Special Ruisrock Interview with Lauri of The Rasmus
7 July 2001, Ruissalo, Turku, Finland

We managed to get a hold of the lead singer of The Rasmus, Lauri Ylönen. The band is taking their first steps to the European markets and Lauri was more than willing to give us a few details about the their future plans.

RockUnited: What is the situation with the European countries?
Lauri: Looking pretty good at the moment. We're gonna spend the next week in Germany, do some promotion and acoustic sets in different radio stations. Germany looks the most promising for us at the moment. We'll tour Central Europe and then head back to Scandinavia.

RockUnited: What about countries other than Europe?
Lauri: Well, we have agreed on European releases. We're negotiating about Asia and United States but we don't want to just release a record there and wait for something to happen. We'll rather go there in person and meet the people before the release. We don't want to hurry things too much.

RockUnited: You must also agree that "Into" is your best album so far?
Lauri: Yeah, definitely.

RockUnited: How was the recording process like?
Lauri: Actually it was quite easy. We prepared the songs well before going to the studio with almost two years of training. We had some twenty songs to choose from and ten made it on the album. We had really good producer from Sweden and a good studio. And we had already three records out prior to this one so every one of us knew what to do in a studio.

RockUnited: Did the producers have any influence on song writing?
Lauri: No, not really. Or they did have some ideas for the arrangements so maybe a little.

RockUnited: But they we're not credited?
Lauri: No, it's their job in that stage of the recording so it was not necessary

RockUnited: What about the single releases. Will "F-F-F-Falling" be the first single to be released also internationally.
Lauri: Yes, we've had such a success story here in Finland so we think it's the best way to start also abroad.

RockUnited: You think that the recent breakthroughs of some other Finnish bands have helped you?
Lauri: Yeah, definitely. Still there are not that many Finnish bands out there so maybe that's just the reason why it is easier to get attention. But it's been clear to see that the success of HIM and Bomfunk MC's has helped also us.

RockUnited: When seeing you on stage I can't help but think that behind all that must be hours and hours of practise?
Lauri: You're right, we train quite a lot. Before the summer we trained five times a week. Now that we're on tour we don't get to practise that much. But we don't really need to because one gig is worth several training sessions.

RockUnited: Have you done a video of your new single?
Lauri: Yeah, we shot the video for "Chill" ourselves when touring Scandinavia with a small camera. A friend of ours edited it into a short video so in that sense it's not a "real" video. After summer we're gonna release a third single and have a bigger budget video for that.

RockUnited: Could the single be "Heartbreaker"?
Lauri: You think so? I don't actually know because it hasn't been decided yet.

At this point we were interrupted by some fans who wanted to take picture of Lauri so we had no time to ask him any more questions. He's a very positive man and seemed really down to earth. It was fun to watch how he had time for all of the fans, give autographs and have his picture taken with them. We wish The Rasmus the best of luck for the future. RockUnited will keep you posted on how their conquest of Europe will continue.

Petri Kautto

Check Out other The Rasmus-related material at www.RockUnited.com:
Ruisrock 2003 live review
The Rasmus live review
Reviews of "Into" and "Dead Letters"