Oh, thank you for asking. I'm doing very, very well. We just finished off the first leg of the tour, which was most of last year. There was 120 shows. And now I'm sort of like doing my dirty laundry, getting my sleep in and getting ready for the last part of the tour, which will start from Australia and end up in London. And there will be Sofia along the way as well. So it's a good one. Yeah. 

 

 

Because of COVID, I ended up working completely solo. So the album is actually literally a solo album. I played all the instruments and recorded the album by myself. I wrote all the songs. And I only had the outside help I had was from a guy called Tim Palmer (U2, OZZY, PEARL JAM), who also worked with HIM back in the day. He mixed Neo Noir. And then there's a mastering engineer, Justin Sturtz, in the States, who mastered it. But everything else is by me.

And once the album was finished, I started looking for a band that would fit the tour. And it's a bit different than HIM, as we have two guitar players and no keyboard players. So there's stuff coming down from the backing tracks. And with the two guitar players, there's more interplay. We can play some of his songs closer to the originals that we could ever do with HIM. So I wanted to make it a bit different.

 

Yes.

 

 

Oh, yeah, sure. I think everybody in the world, kind of like the core negative thing about COVID was the fact that we all felt the depression and the sort of big ominous dark cloud on top of our heads. I don't think that was easy for anybody.

 

And, you know, music did what it always does for me. So it gives me, it sort of like picks me up and gets me out of the funk, so to speak. So through Neo Noir, I was able to shed a bit of the darkness and the helplessness that COVID brought to the music.

 

So it worked out in a cathartic way. And that's what music always is to me. And I'm a rather dark person, whether there's pandemic going on or not. So that hasn't changed. 

 

 

No ideas yet. I like to live in a situation where I don't know what's around the corner. 

 

 

Yeah. I've spent all my time and focus on Neo Noir. And then right after I got the recording done to get the touring band together. So it's been constant work for about, I think, four years at least. And it's been fantastic. But I would like not to repeat myself completely. So it'd be cool to find a new perspective or an angle, whatever it might be. I don't know yet.

 

And that's the nice thing about it, because I don't have a permanent band. I can do whatever I want next. And I have a sense of freedom in that sense. But I'm sure I'll be doing music because that's the only thing I know and the only thing I can do. 

 

 

Well, there's freedom and freedom. There's all sorts of freedoms. But there's a..., let's put it in another way, that it's nice to be in a situation where nobody's nagging me about what we're going to do next and when are we going to tour again and when are we going to record again? And there's no record company pressure or anything like that. That's very positive. That gives me the opportunity of concentrating on the essential. And the essential at the moment is finishing the tour. 

 

 

No, I heard about ZETRA for the first time before we started touring Neon Noir, and I was listening to their stuff. I really liked their music and we had already picked an Icelandic band called KAELAN MIKLA for the first leg of the tour. And they were there for Europe and for North America last spring, about a year ago.

And since we, yeah, I wanted to change things around a bit and we had the chance, you know, they were available and then we had good timings as well that ZETRA were and are releasing new material. They signed a new record deal and released a single not too long ago, right before Christmas, I think it was, or New Year's. And yeah, it's a great band.

We share a lot of similarities musically speaking. There's a lot of TYPE O NEGATIVE or THE CURE. And that's sort of like a sense of melodic, melancholic way they do. It sounds pretty different, but I think both bands, my thing and ZETRA, they complement each other really well. And we played a few shows during New Year's Eve. We played in Helsinki at a club and ZETRA were there too. And the audience really liked it. So I think it'll be wonderful. 

 

 

No, I think I miss the 80s more. That's the decade when I grew up and I love the music. It was so colorful. And that's when music, television, movie started. And there was a lot of new things for a child during the 80s. But the 90s, that was my teenage stuff. So I think that whenever you're a teenager, it doesn't matter what decade or what century you're living in, you're always having a hard time. And I don't think that the 90s were any better.

 

And there's a lot of good things about the noughties as well, starting from 2000 onwards. So no, I don't think 90s were special or more special than any decade. We always tend to look back and be nostalgic and wax nostalgic about how great it was.

 

But at the end of the day, if you really think about it, we've always had problems, global problems and whatever they might be, with pandemics and with the wars going on, with political unrest and all sorts. So I think the cool thing about human beings is the fact that we tend to forget the bad and tend to remember the good. 

 

 

This social media started already in the 90s. I think it started properly in the 2000s. When did Facebook and all that start? I've never been a part of it. And I think it's, for me, the problem with social media is that you really don't have the time to do anything else besides being on social media. And you have to react to everything right when it happens.

And I don't like to be tied to my cell phone or whatever 24-7. It really kills my focus and my concentration. I'm not good at it. But it could be that younger people who have been brought up with iPads and everything around them, they can take care of it easier.

But I really don't think that does us any good. The amount of information. I think that's good for us to have a little every now and then. So like, let the brain process of what it just saw and heard and all that as opposed to being bombarded with new media, new ideas all the time.

 

 

 

Yeah, I'm sure there's at least there's Lindе and Gas who used to play in the band HIM. They had a project or have a project is called FLAT EARTH, if you're referencing to that, it might be but I think they're sorely mistaken. I would love the world to be a pizza. It just isn't as far as scientific knowledge now.

But regarding Finnish people in general, we come in all shapes and sizes. We have all sorts of weirdos and it's not perfect.... No society is perfect. All the society has their own problems and you know, life is never easy. But I think it's about trying to find a perspective that it's a positive struggle and a positive challenge as opposed to just a negative one. 

 

 

Well, that's really, that's really interesting. Because then if you think of some some of the lyrical aspects of let's say, hip hop, or punk, as you said, or some like death metal, for example, or then some black metal, it can be very, very politically incorrect. They're not really sensitive that stuff.

So I think it's more about the way that people communicate. Music is probably considered an art. And as such, it's very hard to censor. So I'm fingers crossed. It won't, it won't affect because it would be terrible that people would, before they create something before they write a song, they would think that, that there are sort of like shackles and chains that they're wearing regarding creativity.

But if you know, the main idea is that, let's all flowers bloom and all ideas bloom, as long as you're not hurting one another.

 

 

Um, I'm not sure about the movie industry per se, because I'm not an insider. But if you think of a production such as a movie, there are 10s even hundreds of people working on it. There are many writers, there are many producers, the companies are very involved in the whole process.

You know, when you're working on music, it's one person or a band that's working on the song. And that's how the essence is brought. And that essence doesn't change, even if you bring in producers as such. But there are so many places in the sort of not the food chain, but along the way, when an idea for a film gets created, and when it's actually out in the theaters, there's so many people involved, that I do understand that people want to make sure that as many people can see the film as possible.

But that obviously leads into the problem of censoring everything and making films really bland, and making them, you know, lose their edge, because they're afraid that they're hurting somebody's feelings.

And I don't think that that's a good way to live anywhere, you know, a life that if you're scared of hurting people's feelings, because, of course, your feelings are going to get hurt. That's how you get your inner strength. And that's how you learn about hopefully not making the same mistakes twice. 

 

HIM with Vassil Varbanov at radio Tangra Studios in 2002

 

 

Well, I think, I think the other way around, meaning that I'm really happy that we have had such people such as Peter Steele for the duration that we had them for. Imagine the amount of great music and great concerts and funny interviews they gave us.

The world would be much poorer place if there wouldn't have been a Peter Steele. So I'm glad that we had Peter Steele for as many years as we did. Nobody lives forever. Some people die a bit younger than others. But yeah, imagine all the Lemmys and so of the world and Bowie.

 

We've had such great talent, who are such great, great. There's such huge inspiration to all sorts of people around the world that it's amazing  that we still keep on having those people. And some people, you know, it's like Keith Richards, what they say about him, the cockroaches, they'll survive a nuclear bombing. The only thing we have left is Keith Richards and cockroaches. 

 

 

It's not stage fright per se, I would be afraid of being on stage, but I do get the butterflies, I get nervous. And kind of maybe when I was a bit younger, it felt uncomfortable, and it felt closer to being not necessarily afraid, but really anxious.

But these days, because I know it's part of it, I know my body's getting used to it, but I still get exactly the same stuff. I run to the toilet and I walk around in circles really quickly. When you walk on stage, then usually it's gone after a few moments. But I think what it means to me personally is that, since I get a physical reaction like that, I think it means that I care for the music, and I care for what I'm doing still.

 

Otherwise, I wouldn't get the sort of like the physical and the emotional response, or psychosomatic response that I do get before the gigs. So I think it's an important part, and it's also important to me to be in a position where I'm being kept on my toes. So stuff is not certain, and you don't get into routine in a negative way, but there's an element of danger. And that's the key to a successful life as a half-morose Finnish goth rock guy.