Teräsbetoni are a band who need little introduction. If you are someone who has yet to have the pleasure of making an aquaintenship with the Finnish warrior-quartet; they are a band of strong, solid rock anthems, an overlying Brotherhood Of Metal theme, ferocious vocals and an indescribable example of how hard-rock music is meant to sound.I was blessed to have the opportunity of interviewing vocalist/bass extraordinaire J. Ahola, backing vocalist/guitar hero A. Järvinen, and guitarist/man- who- came- up- with- the- band- name V. Rantanen.
After reading the outcome of that interview, you (as I did) will also discover that not only is this a band who are passionate about their music, but they are a bunch of genuine down-to-earth, funny, easygoing guys.
Enjoy.
Suzi: How are you? Ahola: Thanks for asking, we're just fine. We had a great year with Eurovision, summer festivals and stuff.
J. Ahola and J. Kuokkanen had a history together from the band Critical Mass, and met A. Järvinen and V. Rantanen in 2002. How did you actually all meet initially? Ahola: Actually I was in a band called Critical Mess (a little joke there!) and Kuokkanen wasn't in the band but one the guys introduced me to Kuokkanen. That's how I met Kuokkanen and we played few cover gigs together in a different group. Then the rest of us guys met accidentally in an polytechnic of digital sound and commercial music. After few beers and a good talk, we knew what to do: Finland needed a band that would play real and truthful metal music sung in Finnish. I suggested that Mr. Kuokkanen would be THE MAN for the drums. Everybody said ok and so Teräsbetoni was born. Pretty soon our first demo was out and the rest is history I guess.
Fans of your music from your first homepage in 2003 sent out petitions to record companies demanding a contract for you. How did you feel about such loyalty at such an early stage?Järvinen: As far as I know, no one in our current record company ever received any petititons. It might be true, but so far I haven't been able to verify it.
Ahola: I remember these guys came to see our gig in Turku and they told us they were collecting names for a petition. Of course only the info about the dedication of our fans made us feel really great. Did they ever send it? No matter, since the athmosphere we created together with our fans was the only thing we needed.
How special are your fans? What do you do to give back?Järvinen: Our fans are special all right. On occasions we even receive gifts, which aren't always so modest either. We try to keep in contact with them via our forum, guestbook and even personal e-mails, but if you want to see us give back absolutely everything we have, you need to see us on stage.
In 2003 Teräsbetoni performed their first concert together – tell me about it.Ahola: Well, I am not sure what gig was REALLY our first, but I guess we all feel that a gig in Turku's TVO was spiritually our first. That's where we saw our path was right. A pretty modest place full of topless people screaming louder than the lousy PA could ever do. It was like a dream. People knew the lyrics of the songs, even though the was nothing official out yet. Totally amazing night. I still think it's one the best experiences of my life. It's really hard to tell you about this concert...you just should've been there!
Rantanen: Actually the first concert ever took place at Virrat (the venue was called Eetvartti) and it went quite well, but as Ahola said, the Turku gig (our third performance ever) was the first total explosion!
You made a video for your 2nd single from the debut album "Metallitotuus". Orjatar is a great sound – I was interested in the english translation of Slave Woman! My impression is that it’s tongue-in-cheek, but I just want to check!Ahola: Ah, of course it is. But you should also see it from our music's point of view. You know, we could never do a love song 'cause it would never sound believable. We sing about extreme things and Orjatar fits just fine on that context. And besides, women seem to like that song very much.
(suzi: it’s true, I love it. haha)What was your experience filming the Orjatar video?Ahola: That was the first video shooting experience we ever had and...well, it was really a day of survival. The video was shot on a seashore in front of a castle. In a daytime the temperature was something like +2 celsius and later in the evening below zero...and that wind blowing from the ocean....Phew! You know, we were standing there topless and totally freezing. It rained a lot during the shooting, but I am afraid they didn't use any of those shots or you just can't see it. Later we we're totally wasted and still the director wanted us to stand in cliff without any safety procedures and act few times through the song. Damn, we felt like we didn't have the strength to stand and yet we had to stand up there doing our stuff. I guess it was Rantanen who called it off and said something pretty nasty to the director. We just had enough of that and besides, they didn't use those shots either. Kuokkanen had to drive through the night to Tampere and I kept him awake by telling stupid jokes or something! I guess we woke up aboout 5 am and got home 5 am next morning. A true test of steel I'd say!
Your first single "Taivas lyö tulta" was chosen to be the goal song for the Finnish Icehockey national team A in the Karelian Tournament. That must have been quite a special feeling! But, what I found the most interesting about this particular song of yours, is that it was used on the K-70 program! Have you heard the Eero Sinikannel version? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ny_Rwt_oIE&feature=related) What did you think?Ahola: Yea, we heard about this, too. It's always great to hear that the song just keeps on living and living it's own life. Cool things both.
Rantanen: Though ice hockey is ok, I still can't wait for The Finnish national football team to enter World Cup or the European championship.. If Taivas lyö tulta was played there, it would be something amazing for me ... as a huge football fan.
J. Ahola; you started your musical endeavours on drums before moving into vocals, song writing and bass as each band required. Do you have an instrument in mind that you’d like to tackle next? Are you one of those irritatingly talented people who can just self-teach in a matter of weeks?Ahola: I guess this is enough for me. I would love to play guitar well, but I guess that's where my talents end. I can learn pretty quickly the basics of an instrument, but the deeper know-how is something I'm having hard time to reach. Instead of learning an instrument it would be great to know how to write good string arrangements and that kind of stuff. ...And I am irritating for sure (I've heard this many times), but for different reasons, hah.
J. Ahola; you had the opportunity of writing your own songs for the first time in the band Bulldozer, and now you have offered your penmanship to the likes of Ari Koivunen, how did that come about?Ahola: Yea, the first ones came out with Bulldozer. Those were great days of creation and learning. Ari's A&R who used to work for Warner Music asked me to write a song for Ari's first album. I sent him two songs and Stay True was something they were looking for. Very nice!
You’re all involved in other bands and bits and pieces here and there, I suppose the most well known would be Ahola’s involvement with Nothern Kings and Raskasta Joulua. There is a quote on Wikipedia that says "Band members themselves have said that they are not dead serious about the band’s mentality and are having fun with it". Tell me, is Terasbetoni the side project of it’s members, or the priority band?Ahola: Well, we've been accused of being idiots, too serious, a joke and whatever. So, many times we've been forced to explain that NO, we don't carry axes and swords when we go buying milk and bread from the grocery store. You know, we love what we're doing and we do it 100%, but of course we can't be dead serious about the things we sing about it. The imagery of our lyrics are fantasy, but of course you can find real and heavy themes from our songs. It seems to be pretty controversial to many people. If we'd sing in English, nobody here would ask those kind of questions, but now that people actually understand what we're saying, things might get confusing.
J. Ahola; I did mention your involvements with Northern Kings and Raskasta Joulua. The 2nd NKs album is out now and the RJ tour is looming nearer. How arethese projects going for you?Ahola: They are a nice way of doing something else for a while and of course a time of meeting new people of our field. Many great guys I've met after those first shows of Raskasta Joulua! And of course, when you work with different musicians you have to renew your self, 'cause with every person you have to work a little different way.
There is an upcoming event that will star both Terasbetoni and Northern Kings; Ahola, do you look forward to something like this or are you a little concerned about fatigue performing twice on the one night? (by time of print, these upcoming events were in the past)Ahola: Both of those shows were pretty short, so no, I wasn't concerned about fatique, even though the NK-show was all about high notes for me, which is pretty tiring for sure. The only thing was, that I felt kinda odd performing in two different acts. I didn't feel too comfortable with that.
Last year you entered Eurovision with Missa Miehet Ratsastaa and made another video for the song. This is my favourite video, I think it’s hilarious. Tell me about your experience filming it.Järvinen: Shooting the video was a bit of a chaos to me. Lack of catering and plenty of waiting didn't please me, but the result is very nice, if you're in the right mood. The first scene in the forest looks fantastic.
Ahola: Yea, same here. Making a music video is all about money and making everything as cheap and as fast as possible. So, it was a three day craziness, but hell, this time we we're actually having fun, too. I think everybody enjoyed doing those hotel scenes.
Rantanen: And for the first time we were dealing with some kind of rock star stuff, hah.
What was Eurovision like from a performers point-of-view. I hold Eurovision parties at my house each year and would love to actually go one year; so tell me how you found the whole experience?Järvinen: It's a huge production. What you see in the TV isn't at all what the contenders experience. I found the the contenders themselves to be the most intersting part; there's nice and soulful people there, but also some Barbie-dolls who seemed to live in another world.
Rantanen: For us as artists it was something totally different. From small and ascetic backstages to face hundreds of reporters. We had also a lot of fun on free time. Sun, beer, great local people etc.
You have this great theme of the "Brotherhood of Metal", warrior characters, even keeping in the spirit of things by dubbing your gigs "battles". Being these vivid characters in leather and fur, more often than not you are all bare-chested. How much pressure is there to keep in shape?Järvinen: None? We cherish the ideology of being proud of what you are, even if you have three arms or two heads. It's about self-esteem.
Ahola: ...which we don't have and that's why we're musicians, desperately looking for people's acceptance, hah!
In 2005, your album Metallitotuus was awarded the Metal Album of the year in the Emma Awards. Tell me about your acceptence speech. Were there any tears, did you practise in front of a mirror beforehand or did you forget to thank anyone?Järvinen: There was little time to give any pompous speeches, we thanked the usual people who were involved in the making of the album and our fans who gave their voices to us. One surprise was that we won the Metal-category as we were nominees in the New-Comer and the Song of the Year -catergories as well.
As Metal Warriors, I'm interested to know what your musical guilty- pleasure is. Who is in your cd collection that may surprise your fans?Järvinen: We try to keep a list of what we listen to at our web site. Not much suprises there, I think.
Ahola: I guess we all have those oddities there. Maybe some Finnish slager or sleazy pop music.
Rantanen: Though my cd collection focuses on metal and rock, the genre doesn't matter, when the song is good enough. I have for example cds from Abba, Death and even Prodigy.
During my extensive research for Teräsbetoni on YouTube, I couldn’t help but notice the lack of tattoos for a hard rock band. Why the lack of ink? If you were to get some, what would you get?Järvinen: I'm ugly beyond reason, no help from ink or surgery for me.
Ahola: Why there should be any tattoos? They mean nothing to me.
Rantanen: If the reason to get one was being in a rock band, I don't understand it. If I someday know what kind of tattoo I would get, I'll have it.
I heard through the grapevine (i.e. Vesa from Free Spirit) that you guys got some great new Marshall Amps that you’re pretty excited about. How are they going?Järvinen: I'm using the JVM410H amp at the moment and so far I like it a lot. It's a bit noisy, but rock'n roll is!
Ahola: Yea, I got this Marshall's 400 (tube) watt power amp and two cabinets. It sounds great and it's very powerful. Much more into my liking than Ampeg for example.
Rantanen: I don't know anything about the Marshalls these poor guys use, I have something more professional, haha!!
Understandably, Teräsbetoni lyrics are in Finnish and probably wouldn’t keep the right feel if they were translated to being sung in English. Although English songs are easier to sell overseas. What are your plans of world domination, especially regarding the language barrier?Ahola: I guess we're gonna have start from invading Sweden with fire and steel! No, just kidding. This one is a hard question. There has been some pressure to write songs in english, but we decided not to do that. So, what we need now is a supporter and a distributor for Europe, but because of the language barrier it's not easy. I guess we should find a brave person/organization who/that would be willing to take the chance. Any suggestions?
Your latest album Myrskyntuoja came out this year. How has the response been so far? What can fans expect from this latest offering?Ahola: People have been telling us it's the best album we've done. We feel good about it. It's powerful and raw. It's very pure metal music with some rock elements there, too. You know, metal is basically all about rock. It's also not too polished - we left some edge there.
I usually like to end my interviews with what I can bribe a band with to perform Eurovision – but you’ve already done it! So I’ll ask what advice you would give to a group considering entering the song contest?Ahola: I think the best advice is not to expect anything and do the best you can. And if you get a chance to go to the main event, enjoy the trip, 'cause it's one of those once in a life time experiences!
Suzi
