THE 69 EYES
"I like to do strange things..."
(Interview mit Jyrki 69, Januar 2010)
Thank you for your time.
No problem, of course
So how are you tonight?
Great, it was a long tour – we have one week left.
So you are tired?
No, not at all - well it’s just challenging to play at this place and I’m exited to see how we can answer the challenge this time.
How do you like Switzerland and have you been here before?
Well, I’ve been here a few times of course, but I wish I had some real time to see…we’ve played at some festivals like greenfield and in your biggest cities. But I wish I had some spear-time to come over because I would really love to see this place more and I’m curious to learn more about Switzerland. This place is really nice to play, but around here there is nothing to see. Your biggest cities are fantastic and I’m very enthusiastic for culture and art - I really can’t wait for us to play in your biggest cities again or me coming for a visit as a tourist. Geneva would be a pretty good start to see Switzerland.
Where did you record your new album and how long did it take?
Less than a year ago we where on tour with Tiamat over Europe – right after that we flew to Los Angeles to record the new album. The band was playing over a month every night and then going straight to the studios. And this was a pretty wise move to keep the tightness on. And this affected the record in that sense that we wanted the record to sound more “69 Eyes like”, less extra instruments. We don’t use live like for instance, not so much keyboards and programming. Anyway…we did this Tiamat Tour less than a year ago and then we flew to L.A. And we recorded from March to May - It came out just five months ago and first we toured in the US like 4 month for the new album and then we toured in Finland and now we are doing the first leg European Tour and the second leg of this tour will take part in April/ March and will take place in southern Europe.
Who did the design of the cover “Back in Blood”?
t’s a very famous American artist called Estefan Oriol (Linktipp: http://www.estevanoriol.com/) – he is one of the most regarded photographers of these days. He has captured all east L.A. images, he did record-covers for Snoop Dog, Transplant and Cypress Hill - all these east L.A. Hip-Hop-Ganster. I really like what he’s been doing and I always wanted to create something new from totally different elements and I thought that it would be interesting to have this east-L.A. And then adding our north European gothic-rock to see what happens. The cover is very cool and works beautifully on t-shirts and also as a record cover. I told him what the name of the record would be and didn’t now what design he’s gonna do and actually he’s photographer and he represents east-L.A., Latin-American background and you can think of the cover more like day of the dead which is like a Mexican celebration kind of symbolism. It really works for us, I think it’s a very strong image and I really think it’s the best cover we had on an album and I think he is a world class artist. He only does his art for his homies, people that he calls his homies and I’m so honoured to be considered as one of his homies, because their culture is so different from ours and it is a great thrill to have it. And I’m very proud of it.
Your new album “Back in Blood” sounds much like older stuff you did – why did you choose this sound / lyrics to come back?
I like to keep things simple and when I decided to do a record that is all about vampires and these kind of things. Of course these things are repeated like every song nearly has something to do with blood and undead. But that is of course on purpose it’s not like I’m stupid and I don’t even see how simple things work. That’s like pop art in that way I’m repeating that. As we are touring I always try to do sightseeing and going to museums and I went through the gothic-churches of course way back then. I went to Pittsburgh to the Andy Warhol museum because he’s from there. A few days ago, we where in Vienna on a big Andy Warhol exhibition. I’ve always been a big Andy Warhol fan. So going to the museum made me realize he’s one of my idols since the 80ies. I just realized that lots of things that I do has really the same principles of recycling, repeating, bringing back some simple things ….that helped me to understand myself, why I do this things and how I do them. But everything is on purpose and I’m aware of all these things. There is a song called “Kiss me Undead” and there is “Dead Girls are Easy” and something and most of all it’s fun.
How did your fans react on the tour 2009/2010 regarding the new songs / new album?
It’s insane – I nearly thought this would be our farewell-tour, we been together 20 years, we seen backstages at the rock-clubs enough, you now. And I thought ok, let’s do this tour, it’s gonna be a regular tour and that’s it. All of a sudden every show has really blew our minds. I mean there are so much new people, so much enthusiastic people and like you now we play on the stage and we see the audience for us. We have played every night for a full audience. Number wise they are not sold out but if I look at the audience from the stage it’s not like a small group gathered in front of the stage – the clubs / venues have been full. We are a little confused what’s going on because like I said I was thinking of good-byes. I don’t know what to think. There are two things. We have a new great record-label “Nuclear Blast”, who is really promoting us. On the other hand I think in the end our record was such a record because it went to many more different medias, because how it sounds, also to the mainstream medias so I guess we did something right. In the set we play about eight new songs and people really seem to react. We have a couple of 69 Eyes standards and people are reacting to them like - if you come to see a band you know which songs are your favourites and we can see that from the stage as well – these new songs are causing same kind of reactions – I mean of course “Dead girls are easy” is the most popular song in our set, but also the other songs from the new album seem to have gone to the audience really well. It makes also some sense…if some fans where not sure what to think about the new album I think when he witnesses our live-performance it makes more sense and gives new perspectives for the new record.
Do you prefer live-gigs or studio working?
I don’t like touring anymore much, I’ve seen that. But I like meeting people and I like to do strange things or say stupid things on stage. It’s fun to confuse them, I like to confuse them. I get them confused. I like that a lot. If we where only in the studio I couldn’t probably not do that. It’s fun to see the reaction. I enjoy both, studio and live. Being creative is something that never goes away. It’s a need, like the need to exercise for instance - it’s a need you need to use someway. Playing live is also being creative on stage. I’m curious to see who wants to see us.
With which band would you like to realize a musical project it you could choose?
I would like to do some music with, ahm, it’s pretty easy to do such things with anybody these days. It would be pretty fun to do some raw stuff with Jack White from The White Stripes.
In your youth, what kind of music did you first buy on CD/ vinyl?
I was listening to rockabilly and fifties rock’n’roll and I still do and it inspires. We did some acoustic shows with The 69 Eyes at the end of last year I’ve always said that we have a strong element of original rock’n’roll and fifties rock’n’roll in our music which I have tried to keep or bring there in a way or another. When we play acoustic everybody else agrees, we are not a metal-band, we are not in electronic music, we are a rock’n’roll band and the real base is in the 50ies rockabilly and rock’n’roll, especially when we play our songs acoustic they can be like 50ies or rockabilly-sounds. So that is my musical background and you can also hear that on the stuff we do.
Before going on stage have you a special ritual?
I need some time to be alone, I watch some DVDs or hear some music. I need to absorb something for me. For instance if we would have to go on stage like in 15 minutes I need some time to concentrate – it’s like I really have to be all alone for myself.
Favourite movie at this time?
I was watching Fellinis “Rome”, you know Federico Fellini. That’s pretty cool. I was watching it just before. On this tour I also watched Wolverine – it’s pretty cool. I have few movies with me in the bus – at the moment I like Fellinis “Rome” most, because we also just came from Italy.
Best actor/actress ever?
Marilyn Monroe is really cool. I like Nicolas Cage much. I was actually just watching “Ghost Rider” and I think it’s badly underestimated. It looks really good and it’s like one of the movies that, well – “Ghost Rider” looks really good and it’s fun to watch so I’m happy not to take myself so serious and judge such a movie. My favourite movie of all times is “Easy Rider”, I really love that movie a lot. I think that “Ghost Rider” and “Easy Rider” have some parallels. I have to get back to that “Easy Rider” theme because that’s something The 69 Eyes get inspiration from. It’s and it was a really important movie for me when I was growing up.
What kind of activities do you like when not being on tour?
I do sports - jogging, I’m going to gym, I got back to drawing, and I’m drawing stuff. I try to keep away from the internet actually. These days when you are an artist you are expected to report every fucking thing you do. On tour is like service for fans I send Twitter messages. I’m so old-school I don’t think it’s necessary to report everything I do, when I do. What I found out during this tour: I don’t have a facebook-profile at all. There are lots of fakes with my name in the internet. There is always some fan waiting for me saying: “you invited me here” and I answer “no, I didn’t” and the same thing was with a promoter even who was talking to me friendly all the night and it turned out that he was in contact with a facebook-fake and not with me. I’m surprised: how come I’m so an interesting person somebody really wants to spend their time to do such fake-profiles. I like to draw a straight line, we’re an oldschool band and I’m an a fucking old guy and I’m not interested in making new friends through the internet. I meet enough people and have my friends already. It’s a little irritating and strange and I think that everything on the internet is like a big lie. Sometimes I go to Wikipedia to check something and the facts there are wrong, like birthdays and names etc. I did an interview in Italy and somebody said something about the freedom of speech on the internet. It’s good, but it’s not good in all parts.
Thank you very much for your time and the interview.
No problem, I have my hour before we go one stage.
(Interview by Nathalie)
