Interviews

How are you doing?

Daniel: Fine, thanks for asking.

So how do you like the surroundings of the festival and how was your gig today?

Janne: The surrounding is dusty at the moment. Very dusty. But good, I guess the gig was pretty good.

Jarmo: Yeah.

Matti: We have done worse. (laughs)

Daniel: That's right. Short it was!

Jarmo: Short but lasting.

Daniel: There's no point in wasting anybody's time. So let's make it short and effective.

Jarmo: Short and clear.

Daniel: So there were no encores.

Do you have any favourite festivals in Finland for playing or for going to?

Daniel: No, actually I don't have any. It depends on bands. Maybe Tuska festival is one of the respected ones these days, I think. But we've never played here before.

Jarmo: Personally, I haven't even been here before. (all laugh)

So are there any other bands here you have been watching or you are going to watch?

Jarmo: Tomorrow we got to see what to watch. Today I missed Marduk's show, I was really looking forward to it. They were playing at the moment as we were getting our gear together, so it was gone for us.

Have you seen any other bands here?

Jarmo: No, we just came here at about half past six, one and a half hours before our show time. So the schedule was quite tight.

Janne: Yeah, but there's always tomorrow when we can just focus on watching bands.

As you're quite new probably most people are not familiar with you yet. How would you like to describe your style to a new initiate?

Daniel: Short and simple.

Janne: One of the bands that's gonna change things... Something new, something old, something borrowed...

Matti: ...something blue! And something... nail. That is our weapon!

Your debut album “World Domination” was released in late 2005 and it got pretty good reviews. Did you actually expect that?

Daniel: Yes, of course. (all laugh) Well, it had good reviews and it had bad reviews, so...

Jarmo: I think it was somewhere in France. I don't understand the language but the rate was like 1 out of 10.

Daniel: That review really doesn't matter. It's only one person's opinion. But honestly speaking it's quite surprising to me that it became the album of the month in some Belgian magazine.

Jarmo: It's good that it got some good reviews and then some like 1 out of 10, 2 out of 10. But when it's 7 it's worse. When the scale is from 1 to 10 and you get something like 6 or 7 out of 10 points, the review is usually something like “good stuff” but it turns out that the reviewer has nothing to say about it. But if it's really good reviews or bad ones it means that it makes some kind of a difference.

So you prefer people to either hate you or like you but not something in between.

Jarmo: Yeah, that is always better than just “okay”. It gets kind of a response. If it's “okay” it really doesn't matter to anyone.

Spinefarm signed you just on the base of the two demos. Did you approach them or did they come up to you?

Daniel: We sent a demo there and they approached us.

Jarmo: Actually it was the second promo.

Janne: So it was the second demo that the guys sent to Spinefarm. And they said they saw “a potential in it”. (laughs)

How do you like working with them, do you feel you get all the promotion you need?

Janne: Not half of the promo... (laughs) well, that's basically the thing with every band concerning if their record company promote them enough, they say no. We're no difference.

Daniel: But it's better than many other labels.

Janne: Spinefarm is the biggest metal label in Finland and it's a really respected label in the scale of Europe, so it's not a bad place.

Jarmo: Things could be worse.

About the name of the band, you changed it from Acid Universe to Naildown. What was the reason for that?

Janne: It tells something about our attitude!

Jarmo: What we are trying to do is to nail it down! And it could be done with music. That “Acid Universe” was kind of a project name at that time. Because no one came up with a better idea, I think. (laughs)

Daniel: It could have been called, you know, anything.

Was it difficult to find a new drummer when Harri left? And how did you end up with another guitar player?

Daniel: Was it hard?

Janne: I really had no choice 'cause he called me -we had known each other for a long time, we have been friends for quite some time- and he phoned me “we need a drummer and I was thinking of you...” but eventually I didn't have a choice, he called me and said, “we have a show and you're gonna play the drums!” I'm quite lazy about learning new songs, so I was like “no, I don't want to that blablabla”. But he just called me “we have a show, you're gonna play drums!" And we also have a new guitar player, that guy over there, Asko.

Asko, you're also playing in Codeon, right?

Asko: Yeah, as well, yeah.

Daniel: We always wanted a second guitar player in our band but at the time we went into the studio it was too late to find somebody to play and to learn the songs. It was easier to have me playing all the guitars in the studio and after that find a second guitar player.

How did the shows with the new line-up work?

Janne: The first ones were pretty chaotic, I think. (laughs)

Wasn't Finnish Metal Expo the first?

Janne: No, this wasn't the first, it was a gig in Eura, some really little town in Western Finland, near where we are here now. It was about warming up - me and Asko came to the band three or four weeks before the show.

Jarmo: It was a bit of a rush, the guys had to learn the new songs! (laughs)

Janne: But the Finnish Metal Expo was like a week or two weeks after that. So it was kind of an uncertain feeling.

But you made a quite good impression there!

Janne: Yeah, it could have been worse. And it's getting better all the time!

What are your plans for a second album? Are you going to release anything this year?

Daniel: No... we are going into the studio this year but probably the album will hit the stores in next spring, early spring. Depends on our company when they wanna release it. We're going into the studio in September, so let's see when it comes out. I guess early next year.

Jarmo: We have some new songs and it's pretty exciting stuff, I'd say.

Janne: Something different, something borrowed, something blue and bla bla bla!

Daniel: You have to hear it.

Jarmo: So far there's nothing borrowed!

Daniel: Don't know, maybe we're gonna record some cover songs...

Has the quote on your t-shirts (“Wish you were dead”) something to do with Children of Bodom's latest release “Are you dead yet?” or is that a coincidence?

Daniel: It's from the chorus of our song "Eyes wide open". There is a line “I wish you were dead”.

Jarmo: So it has nothing to do with Children of Bodom. They don't have that line anywhere, I guess. It just reminds of that.

So just a coincidence.

Jarmo: (thinks) No, it was "Let's make some cash from Children of Bodom's success!" (laughs) No, not really...

Is anyone of you actually a full-time musician, can you live from your music, or do you all have your day-jobs?

Daniel: No, not yet at this point.

Jarmo: First we worked full-time, well, some of us have part-time jobs of some sort.

Janne: Of course that's the plan, to make the music a full-time job.

Do you think it's necessary or in fact helpful for new bands to be compared to bigger names within the scene? Do you see any parallels between Naildown and any other bands?

Janne: It helps people to get some kind of an impression. To those who buy the record it gives them a direction of what kind of music it is, so it helps but at some point, if you're always compared to Children of Bodom or to Norther, it could be damaging. Obviously we think that we have kind of our own sound. Of course every musician heads for that. At first, when there's a new band, it is compared to some other band. But when our next record is coming out I think that they hopefully won't compare us to Children of Bodom. All the bands here where the guitar player does some kind of a melodic stuff will eventually be compared to Bodom.

Daniel: ...or Soilwork or In Flames...

Janne: There are worse bands to be compared to.

Your own debut is a pretty good example: It seems there are many new bands that come out of nowhere with real strong debuts these days. Would you ascribe this to the tough selection?

Jarmo: Perhaps it might matter because there's so many bands in Finland. Perhaps it's kind of a natural selection. Let's say you gotta be good to make it in Finland in the metal scene. Perhaps it's some kind of a Darwin-like reaction.

Survival of the fittest?

Jarmo: Yeah, there's so many bands in the scene, you know, that only the strongest will survive.

Are there any things in music business you would like to change or abolish?

Jarmo: This is a tough one...

Janne: Well, when the record companies find one band in the scene that is doing really well in terms of sales, then they sign five or ten bands that are like clones. And they are putting them out and people are listening to it. And the same stuff is coming from different records, it's like clone after clone and people get bored. And when the company sees that the clones don't have success in the long run, they just kick them out and nobody hears of them again. It's business and I kind of understand the record companies' side of it, but it really sucks.

Jarmo: And there is one other thing, this music spreading in the internet. I think that the organization which preserves musicians' rights will have to change their policy. Nowadays if we put our songs in the internet...

Janne: We don't get the big bucks, you mean!

Jarmo: That's not the point!

Janne: That is exactly the point!

Jarmo: If we put our songs in the internet, then we have to pay some fees to the record company because they have financed the whole album. If people can listen to the whole song, then we have to pay to our record company. That's why we just put some samples there. 30 seconds is all you can put there without having to pay the fee.

Janne: That's just fucked up...

How about MySpace?

Jarmo: That's the same, it's the same everywhere, you know.

Janne: It will be considered as a full song, so royalties have to be paid. Even if it's our own songs! It sucks, but what can you do?

We just had the question about that competition in Finland and you said there's many strong bands right now… do you have any theory why it's Finland in particular?

Jarmo: I think it's the Finnish state of mind.

Janne: Basically we can thank the groundwork of Sentenced, Amorphis and Stratovarius…

Daniel: ...and Stone.

Janne: Yeah, those first bands that made the Finnish scene available in Europe rather than just in Finland and in Sweden. So they kind of opened the doors.

Jarmo: And then came HIM and Nightwish and Children of Bodom.

Daniel: And Lordi!

That's actually the next question. Something that has been in the Finnish news constantly lately was the victory of Lordi at the Eurovision Contest. What do you think about that contest and Lordi's victory there?

Daniel: Well, it's a good thing, I think. It presents a different style of music than we do, but it's good that a Finnish band can be noticed in that kind of contest.

Jarmo: You know, it's good for the rock music but honestly speaking about the whole contest, it's not a song contest. It's about how you present the song.

Janne: It's kind of a publicity concept.

Jarmo: Yeah, it's how you present yourself there. Many approach the Eurovision contest like, "last year's winner was so-and-so, let's do that again!" And take a few background dancers there and...

Janne: Honestly speaking, take off the masks and how good is that band?

(interjection from someone around) Lordi fucking rules!

Janne: It's just a basic rock band. It steals from KISS and WASP and Alice Cooper. So take off the masks and what's left? But anyway, it's good for rock music to make a joke out of these Euro-techno bands.

Do you think next year we're gonna see a Eurovision show full of Lordi clones?

Janne: Ruoska should go to the Eurovision contest! (laughs) But it's possible, you know, that there might be some more rock bands.

Daniel: Honestly I don't think this is gonna happen twice. It was one of its kind.

Jarmo: Probably it won't happen twice but there might be a heavy metal band because one has won, so it's possible to win again.

Janne: Someone is going to think of something even more ridiculous, if you ask me. But don't ask me! (laughs)

I think that were all our questions… So any last words?

Daniel: Buy our album.

Janne: Or not.

Jarmo: Don't eat the yellow snow! (all laugh)

Okay, thanks for the very cool interview!