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(interview auf deutsch: soundbase-online.com)
SoundBase: Let's talk about your latest release, "back to persepolis". A 7" vinyl single with punkrock songs on it. What was the idea behind this?
Kärtsy: It was like - I dear to support the vinyl. The label who did the releasing is pretty well known in finland as a kind of vinyl-maker. They have finish punkbands and release vinyls and get pretty much reputation of that, they are very known in finland. One evening we were just sitting with the band together with the guys and it was like a very very fast decision. Very spontaneous.
SoundBase: One question about this thing. In some interviews you said, that you're tired of this pure Rock'n'Roll kind of thing and you don't like retrospective kind of stuff, but this has a bit of a back to the roots mood.
Kärtsy:Yeah, maybe it's good to say never never. But anyway this is not the way we gonna go, it's more like a project. In the early days we used to do this kind of ep's as well, with a kind of punk attitude. But I think it was just fun, havin' fun, you know. It's not good always to be so serious about everything. So it's good to do any kind of things.
SoundBase: By the way - Is "New Church" a coversong? I read the credits...
Kärtsy: Yes, it's a coversong of "Lords of the New Church" - it's their Titlesong...
SoundBase: But the "Hellsinki Lesbian Church Choir" is not really a church choir...
Kärtsy (laughing): No, no it's just like friends. Finnish musician friends. Hehe.
SoundBase: Let's talk about the current line-up. Sami is back in the band as fulltime member?
Kärtsy: Yes. Back to the roots in that way, yes, haha. In fact this has been in the air a lot, you know. He did the last european tour with us, because Roope was busy at that moment. And after that more or less, he has been the one who was hanging around in our rehersal room. But it just happened, nothing really dramatic.
SoundBase: But it has something to do with Roope not having enough time or something like that?
Kärtsy: It's not a matter of time so much, off course he has lots of Metal-projects. In the end, you know maybe he was a little bit too much like a true metal guy. We still think, after playing the shows with Sami we realized how much easier everything went. And we have played so many years with him, the cooperation is really easy compared to Roope. Roope did never really settle down to our music, as much as....at least at easier as Sami does.
SoundBase: Sami is playing with Kreator as well now. Don't you think this may cause problems?
Kärtsy: As long as it doesn't, I don't mind. Off course if it will, then we'll have to think about things all over again. But at the moment for example Kreator will do a european tour end of the year. And as long as I understood, they have nothing scheduled after that, so.....wo won't go to studio with a new record, not this year anymore, so it will be early spring, I think.
SoundBase: Okay, let's talk about some other stuff you did. For example you did the Max Payne Computergame Soundtrack (...)
Kärtsy: I was just asked for it, you know. And it was just at the time wen decided to have a break with Waltari, so I decided to jump on it. It's nothing really my kind of thing normally. But it was pretty exciting, I always enjoy to do music with a computer and this kind of stuff, so it was pretty nice. I did this stuff with another guy from helsinki, who is some kind of on of the godfathers of programming in finnland from ages. And I'm still feel not so sure about my ability of programming, so I wanted to use somebody else with me.
SoundBase: Another thing you did was "Evangelicum", which was allready announced by, I think it was GUN Records, but then denied again.....what's going on with evangelicum?
Kärtsy: Nothing at the moment. We were planning to release a live-album of it. Amd we recorded three shows, but we were not satisfied with the tape, so we decided not to do it at that time, because I think we did pretty okay with "Yeah Yeah Die Die" and thought if we release the same kind of thing, it can't be worse with the quality of sound and stuff like this. The problem was, that in the end we didn't succeed to record the Symphony Orchestra so well as it should have been done.
SoundBase: But will the fans over here ever get to hear it anyway?
Kärtsy: I don't know. I think this kind of project will never die. If, hehe, if somebody offers us such an ammount of money, we alway'd go to studio to do it, that's not the case but we just son't wanna do it, before we know that we're gonna do it in a really good way and we can get the best out of it.
SoundBase: What about the visual component? Or, I remember you already had plans about Performances of it in Europe...
Kärtsy: Yeah, we were very close to get it to Hannover Expo. It was very close, but the point again was, that the place and the stage were not good enuogh for all this visual stuff. I have to admit, that we were made a little bit spoiled with it, because the helsinki opera house, which is one of the most modern places in the world.....we have this kind of stuff, where the stage where waltari is playing, the floor went up and down and this kind of stuff, you know...and then I was in the air with a belt and all this kind of things would have been impossible to do in this place in Hannover. So we again decided to put it down, because I'm pretty serious about this kind of things. If you gonna do it, you have to do it in a proper way, otherwise it's more or less Spinal Tap, you know what I mean (laughs). It has to be done correctly and even at the Helsinki Shows we had some problems with the P.A. because the opera soundsystem has not been built for rock bands...
SoundBase: Have you thought about releasing it on DVD and/or Video?
Kärtsy: Yeah, but Finnish National TV broadcasted that and shot the stuff, but once aggain the stuff was total crap, what they shoot (laughs). They guys who were shooting it didn't understand anything about it, you know. The whole spectacular feeling and athmosphere which was creating during the show -they couldn't get any out of it on TV. They shooted maybe one or two dances at the same time and it was totally unprofessional, so at the moment it doesn't look that this release will be soon, but maybe one day. I think sooner or later we will surprise our fans, hehe. It won't be buried, off course not.
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