some people who have actually been working in the metal industy, you know, cause I only have the education. I've never been to a job like that.
There was a funny incident with the schedule. Vallu hadn't been very clear about things so Antti almost left a day too early.
- I was asking about what time does this thing end on Thursday, so I'd know when I'll be able to head home. That's when he told me I should also be there on Friday! I was all like "wooot??" cause I swear he hadn't said anything about that, Antti told me laughing.
Only a couple of weeks have passed by after Negative's visit to China. Naturally I wanted to hear something about the trip. Obviously it was an exiting experience.
- China.... What could I tell you about China..? We had two gigs; one in Peking and one in Shangai. I got a piece of the Great Wall of China. And food poisoning from chinese food. I think it was rat or some small rodent. Anyway, it was hairy and felt weird. We were at some photoshoot and the people over there asked us if we were hungry. And as it happened that we were, they brought us some local food. It was rice with these things that looked like spring rolls and when you took a bite, you had to pull bunches of hair and stuff outta your mouth. Well, in China, people eat dogs and all kinda small animals that are put through a meat mincer with coats and skins and everything. You know, like they make chicken nuggets in finland, they put almost the whole chicken in there. My food poisoning kicked in once I had already gotten back home, but for example, one of our crew members got sick earlier. So he had to sit at the toilet the whole eight- hour flight back to Finland.
Snack and Slammer were also there, but they didn't touch these spring rolls.
- There were 2 of them on each plate. I ate one, because I just had to try it. I really tried to talk Snack into having some, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. He doesn't have much stommach for these kinds of things... I think it tasted like beef, but the appearance wasn't all that appealing. In the whole, I didn't even eat all that much chinese food over there. But Peking Duck we did have and it was very good.
The gigs went really well. Anatomy told me that there were a lot of people and good vibes.
- The gigs were awesome. We were the first finnish rock band that ever set foot to China and it felt good. Well, Danny (a finnish, middle aged singer) has been there, but chinese people don't consider him "rock". I just had to tell them that Danny is a hundred times more "rock" than many of those who consider themselves "rock".
- All that rock- stuff seems to be really hot in China. There haven't been all that many rock bands, I got the impression they kinda think it's "bad" in a way. Rolling Stones were finally there a couple of years ago, it was something they had tried to do for years before it actually happened. It was funny though, how you noticed that in China, people are not very familliar with band stuff, un- experienced, so everything didn't always go so smoothly. Things kept changing all the time. We were supposed to play three gigs over there, but just one day before the trip, we heard there's only going to be two. One venue suddenly changed just a day before the gig. And I heard there had been some fans waiting at the wrong place but since no one had told them that the gig has been moved else where, they thought it had been cancelled and went home. So there seemed to be lack of information and advertising.
- Also, our trip from Peking to Shanghai was exiting even before it took place. The people were unable to decide if we should take the train or fly. Right at first, we were supposed to go by plane but then it changed to taking a train. Then suddenly it was the plane again, and after that the train. When we were finally starting to make are way to the train, we found ourselves from an airplane after all. The crew almost lost their temper cause it was really difficult for them to plan anything when things kept changing. For the band, it's easy anyway. You just have to remember to move yourself and be on the stage on time.
- We have gotten pretty used to Japan, and for some reason, I kinda expected China to be similar. In Japan, everything is always so well planned and everything works somewhat perfectly, but this wasn't quite the case in China. Even the traffic was quite interesting when everyone was honking the horn constantly and the taxi drivers passed other cars through lawns and stuff.
As we "normal" people in Finland don't really know that much about China and chinese habits, I had to wonder if the boys had prepared themselves in any particular way.
- Noo, not really. It wasn't that strickt, you know. The lyrics had to be sent over there in advance, because they wanted to check them for political stuff, I guess. The Rolling Stones weren't allowed to play "Satisfaction" back when they were there, but I think all our songs were okay.
And it's always interesting to know, if there were any incidents or difficulties worth mentioning? This was something Antti really had to think about.
- Ummm... There's always something... Oh, yeah, we lost Sir Christus the moment we got to Peking. We all came out of the plane and suddenly noticed there's no Sir in sight. We were looking for him, waiting for him and trying to call him for like two hours at the airport, but he was nowhere to be found. We sent him the address of the hotel by text message and so he had found his way to the hotel by himself then sometime during that night. When we tried asking him where in the hell had he been, the answer was something like: "I have no idea". Well, this is just the basic stuff, you know, we haven't been travelling all that much yet... Soo one can't really learn all that quickly, you know. (lol)
Everyone is very eager to know about the upcoming recordings of the new album.
- We'll enter the studio as soon as possible, the training for new songs will start like tomorrow or the day after. We have about 15 songs ready, so once we have arranged and trained them, we'll hit the studios.
The Negative DVD is something the fans have been waiting for a quite a long time. Antti says that's one thing he might be even more eager to get out than the new album.
- This DVD has been such a "Never Ending Project", that I seriously cannot wait to get it out. It's been very stressfull with all the stuff that's had to be done. All the pictures, menu music, texts and videomaterial, oh man. It's been a handful, so it would be absolutely awesome to finally publish it so we could start focusing on the new album.
- The amount of work this kind of DVD requires, it's huge. I mean, cause it wasn't just "this one gig", it was so much more. When there's like a whole bunch of extra material and pics that aren't even in digital format because they're so old. And going through hours and hours of video material, searching for stuff that we want to use. There could be tapes with two hours of mindless goofying and in the middle, there might be like a couple of minutes that we needed. So we would go through all of them (there were like 60 tapes) and then mark out the number of the tape, the exact time when it happens and description about what happens. For example: "Tape # 11, 1h 23min, Larry throws up and swings his nuts" or something. Even the cover of the DVD was difficult to put together. And you know, when it's limited how much you can put stuff on one DVD, we had to choose pictures even though we would have wanted to put all of them in there. It's really been a long and exhausting project but luckily it's almost done!
Once we had gone through all the important questions, it was time to let this bass player go. Though hungry and tired, still smiling. Antti Anatomy dressed his thick coat on, pulled the hood over his head and disappeared in to the dark and snowy night.
Till next time!
Takaisin
Tampere, Klubi, Thursday 15. Nov. 2007
Wet snowflakes and hard wind outside made this November evening feel even colder than it really was. Antti Anatomy seemed a bit tired from a long day of work, but still eager to answer all the questions I had lined up for him.
After the necessary small talk, we began the interview by going through today's schedule.
- I was in Helsinki with Jonne. We were shooting a TV interview for a programme called "Wintteri". I think it will come out sometime close to the New Year's eve. I've never seen or heard of this kinda TV show, but that's what we were filming over there. We also did an interview for a magazine called "Koululainen". The record company guys did some promoting at a radio station, but we weren't there with Jonne.
I also remembered to ask about Antti's visit to Kokkola last week. He told me that there was an exposition called "Rock Your Life" and it was for teenagers. It was an informative happening about professional schools.
- This exposition was organized by Vallu Valpio (a finnish celebrity) and we have known each other for a very long time. Vallu was searching for musicians that have professional education and when he remembered that I have studied metal industry, he called me up and asked me to come over. I think I'm the only one from our band that has graduated from professional school.
- Also Siiri Nordin from Killer was there, as well as Tea (a finnish singer) who is studying to be a nurse. We were all sitting in a big hall, talking about our professions and Vallu was asking all kinds of interesting questions. The teenagers seemed to be interested when I told them stuff I know. I guess it was cool when a dude from a real rock band comes over and talks about this kinda stuff. There were also some people who have actually been working in the metal industy, you know, cause I only have the education. I've never been to a job like that.
There was a funny incident with the schedule. Vallu hadn't been very clear about things so Antti almost left a day too early.
- I was asking about what time does this thing end on Thursday, so I'd know when I'll be able to head home. That's when he told me I should also be there on Friday! I was all like "wooot??" cause I swear he hadn't said anything about that, Antti told me laughing.
Only a couple of weeks have passed by after Negative's visit to China. Naturally I wanted to hear something about the trip. Obviously it was an exiting experience.
- China.... What could I tell you about China..? We had two gigs; one in Peking and one in Shangai. I got a piece of the Great Wall of China. And food poisoning from chinese food. I think it was rat or some small rodent. Anyway, it was hairy and felt weird. We were at some photoshoot and the people over there asked us if we were hungry. And as it happened that we were, they brought us some local food. It was rice with these things that looked like spring rolls and when you took a bite, you had to pull bunches of hair and stuff outta your mouth. Well, in China, people eat dogs and all kinda small animals that are put through a meat mincer with coats and skins and everything. You know, like they make chicken nuggets in finland, they put almost the whole chicken in there. My food poisoning kicked in once I had already gotten back home, but for example, one of our crew members got sick earlier. So he had to sit at the toilet the whole eight- hour flight back to Finland.
Snack and Slammer were also there, but they didn't touch these spring rolls.
- There were 2 of them on each plate. I ate one, because I just had to try it. I really tried to talk Snack into having some, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. He doesn't have much stommach for these kinds of things... I think it tasted like beef, but the appearance wasn't all that appealing. In the whole, I didn't even eat all that much chinese food over there. But Peking Duck we did have and it was very good.
The gigs went really well. Anatomy told me that there were a lot of people and good vibes.
- The gigs were awesome. We were the first finnish rock band that ever set foot to China and it felt good. Well, Danny (a finnish, middle aged singer) has been there, but chinese people don't consider him "rock". I just had to tell them that Danny is a hundred times more "rock" than many of those who consider themselves "rock".
- All that rock- stuff seems to be really hot in China. There haven't been all that many rock bands, I got the impression they kinda think it's "bad" in a way. Rolling Stones were finally there a couple of years ago, it was something they had tried to do for years before it actually happened. It was funny though, how you noticed that in China, people are not very familliar with band stuff, un- experienced, so everything didn't always go so smoothly. Things kept changing all the time. We were supposed to play three gigs over there, but just one day before the trip, we heard there's only going to be two. One venue suddenly changed just a day before the gig. And I heard there had been some fans waiting at the wrong place but since no one had told them that the gig has been moved else where, they thought it had been cancelled and went home. So there seemed to be lack of information and advertising.
- Also, our trip from Peking to Shanghai was exiting even before it took place. The people were unable to decide if we should take the train or fly. Right at first, we were supposed to go by plane but then it changed to taking a train. Then suddenly it was the plane again, and after that the train. When we were finally starting to make are way to the train, we found ourselves from an airplane after all. The crew almost lost their temper cause it was really difficult for them to plan anything when things kept changing. For the band, it's easy anyway. You just have to remember to move yourself and be on the stage on time.
- We have gotten pretty used to Japan, and for some reason, I kinda expected China to be similar. In Japan, everything is always so well planned and everything works somewhat perfectly, but this wasn't quite the case in China. Even the traffic was quite interesting when everyone was honking the horn constantly and the taxi drivers passed other cars through lawns and stuff.
As we "normal" people in Finland don't really know that much about China and chinese habits, I had to wonder if the boys had prepared themselves in any particular way.
- Noo, not really. It wasn't that strickt, you know. The lyrics had to be sent over there in advance, because they wanted to check them for political stuff, I guess. The Rolling Stones weren't allowed to play "Satisfaction" back when they were there, but I think all our songs were okay.
And it's always interesting to know, if there were any incidents or difficulties worth mentioning? This was something Antti really had to think about.
- Ummm... There's always something... Oh, yeah, we lost Sir Christus the moment we got to Peking. We all came out of the plane and suddenly noticed there's no Sir in sight. We were looking for him, waiting for him and trying to call him for like two hours at the airport, but he was nowhere to be found. We sent him the address of the hotel by text message and so he had found his way to the hotel by himself then sometime during that night. When we tried asking him where in the hell had he been, the answer was something like: "I have no idea". Well, this is just the basic stuff, you know, we haven't been travelling all that much yet... Soo one can't really learn all that quickly, you know. (lol)
Everyone is very eager to know about the upcoming recordings of the new album.
- We'll enter the studio as soon as possible, the training for new songs will start like tomorrow or the day after. We have about 15 songs ready, so once we have arranged and trained them, we'll hit the studios.
The Negative DVD is something the fans have been waiting for a quite a long time. Antti says that's one thing he might be even more eager to get out than the new album.
- This DVD has been such a "Never Ending Project", that I seriously cannot wait to get it out. It's been very stressfull with all the stuff that's had to be done. All the pictures, menu music, texts and videomaterial, oh man. It's been a handful, so it would be absolutely awesome to finally publish it so we could start focusing on the new album.
- The amount of work this kind of DVD requires, it's huge. I mean, cause it wasn't just "this one gig", it was so much more. When there's like a whole bunch of extra material and pics that aren't even in digital format because they're so old. And going through hours and hours of video material, searching for stuff that we want to use. There could be tapes with two hours of mindless goofying and in the middle, there might be like a couple of minutes that we needed. So we would go through all of them (there were like 60 tapes) and then mark out the number of the tape, the exact time when it happens and description about what happens. For example: "Tape # 11, 1h 23min, Larry throws up and swings his nuts" or something. Even the cover of the DVD was difficult to put together. And you know, when it's limited how much you can put stuff on one DVD, we had to choose pictures even though we would have wanted to put all of them in there. It's really been a long and exhausting project but luckily it's almost done!
Once we had gone through all the important questions, it was time to let this bass player go. Though hungry and tired, still smiling. Antti Anatomy dressed his thick coat on, pulled the hood over his head and disappeared in to the dark and snowy night.
Till next time!
Takaisin