Tina Sequeira - Ontario Metal
Eicca Toppinen - Apocalyptica (cello)

Tina: Really recently, you guys contributed a track to the new Rammstein single, called Kerosiini…

Eicca: Yeah Kerosiini! (laughs) Because the original is called "Benzin"

Tina: That's the one! So did they ask you to do it or did you guys say "Hey we wanna do this!"

Eicca: No, they asked us to do it. I think they made like nine remixes of the song for the single, and then they picked up three: ours, Beastie Boys and Meshuggah. Very different metal bands. So they picked up those versions for the single. So many times when you have a single, you have to have some extra, something special on there. One way to do that is just to ask people to do remixes.

Tina: How did you guys make your remix sound different from the others?

Eicca: I think our remix is maybe a little bit harder than Rammstein… we used the original vocals and drum tracks, and changed the song a little bit, and mixed them again. Then a little bit worked on the riffs - there's some more action there! A little more brutal sound! Even the Rammstein original - it sounds a little bit punk to be Rammstein. I don't know, have you heard it?

Tina: No, I haven't.

Eicca: Ah then maybe it's not out yet. So it's more straightforward, more simple… the sound is not so produced in a way - a little bit raw compared to Rammstein normally.

Tina: Speaking of remixes… on your last album, the self-titled album, you had Quutamo in English, German and French plus the original instrumental. How did you decide to do that?

Eicca: The original idea came from our publisher, who is French. He's been looking for co-operation partners in France. And he offered this girl, this singer, "Manu" - her name is Emmanuelle Monet. And when we heard her voice, we were like "Yeah, okay, do your stuff!" So when we heard the French version, then our record company in Germany was like "Hey, it would be great if we could make German and English versions of this song." So then we found Marta from Die Happy, and it was just for experimenting.

Tina: I think it's really good, but my favourite is the French version - although, I was really surprised at the German one, since I expected it to sound kinda harsh because of the language… but Marta actually made it sounds really sweet.

Eicca: Yeah, the German one is very nice as well, but the French one is my favourite too, in a way as well. I dunno, it's something completely different compared to what we have done in the past. It's so nice to work on a song with different versions and different vocals because it's amazing how much the image and atmosphere of the song is different, depending, for example, on which language you are singing. French is so smooth and in a way… so… ARTY! (laughs) and that makes a totally different blend for the song.

Tina: Yeah, I think Manu did a fantastic job on that! I was checking out some of her own band's stuff - Dolly - and the music isn't really my style, but her voice is killer!

Eicca: Yeah, it's really amazing!

Tina: Okay, so are you guys gonna be working on new material now? Or do you have plans to soon (after the tour?)
Eicca: New material??? (laughs) Naaahhh! It's like, you know… I'm actually the only one who played all the shows this year, from the band. (laughs) Every other has been missing from a few shows during the year! But yesterday was show #101. And if you play shows every evening like that, it's kinda difficult to come up with new stuff. I tried that, but to write for Apocalyptica, I find that I'm somehow repeating the stuff that we're playing and it's not interesting. I'd rather write music for Apocalyptica after getting some distance from touring and some distance from the band and some free space. Right now my head is so full of these songs that we're playing everyday, that you just tend to repeat the same shit, you know?

Tina: So I guess after the tour, you're gonna take a break first? A long break! (laughs)

Eicca: I would say the next release would be out earliest 2007 before Christmas… or beginning 2008. Because we've been releasing (in ten years) five albums - basically every second year. And touring a lot between albums. So, we've been constantly working on the band. And as you know, as we've got families and stuff, we have to lead like... you know, a regular life sometimes! (laughs)

Tina: Actually I wanted to ask you about that. The last time I interviewed you (March 2005) at the Opera House, you said you have a son -

Eicca: Yeah, two sons

Tina: Ah, two sons. And Paavo has a little boy too, right?

Eicca: Yeah

Tina: So how does it feel when you have to go on tour for so long - I mean, is it normal, like most other parents have to go to work everyday, or is it harder for you?

Eicca: It used to be much harder. I think it was really hard around 2001, when we were touring for Cult. I would have really liked to… well, it was basically because there was a bad mood in the band and it wasn't so enjoyable. So it was really like… having to answer the question "What am I fucking doing here?! I should not be here." You know? And I felt all the time, like I was in the wrong place. When I was at home, I felt like I should go on tour. And when I was on tour, I felt like I should be home. It's a horrible time, you know, feeling all the time that you're never in the right place. And then I just figured in my mind that it's just my job and that I can't live without getting on stage. I need to get on stage. I found it out when I had a long break, like half a year at home. I realised that - it comes after few months, it's like "aaah I have to play some shows!!!" (laughs) And then I realised that I have to spread them out, to balance it so that there's not too much touring.

Originally we planned like 80 shows for this year - and now we've played 140! (laughs) It got out of hand!! (laughing) Because we thought that album is so good, it's a good reason to go to new territories with that album now, like Canada, USA, South America… and work harder on England and France and Spain.. these kind of countries.

But it's hard, the longer tours are hard - my older one, he'll be in school this year. So it's a hard time, the autumn now - it's kind of tough for him, because it's a big change. So that's why we didn't have so many shows in August, I wanted to stay home for him. It's like, you know, planning things and organising - so I know that basically all of next year, I'm gonna be home. Just making a few tours, something in the summer festivals and maybe one North American tour in the summer. And that's all for next year. And all the rest of the work, the song-writing and stuff, I can do at home. It makes it easier for the family too - just to know that they only have to suffer for this year! (laughs)

But it's of course, the hardest thing is that - I'm so used to be on the road, it's not a problem - but for kids it's a lot harder. It's very abstract, small kids they don't understand what means three weeks. It's reeeeeally a long time for them, it's really a long time. I mean, it's a long time for us already, to be three weeks on the road. That's why we made a decision that we have no longer than 3 weeks for touring. Except the Rammstein tour was 5 weeks, but during that tour, Paavo was off from three shows, just to be one week, five days at home. Just to break the tour. I took my family on tour for like five, six days. Luckily this band is like a community, in a way that everybody accepts that they have a private life. It's not like just living for the band. It's acceptable, so if somebody wants to bring their girlfriend or wife or kids on board, then they have to do it. Everybody understands that it's just - if somebody wants to do so, he has to do so. And everybody appreciates it.

Tina: What do your kids think about having a dad who is in a famous metal band?

Eicca: (laughs) I don't know how much they even realise it! Maybe the older one, a liiitle bit! I think he might be a little bit proud about it. But for them, it's so natural for them - they've been on the road always - not all the time, but every year, they're coming to festivals and they hang around with Rammstein or whatever, you know. (laughs) Rammstein is their favourite! I don't know how weird they feel that it is, that I know all these people - people who are like in Finnish bands, like Ville Valo - people who are on TV, a lot of people who are just friends of ours. I don't know, maybe it's strange for them. And my wife, she's an actress, she's also working on TV. She's doing uh… what's the word in English?

Tina: Like ads? Commercials?

Eicca: No, like doing a public work - like you work in public, you have to do interviews, you are on TV…

Tina: Like a TV host?

Eicca: No she's not a TV host. She's an actress, for example in a drama series. She freelances, working in different stuff, movies, theatre and this stuff. But… I don't know, when you don't personally think it's something special, I don't think the kids will think it's that strange either. I think for kids, it doesn't matter, they don't think about it so much. It's just their normal lives, they don't know anything else! (laughs)

Tina: Okay moving on… how did Apocalyptica get selected to play at the World Championships in Athletics?

Eicca: We were just asked to. The opening ceremony was really crap! So we were really happy that nobody showed it on the TV because (laughs) we thought it was like from Russia in the 70's!

Tina: (laughing) Oh no!! What happened??

Eicca: No, I don't know what happened… the whole thing looked crap, it was bad luck it was raining like hell. But it was organised err like the whole drama in the ceremony was kinda boring and the stage looked crap. It was a bit like… "Fuuuuck!"

Tina: (laughs) Ah well, it happens sometimes right?

Eicca: (sighs) Yeah, you don't know up front what's going to happen. It was like "Who is playing in this opening ceremony??" But then originally, they didn't get all the artists they were searching for. They tried to get Bryan Adams and uhh… well, there was a plan that they'd introduce all the cities where the World Championships were done in the past, so they tried to get an artist from every territory. Leningrad Cowboys was the most stupid choice because Leningrad Cowboys is… something from the past! (laughing) And I don't remember all of this but they had really big plans for this, but they didn't get those artists, so it flattened. Artist-wise, there was Nightwish, there was a lot of Finnish bands, I think about four of us… also Värtina, which is like a folk music band. So that's some background.

Tina: Ah okay. Apocalyptica were also selected to play at MIDEM (a music industry market) early next year in France and -

Eicca: You know about it! HOW?!

Tina: (laughing) I did my research!

Eicca: Yeah but I thought that nobody knows about it yet.

Tina: Umm, it was posted on a couple of websites… you guys, The Rasmus, Nightwish and HIM.

Eicca: Really? Is this the lineup? (laughing)

Tina: (laughing) I think that's the lineup!

Eicca: (still laughing) Really… I didn't know that!

Tina: Apparently they wanted to showcase the best of Finnish music… like current modern Finnish music.

Eicca: I thought that we were headlining that thing. Did you find any other information like…

Tina: I think so! You should probably check with your tour manager though (laughs) I could be wrong!

Eicca: (laughing) Yeah, but that's good!

Tina: So anyway, my question is… since Apocalyptica is now considered a major part of the modern Finnish music scene, what are you thoughts on current Finnish music compared to the scene there like ten or twenty years ago?

Eicca: Yeah it's changed very much. I think there were some bands in the eighties, who tried to - like Hanoi Rocks - who tried to make it in the national scene. I think Hanoi Rocks, they had good possibilities for them, but then the drummer died. I think everybody is thinking now, it's more obvious like, "Let's go abroad". There's still a lot of great bands who are just singing in Finnish and they can't be known abroad because of the language… but those bands who are singing in English, and they're taking it seriously - there's so many doors open.

Like twenty years ago, there was nothing open. Even when we began ten years ago, there were no open doors. I remember in 1998, we got an award in Finland, when we released Inquisition Symphony. We got an award for the first most-selling album abroad - you know, international sales. 250,000 copies. And it was the most best-selling album in Finland ever. And now it's completely different - HIM has sold like more than 3 million, we sold like 2 million, The Rasmus has sold about 1.5 million, Nightwish is close to 1 million with their latest album. And it's changed completely. And now the attitude is really like, you know, there is a formed association and we're trying to learn what the Swedes did in the past. Because they've been always successful since ABBA. And they have had a really good support system by the government. Back then in Finland, we didn't have anything.

I just did some research - like research how much money - like on an economical level, what is the influence of Finland on bringing bands abroad. How much money do bands bring into the country? And what kind of system could the government organise to support bands and all this shit… I just made this research like two, three days ago. So I think it's getting better all the time, and also the bands are getting much better. And it's cool because Finland is a very strange country in a way, that there's a lot of different culture and things that make Finnish bands sound, in a way, a bit different from others. But still, they can be European but also sound like an English band while still keeping their original flavour.

Tina: Like The Rasmus…

Eicca: Exactly! But the thing is that Finland has so different cultural history than other European countries, and that makes a special flavour for the mentalities of people, that you can hear in the music.

Tina: Okay, now I want to ask you a bit about your videos… you guys have a LOT!!

Eicca: We just spent all our money on the videos, fuck!! (laughs)

Tina: (laughing) Did you enjoy it though?? How long does it take to record them?

Eicca: Our part takes normally one to two days.

Tina: That's not bad.

Eicca: Yeah, but I'd say there's been too many videos per album, in a way. (laughs) From an economical point of view. For example, for this past album, we have made like, five videos. Luckily we shot the three black and white videos (in the different languages) in the same time, so it was like a blue screen video. We shot the girls in front of a blue screen and built the machinery around them. So we didn't actually shoot three different videos. Also we did so many videos because we made first the instrumental video, and then we made the vocal tracks, so we had to make videos of the vocal tracks. It's been like almost three videos per album.

Tina: That's a lot of work!

Eicca: Yeah, it is, that's the reason why I want to have a really long break. Because I know that doing an album is not just doing an album. When you go into the studio, from that day on, you have to work for the next two years really hard. So you're basically all the time in the studio, then you're working on doing photo-sessions, then you're doing the videos, shooting the videos, doing all the promotions and then one year or one and a half year on the road. So it's not just a matter of when you're ready to go into the studio… it's more like when you're ready to (laughs) when you're ready to do this two year period again! (laughs)

Tina: And how was it working with Lauri on the Life Burns video?

Eicca: That was great! Lauri is a cool mate. We became very good friends while working together. Actually I was just at their release party a week ago, it was really cool. He's a really nice guy, he has an amazing ability to be excited about music. And not of everything, he's really positive. But nowadays, in the media and stuff, he seems to be getting more private and closed, but in person, he's really open, he's a really nice guy.

Tina: This is a slightly weird question but… in the Life Burns video, I noticed Perttu mouthing the lyrics that Lauri was singing. Do you ever find it weird not having lyrics in your songs? Do you miss it or is it like classical music, where you're just used to no lyrics?

Eicca: Yeah I think we're not missing the lyrics. For example, for myself personally, I understand nothing about writing lyrics. For me it's like a black area! (laughs) So that's why I basically never even tried. No, I tried once - we had an experimentation when we were recording Cult - on one song, I think it was Hope - there was a spoken word text on it. But then we took it off because it felt really like it got too much attention among all this instrumental stuff. So okay, let's keep it instrumental. I don't know… we're not missing it, because we've always been playing cello with no lyrics, so for us, it's nothing strange. Sometimes you can tell much more by the music than the lyrics.

Tina: Yeah, you're right about that. Going back to the videos… who is that girl in the Bittersweet video? Everybody is asking about her but nobody seems to know.

Eicca: I think the director found her. She was having some test shoots for different people. It was funny, while we were shooting, I found out that she's a friend of my brother! (laughs) I didn't know that!

Tina: Small world!!

Eicca: (laughs) Yeah small world! Small country! I don't remember her name though.

Tina: (laughing) Okay, can you explain to me that shot in Bittersweet, when you guys are hanging upside down from the ceiling over Lauri and Ville?

Eicca: Yeah, that was one of the funny things to do, since we were playing upside down.

Tina: Oh, you really were?! I thought it was just computer effects.

Eicca: No, it's really us.

Tina: (laughs) How did you do that?!

Eicca: They had some kind of wires through the holes and then we put on this… uh…

Tina: Harness?

Eicca: Like… what is this thing, when you're climbing mountains?

Tina: Yeah, a harness.

Eicca: Yeah so that was under the clothes. And then they broke our trousers, cut them off, and then they screwed the chairs to the roof. So the chairs were there, screwed to the roof. And the cellos were already up there, just with some wires! (laughing) And then it was time to go - "Let's go up and up and uuupppp!!!!!!!!"
(lots of laughing from everyone)

"To the cello! Stretch to the chair!" It was reeeally crazy! And then headbanging was bad (laughs) because we're upside down - all the blood goes down to your head. Perttu fainted when we were shooting the second time. Because I think we shot about five times with Paavo. But Perttu was able to do only two, because on the second time he fainted (laughs). And it's really hard because there are lots of lights and you're upside down and headbanging and it was really crazy! (more laughing)

And it was so difficult, because playing is based on the weight on your hands. And then you take the cello (on the ceiling) and you feel like you've never played cello! Because the weight is going the wrong way. So it's really strange! (laughs) But I think the cool thing about shooting videos is that you have to do really crazy stuff, what you don't do normally. Like playing in the water, in the Seeman video - sitting there in the sea! Or going in the desert, looking like it's far away - that was really cool. What other crazy videos? We were doing the Nothing Else Matters video in the snow, really fucking cold there! We were on the lake, where there is the ice. But it was not frozen very thick, so it was kind of (motions with his hands to show ice breaking)… and it was melting so we had to shoot very fast!! (lots of laughing) And it was really cold, like -5 degrees, and we have to play there with not too much clothes.

Tina: And I guess you just use other cellos for these videos? Not your good ones.

Eicca: Yeah, we normally rent some shitty ones for the videos. I can't remember what other crazy videos we did. Life Burns, yeah! We were sitting on the -

Tina: Yeah! Yeah! And Lauri's running around setting those things on fire!

Eicca: (laughing)

Tina: Did he actually do that?!

Eicca: Yeah, yeah!! (laughs) That was cool to be sitting up there and the flames were coming up towards us, like aaah!

Tina: (laughing) Were you scared??

Eicca: Not really (laughs) … because the actual things were not burning. There was like pipes of gas. So they put the gas on and then put on the fire. So they were able to control it. But then the whole thing began to burn, and they'd come always with water pipes. "Okay next take… BURNS!!!" (laughs)

Tina: Going back to the Bittersweet video - at the very end I saw… it's like this uh cartoon knight, with a sword… it's really random, it just shows up in the last screen. What is that?? I really laughed the first time I saw it!

Eicca: (shakes his head, smiling) It actually came from the co-oporation of the game, Settlers - the computer game. So Settlers - we have a co-operation with this computer game. Originally they asked me to do all the music for this game. But then because of European laws (which are made to protect writers and composers)… it's a German company owned by Americans. So of course, they were not allowed to buy all the copyrights from me, because of the law. They then decided that it was too expensive for them, so they just made the music license with a Canadian, who was working for a monthly fee for them. Because in Canada, you can do it (but in Europe, it's not possible). So that's why that co-operation didn't work out. But still, they wanted to keep the co-operation, they supported a little bit of video. So they found themselves able to use the song when they were launching a new game. But that was part of it - something from the game in the video. And then we tried to do it as cool as possible, or as simple as possible. So there's this burning churches or whatever at the very end.

Tina: Yeah, it just made me really laugh because I didn't expect it at all. This cartoon just showed up on my screen, from out of nowhere!

Eicca: When we saw the video the first time, we were showing it at the release party or something. I think that was the first time I saw the whole thing. And we were fucking amazed when we saw it - "This guy is there!!! What the fuck is this guy doing there?!" (lots of loud laughing) So we asked the director, "Okay please, do another edition, without the game". Because in the countries where the game is not existing, we wanted to do the other version without the guy.

Tina: Yeah it's really random too, the knight -

Eicca: Yeah, he just comes out from behind a tree! (laughs)

Tina: Okay I've got two more questions for you! If you were going to do a tour, but non-metal, which bands would you choose to go on tour with you?

Eicca: Hmm… non-metal bands…. The Rasmus would be cool. The only problem is that they pull out so many teenagers - ah I don't know if that's a problem or not though, because yesterday we had a lot of teenagers in Montreal and they react so - you know, with full hearts, it's really cool. Hmm… other bands, I don't know. Some comes to my mind, but they're all so big, we can't tour with them! Hmm bands I like, I think it would be from different genres, like Massive Attack. (thinks) Nine Inch Nails is metal, so they don't count… Foo Fighters! I think I'd like to tour with them if it was a non-metal tour.

Tina: And my last one… Do you have any special message for the people on the Apocalyptica message board? I've only looked at it a few times, but I can see that they're all really crazy about you guys!

Eicca: Hmm, it's hard to think up a special message, because there's so much you can say, you know? I think… just keep up the good work, because they are doing great work for us actually. They are keeping the forum alive and giving people answers - because the people on the forum know a lot of stuff, so they are able to answer most of the questions which are asked for us. It's so cool that there are so many people who are really taking care of the forum and actually working it out. We basically have to do nothing for that! (laughs) It's very, very good, so basically keep up the good work!