After making headlines with their appearance at the 2006 Eurovision contest which is mostly known for it’s focus on pop music, Lordi entered the mainstream of rock with their theatrical antics and monster costumes combined with a hard rock musical sound that won them a whole new legion of fans. Fast forward to 2016 where the band will finally make their first appearance in Australia at Soundwave Festival so we had a great chat with Mr Lordi himself to talk about their debut shows in Australia as well as news on the next album.
Andrew: It’s Andrew from The Rockpit, how are you?
Mr Lordi: I am pretty good! Just smoking my pipe and drinking my pepsi.
Andrew: How’s things with the band? Are you guys on tour or what are you doing at the moment?
Mr Lordi: No actually right now we are writing new stuff, doing demos for the next one. And the funny thing is that when we are coming over there to Australia finally, that’s when we’re supposed to be in the studio. So we’re getting out of the studio to come over there for a week or something and then we get back to the studio, so we should be starting recording in December. We have a few one-offs in the fall, a few shows like Luxembourg and Russia and stuff like that but mainly we are doing demos now for the next one.
Andrew: OK well it’s been almost a year since your last album came out “Scare Force One”, so it’s a bit surprising to hear that you’re already working on the next one.
Mr Lordi: Yeah but then again the thing is, why wait? Because if you look back at the 70’s, bands like Kiss did like 2 albums a year. I don’t know how the hell they did, maybe the world was a little bit smaller back then. But between the last 2 previous albums, they were pretty fast and we decided why do we have to wait? We come up with new songs all the time, we have new material all the time and we have the positive problem of having anything from 40 to 60 songs that are demoed fully, to choose the 10 to 13 songs that are going to make it to the album. It’s never the less a problem even though it’s a positive problem, that we write all the time and there’s a lot of material so why should we be waiting? So it’s better to get them out of your system and keep working because that’s what we want to do.
Andrew: Yeah and you’re right, a lot of bands back in the day used to put out albums quite regularly once or twice every year or something so it is something that has disappeared over time. I guess you guys are trying to bring that back.
Mr Lordi: I don’t know if we’re trying to bring it back, we’re trying to make it work for ourselves. Of course back in the day the band would go to the studio, they write during the tour, they would take 2 weeks off from the tour, they go to the studio and then they record and then they go back to the tour. That’s how it was done back in the day but it’s a different place now, the music business is struggling. There’s all kinds of different variables now that didn’t even exist back then. But we’re trying to be productive, more productive for the next one. As long as there is a label, as long as there is backup for us who are letting us do this, we have absolutely no reason to block out any activity. Why? As long as there is somebody to say, ‘Yeah if you guys have any material, go to the studio and do it’. So fuck yeah we’re doing it, we’re happy to do it. We’re really privileged to be able to do it.
Andrew: Yeah absolutely. And now the other big news is that you guys are coming down to Australia for the very first time for the Soundwave Festival next year. It’s great to see you coming down here!
Mr Lordi: It is great! It’s been over a decade or more where there have been quite a few try outs for that. We’ve been to New Zealand even though I know it’s not that close but looking at it from our side of the planet, it is kind of close. We’ve been to Japan many times and I know it’s not that close but once again [laughs], from our side of the planet it looks like it is close. But it never worked out and this is such a funny coincidence, it’s weird how this happened so we as a band are so grateful to this one fan, this one dude who contacted the manager of Soundwave Festival and talked about getting Lordi over there. And he said yeah and the organiser of Soundwave contacted our guitar player “Amen” and then he got in contact with our booking agency and boom, next thing we’re there. So we owe it to that one fan which I am so sad that I don’t remember his name, I should have memorised it so I could say his name, but I really want to meet the guy and we are really grateful for that one guy. Because sometimes it only takes just one fan [laughs], to make things happen. I know it sounds like a bad movie script but it’s exactly what happened so that guy had more power than all these booking agencies from all the years that tried to do it so many times.
Andrew: Yeah that is great to hear and it’s great to see the fans trying to get bands to come over and play because obviously booking agencies can do this and do that but at the end of the day, it’s all about the fans and them turning up to your shows.
Mr Lordi: Yes and through the years we’ve had so many contacts and a lot of mail from Australia, we know there are quite a few fans there who would love to see us but better late than never! I hope the people will not be disappointed [laughs] but I can promise you that we do try, our motto is that we try our hardest not to suck. That’s what we try to do everyday but sometimes we do suck [laughs]! But that goes for any band I guess.
Andrew: [laughs] Well that is something that I do want to ask you because for a lot of fans in Australia who have never seen you guys before, what does a Lordi show include? What are the kinds of things we can expect when you come here to play?
Mr Lordi: Well this is something that everybody has to ask, do we bring the full show? And I have to be honest in saying that because it’s the first time and you guys are quite far away from Finland, the thing is that unfortunately we’re not going to be able to bring the full show, that’s for sure. We want to and we would like to but yeah, as you know. But I can assure you that we will bring something to see, that’s for sure and if nothing else, it will be the prettiest band on the planet playing hard rock. Or heavy rock, or even heavy metal if you will, depending on your taste or what you want to categorize us. Like I said we try our hardest not to suck so the bottom line is that you will get monsters playing heavy rock, that’s what is going to happen if nothing else. But I can assure you that we will bring some of the theatrics with us.
Andrew: That’s good to hear! Just to touch on what you said about working on new material, can we expect maybe a new song at some of these shows?
Mr Lordi: I don’t think so. I mean, well technically that would be possible of course because the plan is to be in the studio in December and January so it’s too early to say. That’s a good question, maybe but let’s see. If there is a song while we’re in the studio that we really feel that this is something that we want to try out live, we might do that. We’ve only done [that] once, I think we played one song in Italy years ago for the then upcoming album that was still to be released in a few months or something, so we only did that once. But we could do it again.
Andrew: Cool! Well we are looking forward to seeing you guys for the first time and I’m sure all the fans will appreciate you guys coming all the way from Finland to be down here. So thanks for your time today and we will see you in January next year!
Mr Lordi: Yeah and it’s going to be funny that it’s going to be full summer there right, in January?
Andrew: Yep in the middle of summer.
Mr Lordi: Yeah and I live in the Arctic Circle so it’s going to be like minus 35 to minus 40 degrees celsius in January where I live so it’s going to be quite a bit of a change! [laughs]
Andrew: Very much so!
Mr Lordi: When we get there we will probably be like, ‘What the hell!’ [laughs].
Andrew: [laughs] OK well thanks for your time again!
Mr Lordi: Thank you, my pleasure.
SOUNDWAVE FESTIVAL 2016 dates
January 23rd – Brisbane
January 24th – Sydney
January 26th – Melbourne
More info on the festival can be found at Soundwavefestival.com
