Interviews

Interview

Q. What does Rautavaara Inc. mean?

Tuomo: Direct translations would be either Iron Danger ;) or Iron Hill. Rautavaara is a family-name and is very familiar in Finland due to Tapio Rautavaara who is one of the biggest names in Finlands music history. We ourselves haven't ever chosen what it stands for to us. I think it's a combination of all these things. The ending Inc. was included in the bands name due to the Firmarock contest that we participated in. That contest was for bands that represented certain companies so Inc. brought something corporate to the name. It is now under consideration should we drop the Inc. part since it is English and our lyrics are in Finnish.
Arto: In Finland people regonize that our name is "word-play" when they hear the music or see our band logo. I'm sure about that. It means "Beware metal" but it also brings to peoples minds here in Finland something from Finnish music history.

Q. How were you all acquainted with each other before forming the band and can you explain a bit more about Firmarock it sounds like an unconventional way to start a band.

Jarmo: Well, maybe it sounds a bit weird to create band only in one competition but that's how it really happened. Arto called me and asked if I could write a song for that competition. I made a few songs and that how it started. Firmarock is a competition in Finland where a couple of players in the same workplace can form a band and go to have fun.
Arto: In companies bands can have some strengthening from outside of the participating company. Firmarock isn't so much a real music or band competition. It's a joyful event where people have fun and enjoy music. The whole company can join in and come to gigs as fans. It raises team spirits. I must say that as a "music guy" I was pushed a little in our company to make a group and enter Firmarock. People at work wanted to be a part of that competition. I've always dreamed about my own melodic hard rock band and this was a chance to try it with fun. We had guitarist Sami and drummer Tuomo who was the new face in our job. I wrote one song "Ikuisen toivon maa". I asked if my friend Jarmo could come to sing it live in Firmarock. We agreed that if Jarmo could make another needed song of this style he might join our group as a singer. He made a few different kinds of songs. When I heard song "Kuolo korjaa satoaan" I knew right away it was what we needed.  Our first rehearsals were fun. It was sealed. We had a group to compete with. Firmarock was an enjoyable experience even though we didn't make it to the final. Maybe we should have been playing covers (something that people know and that they could dance to or something) to succeed better. We wanted to make things from the start in our own way. Well, we all noticed somewhere what we could do as a band. We got a rehearsal place and financing for our EP. All things just locked into place and there was a chance to jump to the next level.
Tuomo: I only knew Arto and Sami since we work in the same company, which is the company we represented in the Firmarock contest. All the other members are friends of Arto and were Arto's choices for their parts in the band. Luckily they all agreed to join to form a band to take part in the contest. From the first time we rehearsed for the contest only. There were no discussions to keep going after the contest. As we were getting ready for the contest I think we all came to realize that maybe there was something more here and that maybe we should see if it could become more than just a one time thing. Although the contest for us ended at the semifinals the disappointment wore off pretty soon because I think we all new that this was probably just the beginning. Sami didn't want to go any further so Ari came to take his place and he has fitted the group very well. And I especially am happy that he joined us so that I didn't end up being "the kid" with the old timers.

Q. Ari, in taking over solo duties when Sami left the group to focus on his family, did you find it awkward joining the band later than the other guys?

Ari: Not at all. It felt quite comfortable joining the band, even though I joined later than the others. Arto and I had played together before, so due to him it was easy to become familiar with rest of guys. Sami left the band of his own will and Rautavaara Inc. already had a few complete songs when I joined the band, so it didn't actually feel like I was particularly taking the place of someone or stepping on anyone's toes.

Q. Is this the main musical venture for all of you or would you consider it a side-project?

Jarmo: For me there are two main bands Rautavaara Inc. and Scyron. I also take Eternal Tears of Sorrow very seriously, where I compose songs and sing clean vocals and backing vocals.
Tuomo: I went into this as a side project but now that I have come to realize the potential that this band has, it has definitely become my main musical interest even though it's one of many.
Arto: As a player I don't have interests other than this band. This is my main project. I have played in some bands before. There was a time when I wanted to focus on something else and I sold all my musical instruments and stopped playing: if we don't count an acoustic guitar at home. :) A while ago I became interested in playing again. There was one group before this that awoke my interest of playing again. In that group I befriended Ari.
Ari: For me this is the number 1.
Speedy: Although I play bass with other bands it is not a problem. The other bands sometimes play gigs in local pubs and pizzerias, thats all. The others bands are more rocknroll/hard rock oriented bands. Rautavaara inc. is something new for me because I have not played such "heavy" music before. It is nice to learn new things.

Q. How would you describe your band mates?

Jarmo: I really think that we have an incredible chemistry in the band. We have so much fun in the studios and when we are rehearsing. "It's Simply The Best" like someone sings...
Tuomo: Jarmo is an incredible singer and songwriter and the one thing I respect about him the most is the fact that even though he composes practically all our songs he doesn't tell us how to play this and that, and we can open our mouths and say if something could be done differently or I would like to try something. Arto is a relaxed guy and a good guitarist. Arto started pushing me band suggestions as early as my job interview. Speedy - the way he plays bass is very inspiring to me and it's like old school meets new school and the outcome is something I am exited about. Ari is a great replacement for Sami because first of all he is the same age as me  so I didn't end up being the only young guy in this band, and I think having a couple of younger guys mixed with a couple of older guys generates an interesting twist to our sound.
Arto: Our band chemistry works and the guys are all great. I'm pleased to have such a talented friend like Jarmo. He can compose and sing hard rock that has been my whole life since I was a kid. What more can I say... Speedy is the best bass player that I know and good friend of mine. Ari is great guy. It's fun to play with him because everything with the guitars feels so clear. He wants to be the solo guitarist and I like to play riffs more. If we play double guitars he plays higher notes and I play lower notes. That fits the bands sound perfectly. Tuomo is a great drummer and brings good ideas to songs as a drummer. I work together with him in an advertising company and we have become familiarized there.
Ari: Very talented musicians. Jarmo is a magnificent song writer and singer. Arto's and Speedy's hard and confident playing combined with Tuomo's ass-kicking drumming makes my position very easy in the band. :)
Speedy: All the band members are very talented people and this is my first band where all the musicians are really interested in what they do. Our chemistry works and rehearsals are always very intense and effective. Im also good friends with all the members. This is a very important thing in the "music business". We all have a little difference of musical background and I think that's why we all give something of our own to the songs.

Q. What is each of your musical history and who are your influences?

Jarmo: I got some drums when I was 3-4 years old but I technically destroyed those with my own hands. When I was 12 years old I got my first guitar and start learning to play guitar and I wrote my first song for my girlfriend, heh, she is my wife now. I've probably sung all my life but in a band I sang for the first time when I was 16-17. When I was a young boy I listened to Elvis and rocknroll music, but when I started to sing in the band I started to listen to bands like Iron Maiden, Queensryche, Helloween and all those incredible heavy bands of that time...
Tuomo: I have been involved with a couple of bands for long periods of time and in the beginning of this band I left my old band that I had been playing in for about eight years. So I was very keen to concentrate on something entirely new and different which Rautavaara Inc. offered me. I listen to all kinds of music from black metal to jazz but I guess in this case I'd better mention my influences from the heavier end. As a metal drummer I look up to Igor Cavalera from Sepultura (heard that he has left the band recently though) and Vinnie Paul from Pantera. I am not impressed with speed at all. It's the musicianship and the sense of taste that a drummer brings to every song that he plays. Playing a song isn't about a player trying to push out their ability as a technical player or how fast they can do it. It's about supporting the music in the way that the music becomes one tight peace of rock that knocks you on the head. That is what I try to do. And when you have captured the essence of the song then you can try to find your space where you can "bring out the cookies".
Arto: I started to play guitar at the age of 15. Soon I started to compose my own songs and I recorded them in my little "home studio" based on a Fostex 4-track recorder and Roland sequencer. Since then I have been composing songs for bands in which I have played. In some groups I have also been a lead singer. I'm not such a good singer and my voice fits backing vocals better. :) In Rautavaara Inc. it's better that Jarmo writes the songs. I do something if I have some good ideas that fit with us. Life is different these days. I don't have so much time to sit with my guitar and write songs and Jarmo is so good at it that I don't think about it that much. I have always liked British metal bands like Iron Maiden, Dio, Rainbow... Similar things within those bands are their great singers and songs. I haven't ever liked lonely guitar heroes. I want to have a whole band which sounds good together and has great songs. These days I also like to listen to more technical bands like Dream Theater, Rush and Toto. They are fun to listen to.
Ari: My older brothers were playing in bands when I was a kid. We always had musical instruments, guitars and basses at home so that's how it all started. I've been playing guitar and listening to heavy metal - Iron Maiden, Judas Priest etc. - since I was five-six years old. That explains my interest in traditional heavy metal music. I've had a number of bands during that time, made some recordings and played gigs allover Finland. Funny thing is that Rautavaara Inc. is the first pure heavy metal band for me, even though I've always loved that kind of music... :)
Speedy: I started playing bass in the late 70s when I heard a Finnish band named Hurriganes. I thought that it would be very cool to play something. Other than that I also listen to bands like Deep purple, Rainbow, Van Halen, Dream Theater and so on. (see our homepage).

Q. Can you give a brief outline of what each of the songs on the EP are about?

Jarmo: Well, I think many Rautavaara Inc. songs and lyrics tell both of my grandfathers stories of war which they both went through. One fought on land and the other one fought at sea. Now both incredible men are gone.
Arto: The lyrics are mainly Jarmo's visions. In the beginning I made "Ikuisen toivon maa" as a song for our company and it has some lyrical cliches on purpose. Maybe it's our curse as a band, I hope not. That song started this band. Jarmo's lyrics are more serious and we wanted to go that way.  If I try to explain all the songs a little:

 
Kuolo korjaa satoaan: This tells of a solder who sails in a war ship. In the chorus, "Canon sings and mother earth is crying. Death harvests crops".

 Kadotaan: This tells of an old man who comes back to a war field again to see where he battled as a young man. He remembers his enemies and past friends.

 Yksi runo rukousten sekaan: This is a little bit of a weird lyric to me. I don't understand it all. It sounds like a stream of consciousness where separate things sound understandable but I don't see whole story. "One poem among the prayer". Maybe it's a love song :)

 Ikuisen toivon maa: This is a knight story about a horse rider who is riding fast (enemies behind him) to Avalon island. That would be his sanctuary forever. This is a little different with lyrics unlike the others.

 Taivas kantaa kulkijaa: I think this is about one soul who is rising to sky. He has done his best in this life and he is going home.

 
Jarmo: Something like that... :)

Q. Why did you choose to write your songs in Finnish, would presenting your music in English not draw a bigger audience?

Jarmo: I think there's no reason why we can't write in English someday but the first song we made for Rautavaara Inc. was in Finnish so we wrote all the other songs in Finnish too. I dont think we necessarily try to find a big audience, we just keep having fun and we are happy if someone else likes our music.
Tuomo: We come from a little city from the northern part of Europe. The fact that you perform in English always includes that "we have to take over the world" part and that can be really stressful even though you don't think about it. For me the relief and the pressure that was released from playing Finnish material was surprisingly big. We don't have to conquer the world we only have to conquer Finland ;) Plus the fact that Rautavaara Inc. has a theme of telling stories that concern the war history of Finland makes it more natural to tell them in Finnish.
Arto: When we do this in Finnish we don't want to mix it with any of the guys other project or past projects. We are a totally different kind of band. This Finnish war stories concept is better to do in Finnish. Maybe we will also do different kinds of lyrics when it feels like we are prisoners of these kinds of stories. It's not agreed that all songs will be war stories. The new Mastervox recordings contain a song named "Tulevaa". In English it means "Forthcoming". That song is something about Nostradamus prophesies.

Q. Do you intend to release a single from the EP?

Jarmo: No. Maybe someday if we make an album then it would be possible.
Arto: This EP was just a starter and the first thing we have recorded as a band. An EP is a long single and cheap for the listener. There is no reason to release a single. If someday someone offers us a record deal and we make an album where some old material is re-recorded, then a song from this EP could be a single. It would depend on if the other songs are good single songs.

Q. Were you satisfied with the way the CD turned out? Is there anything about it that you would do differently in the future?

Jarmo: Well, of course there are few things you can do better if you have a record deal and more money to spend and many weeks to spend in the studio. Personally I'm proud of the EP.
Arto: Everything depends on money and time. We had a tight budget and the EP is great when we think about in how little time it was done. Things can always be done better with more money but somewhere there is a line where raw attitude will be lost and it becomes too clean and produced. We are still a distance from that line. With more money we could do some things better and carefully but I'm also proud of our EP.

Q. You are still a relatively new band, has the EP been selling well and have you had much feedback about the music yet from the public and the media?

Arto: We made 1000 copies. We gave many hundred records away free to our sponsors clients as a gift. We have sent some EP's to record companies and public media. We have also sold some records. Almost every EP is gone in one way or another and that's good. The internet is our chance to promote ourselves from a standing point because we can do many things by ourselves. Every other kind of marketing is so expensive. Some of the media liked it a lot and some of them didn't. There are still some media where we have sent EPs but we havent had critiques yet. You must be of a metal oriented mind if you are to like it. Some reviewers who don't like metal tell people that it is not so good and after that they say maybe it's good in its own genre. That's very weird.

Q. Jarmo, your brother produced the record, did you have any difficulty in taking direction from him due to him being your younger sibling ..any light-hearted sibling rivalry? In a For my Pain interview Juha referred to you as "the Desmond Child of Finland", would you care to comment on that comparison?

Jarmo: I have no problems working with Juha. I think it's a good thing to work with him because we can say everything straight to each other. Well that Desmond Child of Finland comment probably comes from the fact that I composed so many kinds of songs in many different bands. It's ok to me. I'm proud of that kind of comparison.

Q. Jarmo,  people are probably most familiar with your name through your work with For My Pain, Eternal Tears of Sorrow and Reflexion, how did the opportunity to work with those bands arise? 
Jarmo: Juha asked me to write songs for For My Pain so I wrote 7-8 songs for them and they chose 3 songs for their first album Fallen. Then I made friends with Altti and he asked me if I could try to compose a little bit of harder music for "Etos", so then I started to do their music too. Well it happened something like that. I compose a new song and when it's done I do the lyrics. If Finnish lyrics fit it then it goes to Rautavaara Inc. but if the English words fit it and it is too progressive for Rautavaara Inc. I assign it to Scyron...or if those other bands have a usage for that song

Q. When can we expect to hear more material from you? Will the 2 new songs you recorded at Mastervox Studios form another EP or even an album?

Jarmo: Those 2 new songs are ready and you'll hear them soon.
Arto: This Mastervox session is a little update to our sound and material. Those songs are mixed and ready. We have planned to give those 2 songs away for free on our web pages but we want to offer them with graphics. That's why well publish them a little bit later, I think the end of August or September. I like that update. I hope that other people like it too.

Q. Are there any plans to play gigs in the near future?

Jarmo: Like we said somewhere before we don't have time to do gigs very much. We like to play live but we want to play gigs that fit our calendar because we all have day-jobs. We will probably play some gigs when we get more songs.
Arto: We don't have much material yet which is needed to play a real long gig. We have made some short gigs with 2-5 songs. Material is increasing all the time...

Q. Finland has always had talented rock bands and recently the rest of the world has started to take more notice of them, has this made it any easier for new bands like yourself to gain exposure within the music industry? Or is the opinion just that the rest of the world was slow to realize what Finland has known for years?

Jarmo: I have always thought that if you can do good music that people love then you'll be heard. I can only hope that some day it happens for Rautavaara Inc. There are many great Finnish bands known in the world these days. I'm really happy for them. It's really a great thing.

Q. Is there still a lack of music media in Finnish television compared with other countries where it is heavily relied upon to promote music? Is this a hindrance?

Arto: In Finnish television there arent so many places where you can promote music. As a band without a record deal it's very hard to get on the TV. Here there is Voice TV Channel and the "List" program where you really have to sell records in official stores to be seen.. I'd like to have some kind of TV-channel or program where smaller bands without a record company can promote their music. The internet has become the best place for promoting music for bands like us.

Q. What are your immediate plans for the band? Where do you see Rautavaara Inc. being in the next 5 years?

Jarmo: I hope that we can still make music and that we develop as musicians and as people too.
Arto: We will give our hearts to this music and we are serious about this but it has to be fun also. We don't feel pressured to succeed. In the next 5 years I hope that we do some gigs, albums and some music videos also. Were happy that we are not a public company with forced quarterly announcements or something like that... Let's see and be open minded about what's coming...
Ari: To make new songs, gigs... Hmm... 5 years is a long time, I hope more and more people will listen to our music and we will have recorded at least one album by that time. :)

Q. Is there anything you'd like to add to close?

Jarmo: Don't take life too seriously and get heavy, yeahhhh...
Arto: I must say that it is a big surprise that people from other countries (than Finland) are interested in our music. We want to thank Lindsay who has made the Myspace fanpage and made all this happen.