LORDI: A Conversation With A Monster

By Ryan Ogle

By now, the dust kicked up from LORDI's 2006 Eurovision Song Contest victory and subsequent global domination is starting to settle a bit, but Finland's true (okay, costumed) monsters of rock are doing anything but. Taking little time to recuperate from the whirlwind that accompanied their heavily publicized introduction into pop culture, which included cover stories in European tabloids and a main stage spot on the 2007 Ozzfest, LORDI went right to work on the follow up to their wildly successful third release, "The Arockalypse". Less concerned with living up to the hype, and more focused on rocking the balls off of mankind, the band's outrageous and surprisingly good-humored (he is hands down the nicest flesh-eating monster I've ever had the pleasure of speaking with) founder and front man, Mr. Lordi, steps out of the studio for a bit to speak to BLABBERMOUTH.NET about his upcoming album, how boring getting shot at actually is and hard rock's need for a theatric resurgence.

Q: So how's the new album coming along?

Mr. Lordi: Very good! We just recorded the drums today and we'll start the laying down the bass tracks tomorrow. It is a little hectic at the moment, as I'm still trying to finish the lyrics. We've also been doing some changing to some of the songs; rearranging parts here and there. At the same time, we're still arranging the guitar parts, which is stressful because the bass player starts recording tomorrow. It's been non-stop running back and forth between the recording studio, the rehearsal space and my home studio, ZOOM-ZOOM [laughs].

Q: I understand you had around 60 songs written for this release.

Mr. Lordi: It was exactly 60 songs. No less, no more exactly 60. That's something we always do when we record. For each and every album we've done so far, we've had at least 50 songs. This time, we say 60 because it that was all we had time to record demos for. There were maybe 15 songs that we had worked on that we never made demos for. Those were the crappy ones that nobody really cared about in the first place, so we don't miss them.

Q: How does the elimination process go when you have that many songs? I can only imagine how difficult it can be trying to pare 60 songs down to one album's worth of material.

Mr. Lordi: That's the hard part. I'm telling you, it's very hard. Let's put it this way, the record label tell us, "You've got a positive problem, because there's too much to choose from." There are many bands, for example on our label here in Finland, whose albums are delayed because they don't have enough songs. Not that they're bad by any means, they just don't have enough material for the album; period. For us, it's the other way around because we have too much. So this time around, we have 60 songs to sort through. We took one full day, starting around ten o'clock in the morning, at the record label with the producer, A&R, the band and whoever else was there. We listened to all 60 of those songs and everyone took their notes and gave their opinions. We were there until midnight. Of course, when it got that late, everyone was tired and said little more than, "I don't care." At the beginning of the day, during the first 15 or 20 songs, everyone had these long explanations and commentaries as to why they liked this song, or hated that one. After ten hours, it was narrowed down to, "This song sucks," or "This one has to be on the album." When we went back to our notes, and everyone had to discuss why they chose the songs they did, it got really hard. One person might have been in love with one song and really believe it belonged on the album, while someone else hated it. We finally decided on 15 songs and said, "Okay, these are the first 15 of the 60 we're going to work on." When we sat down with those songs, we looked at each other and said, "Oh god, this is going to be suicide to record." There was not one single song of the ones we chose that sounded like what you could call a typical LORDI song. All of those songs were sort of weird, or different, for us. So then, we went through the choosing process again. It was definitely a struggle, but that's what happens when you write too many songs. [laughs]

Q: So it sounds too me like LORDI is really making it a point to reach beyond what people expect from you from listening to your previous work. What are you doing to avoid making a rehashed version of "The Arockalypse"?

Mr. Lordi: That's a good question, because our A&R guy has been very concerned that we would do just that. That's something we've been keeping in our heads this whole time. We've also been talking to our fans, trying to find out what they want to hear or see from us, or where they want us to go. We've also been talking a lot amongst ourselves too. It's definitely going to be different, but we're not going to go too far. On our second album, "The Monsterican Dream", we went too far. Let's put it this way, the producer of that album pushed the envelope too far. We didn't see it until after the fact, but he was pushing us in a very metallic direction, but the songs didn't fit that direction. The songs were in the same genre and style as our first album, so they didn't fit the metallic production he gave the album. That really alienated a lot of people from us as far as that album was concerned. The arrangement and production of an album can change everything. You could take a perfectly good song and give it a bad production and it'll sound like a bad song. If you take the same good song and play it on an acoustic guitar around a campfire or something, you'll hear it the way it was meant to be heard and go, "Okay, I get it now." With production, it can go either way, you never know. Now we have more of a power element in the music, writing, as well as on the lyrical side of things. Of course, it's going to be a hard rock album, that's for sure. We're trying to take the essence of what we are and, how should I say it, polish the diamond a little brighter.

Q: When you won the Eurovision contest in 2006, you literally exploded onto the international scene. Your sound, image, everything really grabbed people's attention. Are you feeling any pressure, with this album, to live up to the hype you created for yourselves?

Mr. Lordi: I never thought that we would well, I should say that I never thought I would, make it this far. Recently, I was sitting down with Amen, our guitar player, working on songs for the new album and we just couldn't do anything. We were playing, but we just couldn't get the juices flowing. We knew how the music was supposed to be structured and we knew what we were supposed to do with them, but just couldn't get it going. Amen looks at me and asks, "Is this what the pressure of writing a follow-up to a successful album feels like?" I looked at him, laughed and said, "Yeah! It must be." For the next few days, we were kind of depressed. Maybe we were trying too hard; we were analyzing it too much. After a few days, we got over it and went right back to work. We figured that we just needed to be ourselves and not try to be more that we actually are. We'll never be a technical, super-, hyper-fast metal band, that's not us. We are never going to be really great musicians. We should never try to do something that we cannot do, so let's just stick to what we know we can do well. That was the point of realization when we knew that we were on the right track.

Q: So aside from getting shot at and having your bus hijacked, how did you like your first trip to America?

Mr. Lordi: HA! The media ran with that one, didn't they? The media made those stories nice and dramatic, but when you hear them from someone who was actually there to tell it the way it happened

Q: It wasn't nearly as exciting?

Mr. Lordi: No, it's not like watching "C.S.I." It was more like, "Well, there we were and someone fired a couple of shots. Nobody was hurt, so oh well." Sure it's a good story to tell, but everyone was fine. It was nothing real dramatic. Of course, that kind of thing happens everywhere. Shit is going to happen, it's Murphy's Law. The media made it sound like something much more than it really was.

Q: Did you view the American tour as a success?

Mr. Lordi: Yeah, I think so. We started getting e-mails and fan mail from the States when the first album came out, and that was six years ago. We knew we had people over here that knew who were and were into what we were doing. When we played that first show in New Jersey, we saw several people that we knew from our website. Some of them came from pretty far away. At the next show, we saw those same people, along with some new faces. From what we could see at the shows and on the website, we knew it was growing. It was cool; it worked out well for us. We would love to come back, and go to other countries where we have fans as well. The band would always like to travel anywhere in the world to play a show, but it's not always up to the band. You have to have a promoter that is willing to pay for the expenses of flying a band in and doing a tour. If you haven't seen LORDI, it's not because we don't want to come pay for you. You should contact your local promoter and tell them to bring us to town. It's not up to us. When I was a kid, I could never imagine why TWISTED SISTER would never come to Finland. I would yell, "WHY? Why won't you come to Finland??"

Q: No promoter?

Mr. Lordi: Exactly! [laughs]

Q: Knowing how big of a KISS fan you are, I'm sure you remember in the '80s when they took off the make-up and lost the theatrical element of their image. Although fans across the glove freaked out, they obviously continued to be a huge success. Do you think LORDI do follow suit were you to ever drop the costumes, or should I even be asking you?

Mr. Lordi: We could, but we shouldn't. Sure, we could do it, anybody could. This is how I see it the band LORDI, when you hear us on the CD, when we're writing and practicing at home, when we're recording in the studio; we're not wearing costumes. The music would still sound exactly the same. If you came to see us play live, we would sound exactly the same, but there would be nothing worth staying for. That's why the costumes are there and they are not going away. I am such a stubborn man; I am never letting up on that one. Even though KISS was still successful after they took off the make-up, they were not the same band. It was the same songs and essentially the same guys, but it was a different band. If you remember TWISTED SISTER, on their last album, they took off the make-up. That was not a good idea, from a fan's point of view; which I am. Most fans expressed my sentiment by not buying the album. The same goes for ALICE COOPER, when he's taken off the make-up and shed the image for certain albums, those have not been successful ones. Think about W.A.S.P., when Blackie Lawless decided to take away the saw-blades and the boots and the make-up and put out those political, kind of serious W.A.S.P. albums; I don't think that was his best work. I would like to see W.A.S.P. come back in full gear with the saw blades and wild hair. With Chris Holmes and Randy Piper back in the band, I think that would sell out everywhere. W.A.S.P. put on a great show. They would throw pieces of meat at the audience. It's those little things that make going to a concert so fun; like Blackie shooting pyro from his crotch. I would love to see Blackie shoot pyro from his crotch again.

The End Records re-released LORDI's 2002 debut album "Get Heavy" in May. The reissue comes with the exclusive bonus track "Don't Let My Mother Know".