Interviews

If you had the opportunity to ask a monster anything, what would you ask? Here, I had the very opportunity to do just that and Lordi's Mr Ox was only too kind to oblige.

Suzi: Hello to you, how are you?
Mr Ox: Fine, thank you!

Mr Lordi devised the concept for the band  in 1992, but it wasn't until four years later that Lordi was formed. Why the long interlude?
Well, that's really a question to Mr. Lordi, but what I know is that he started as a one-man project. Then few years later Lordi developed into a band. And I think that the first Lordi line-up didn't have a drummer at all. Kita joined in the year 2000.

In 2006 you performed (and won!) the Eurovision Song Contest. What was that experience like?
What was it like? Well, it was strange and amazing at the same time. I remember at the time I didn't really know what was going on. I had joined the band 6 months earlier, and here I was, winning the biggest song contest in Europe. But it was great, it made the band so much bigger in one night. And also, introduced us to our manager Bill Aucoin who brought us to America to take our first steps there. We'll see where that takes us.

What actually convinced you, as a Monster Metal group, to audition for the competition that's known for being a bit more cheesy than rock?
Free TV-time! We had a new album coming out and needed the attention. In the beginning it really was just one TV gig for us. We just went there to do what we always do.

After the success you had both at Eurovision, and after; what advice would you offer to other hard rock bands thinking about following in your footsteps?
Just be yourself. Like I said, we just did what we always do.

In 2007, Finland saw Lordi postage stamps, 'Lordi Square' in Rovaniemi, and Lordi cola cans! What novelty Lordi merchandise would you most like to see on the market?
Lordi underwear for ladies!

You performed on mainstage last year at Ozzfest. How did you get involved? Did you find the U.S audience responded well to the theatrical elements of Lordi?
Yeah, Ozzfest must be the highlight of our career. It was amazing!! U.S audience was great! How did we get involved? I think Bill Aucoin and Sharon Osbourne being friends had something to do with it. We are always grateful of the fact that we got to do Ozzfest.

After conquering America and New Zealand, what are your plans to further Lordi world domination?
We're still taking our baby steps in both countries, so there's still a lot to conquer in the US and NZ. Also, we've never been to South America. We'd LOVE to go there. There's still a lot of countries that we haven't visited. And we wanna go everywhere!

How did you initially create the characters of Amen the mummy, Awa the vampire countess, Ox the hellbull, Kita the alien manbeast and Mr Lordi?
I can only speak for myself. So, first of all, the name OX came from Mr. Lordi when he looked at me playing in the rehearsals. He said that I look like a raging bull when I play. Then he asked me what elements would I like in my character. I said something from the movie Mad Max mixed with how Rob Zombie's band looks like. And then he created and made the character. All by himself.

You're actually touring through Europe at the moment. How's that going? Any good tourbus stories you can share?
Not really touring, but doing festivals on weekends. It's going great! Big audiences. It's nice to see that they still like us. Most of the tourbus stories actually happened in the US! During the Ozzfest, we fired our crew's bus driver. And he went crazy. He kidnapped the crew one morning when they were sleeping, and drove them to some customs area, where they couldn't move anywhere. Cops and TV crews showed up. It was a happy ending. No-one got hurt and we made the local news! The other one happened during the tour when we were opening for Type O Negative. In the US, of course! Our tour-manager, Rikk, was talking to couple of our fans outside our bus, when they got robbed by 4 guys with guns. Those poor fans lost all they had with them, and those gunmen tried to shoot our tour manager and a security guy,but thank god, they missed. And thank god those fans didn't get hurt. I wish all the best to them.

Your live shows consist of amazing theatrics and pyrotechnics, many things could go wrong with a performance of that calibre - but what's the funniest thing that's happened on stage so far?
I don't know if it's funny or not, but couple shows back I watched our guitarist, Amen, run past me to the front of the stage. And when he got there, a bomb which was just under him, accidentally went off in a wrong place. He run back to me and said that he can't hear anything, and stormed off back to his side of the stage. I know it shouldn't be funny, but I was laughing my ass off! We have pyros in bass and guitar that shoot fire and sparkles. And one time I had it the wrong way around in my bass, and it shot right to my face. I guess it was Amen's turn to laugh that time!

Tell me about the motion picture, 'Dark Floors' and your involvement.
It's based on the original idea of Mr. Lordi and Pete Riski, who has directed all our videos. It's a horror movie, and we have small parts as monsters in it. It's Mr. Lordi's lifelong dream come true. Making a horror movie. I think it turned out really good.

Home in Finland you're also known as 'The Finnish Monsters' and 'The Monsters of Finland'; to me, those words give me an image of an 'anti-Disney' theme park (I know, I'm an ideas girl! ;)  ) - If there were to be a Lordi theme-park, what would you like to see there?
Live unknown rock bands every night. It would be a good opportunity for good music that no-one can hear on radio.

The whole direction of the band stemmed from a dream - tell me how it felt seeing that dream come to fruition for the first time?
I think everytime when a dream comes true and you've worked really hard for it, it feels better than anything.

Who designed your foam-latex costumes?
Mr. Lordi.

What's your musical background?
I'll name a few of my favourite bands: Mötley Crue, Rob Zombie, Alice Cooper, System Of A Down, W.A.S.P, Kiss, Twisted Sister, Aerosmith, Steve Stevens, Ozzy Osbourne, Buckcherry, Zodiac Mindwarp, Motörhead, Backyard Babies, Slaughter, Ratt and so on...

After your Eurovision victory, you celebrated by perfoming an open-air concert in Helsinki. At that gig you actually broke the world record for the most people ever to successfully sing karaoke! That must have been an incredible experience! What was going through your minds hearing 80'000 people singing Hard Rock Hallelujah?
It was actually 90.000 people who showed up. It was amazing! This is one of those things that's really hard to explain how you feel. I just couldn't believe it. It was so great! And also, I was hoping I wouldn't (stuff) up in front of all those people!

Talk me through your song writing process.
We all make demos of our songs alone or together with another band member. Then when we're all done we just sit down and listen and choose the songs that we're gonna start recording. Last time we had 60 songs to choose 15 out of! Then we start to arrange them together and when we're done, we hit the studio. That's pretty much it.

At a Lordi performance, do you notice you have a set demographic in the audience, or do you find a wide variety of diverse fans?
Oh, we have all kinds of fans. From little kids to grandmothers! And that's great!

And finally, I'll leave the last words to you - what message would you like to give your fans or potential fans?
Thank you for being there. Where ever you are, someday we're coming your way..