Kerrang Article

Review of Dead Letters:
THE LOWDOWN: On the evidence of The Rasmus' surprise smash 'ITS', it seemed that these Finnish urchins were intent on ensnaring the rabidly devoted, mascara-weilding army of fans their compatriots HIM have built up by taking on their louche sheen and giving it a black pop twist so catchy it itched. But that song's visions of grandeur only told half the story, because The Rasmus are the children of Europe - the ludicrous '80s band whose moment of greatness began and ended with 'The Final Countdown' and the continent. All the evidence is here: frontman Lauri's earnest, fist-pumping, somewhat bronchial vocals, towering riffs so polished you could slide across them in your socks, choruses you can imagine arenas full of ecstatic Germans bellowing along to, the obligatory lighter-waver ('Funeral Song'). That all said, it's impossible to deny the craft and care that's gone into this, 'Still Standing' nodding to their Nordic homeland as they get teary-eyed about the Northern Lights with a gleaming chorus that wouldn't seem out of place in the kind of 80s Tom Cruise films that saw the toothy midget swanning around in a bomber jacket and spending a disconcerting amount of time in the locker room. Joey Tempest, your influence on the rock world has finally been acknowledged. Take a bow. BEST TRACKS: 'First Day Of My Life', 'Guilty'. Hmm, overall I think this was a disappointing review, especially as, to top it off, they gave it 3 out of 5!! It was well a written review (hilariously funny in parts aswell), but I think it should have at least given DL 4 out of 5!! Anyway, if anyone wants to read the article featuring Lauri but doesn't have access to the magazine, I will be happy to do it tomorrow if no-one else does it before hand.

Article:
Lauri Ylonen comes in black, from follicle to footwear. Tickeled by the smoke from a half finished Marlboro Light he appears like a photo negative, a film noir still that might easily be framed and hung in the corner of this angular and fashionable Shepherd's Bush hotel bar. Only the green glass of the bottles of expensive European beer and Lauri's blue eyes add colour to the white leather sofas and wooden, black tables.

You have to lean in close to hear what he's saying, squinting your eyes as he dances through a sentence. Lauri Ylonen's words have a light and musical quality to them, like the gentle tinkle of a music box. The words themselves also leap and cavort whether he's talking about something that happened to him when he was at school or something that happened to him 10 minutes before he arrived. There's also a touch of conspirational about his tone.Given the way he speaks, Lauri sounds like a double agent who's about to reveal himself.

There's something about his look too. He's not what you'd call a good-looking man, not conventionally. As he talks it's difficult not to smile at the thought that if he had a shaven head, Ylonen would look and sound like Gollum. But its a striking look, if not charismatic. Thin and pale but obviously in reasonable health, it takes a little while to realise that this man is not quite what he first appears to be.

Fishing through the almost remarkable story of his band The Rasmus' ascent to European dominace, the frontman finds the place where it all began; the place that allowed it all to begin. "It was our decision not to sing in Finnish," he says. "All the other bands sang in Finnish". And why do you think they did that? "I dont know" he says then stares with a look that has an answer written all over it. And then he gives you an answer, "I suppose they had limited ambitions". And you? But this time Lauri just smiles.

And you would smile, wouldnt you if you were in his position right now? Turn your back on The Rasmus for five minutes and something else has happened, something else has propelled them skyward. Unnoticed to the point of perfect obscurity as little as three months ago, today the band are not so much household names as a household sound.

'In The Shadows', the first single from their new album 'Dead Letters', looks set to break the UK top 10-perhaps even Top 5- with some ease, after being placed on optimum rotation on both Radio One and London's XFM, as well as making the Number One spot on Kerrang! TV. You might sniff at this of course, since a posse of friends and family each with three pounds to spare is enough to guarntee your CD single a mention on 'Top of the Pops'. But people are also responding to The Rasmus in terms that might be less fleeting than this. For one thing the venues for the band's April tour have been upgraded, from small clubs to large clubs and, in some cases, theatres. 'Sold Out' signs are almost guaranteed already.

All of this you might call an overnight success. Only that's not true by a long chalk. For one, like their fellow countrymen HIM, The Rasmus (a name which has no Finnishe trabslation, rather it just "sounds good") are alreadt successful in many parts of Europe- Scandinavia, Germany, France, holland, Spain. 'Dead Letters' (released this week) is also the band's fifth album; it arrives here in their 10th anniversary year. This despite each member being only 24 years of age. In terms of precocity, Lauri Ylonen makes Tim Wheeler look like Tony Lommi.

It Began, naturally, at school in Helsinki. The school had 600 pupils in it, only 580 of which didn't want to grow up to be ice hockey players in the NHL. Of this 20, Lauri Ylonen was one. The misfits, as they tend to do, sought each other out and soon Ylonen had banded with Ereo Heinonen and Pauli Rantaslami, bassit and gutarist respectively. They were joined on the drums by Jaani, also a schoolmate. This prototype band cover versions ranging fromStatus Quo to Metallica. The grop were 16 when they signed their first record deal, and 16 when they released their first album 'Peep', in 1996. It was played on national radio with listeners ringing up saying how the songs were great, thinking they came from a new international act. All the while The Rasmus were still practicising in Pauli Rantaslami's parents garage, still being driven by Mr Rantasalmi to gigs, their gear loaded on the roof. Under the radar, the band gathered their fans.

And they continued to gather them. Through albums such as 'Playboys' and 'Hell of a tester', with a singleness of purpose that meant replacing their drummer - Aki Hakala now sits on the stool- when original sticksman Jaani asked for the band to take a six-month break (Ylonen: "I have always made a living from music, even if i was just eating tins of tune fish for weeks on end. There was no way I was gonna stop"). Their fourth album, 'Into', went pan-European and pandemonium has now met 'Dead Letters'. The Rasmus had number one singles and number one albums all over the continent. The Rasmus had real success. And now they're here.

"Am I surrised?" wonders Ylonen. "No, surprised would be the wrong word. We have been working towards this from the moment we formed as a band. We sang in English, we kept at this when things weren't going so good, we worked hard. Obviously to see it happening in front of us is very different to how we imagained it happening, but surprise is not the word i would use".
What Word would you use? "I dont know". The look, this time, appears genuine. Would you like The Rasmus to be more famous then you are at the moment? "I suppose I would, yes". Is there a limit to the amount of fame you desire? "That's a very strange question". But....
Lauri Ylonen is smiling again. There is somethng naked, something quietly ruthless about The Rasmus. Sipping a badly mixed Bloody Mary, Eero Heinonen will walk over to you at the bar and ask, "how big will this interview be?" by way of introduction. He'll nod at the answer and say "And that's good, isnt it? Thats a lot"?. Twenty-five feet away in the corner of the bar, Lauri Ylonen is midway though another interview, gesticulating gently through the fog of cigarette smoke. Twenty-five minutes later and it's time for another handshake and another interview. "yes", says the singer, "i write most of the music." "No", says the singer, "i dont think being described as sounding like euro-pop is a good thing." "Yes", he says, "i am a control freak"
.How do your bandmates feel about that? "Well," he says, "sometimes I guess the way I am means things get done. Other times I'm sure they'd rather not have me around. But..."and here he doesnt really think about this..."not often."
Ylonen mentions the press 'doing' interviews. He says he always checks the magazine he's scheduled to speak with, and that if he doesn't like them then he will nix the chat. He says, again, that he likes to be in control. But your're not in control here, in interviews where a journalist ultimately has the final word. I could say your're the biggest dickhead I've ever met and there's not much you can do about that. "No,"he says, as firmly as he's said anything so far. "But there is something I can do afterwards." What? "If you did that, in a way that i thought wasn't true, I would never talk to your magazine again".

All of which makes The Rasmus quite interesting, quite unusual. Not so much for their music but for them, their personaltiy and his impulse. The idea that their tenacious and assidious frontman would actually comb the music publications of Western and Northern Europe in order to Blackball any he didn't like the look of is remarkable, more in keeping with the tenants of Fugaz's Ian Mackaye than it is Amy Lee or whoever happens to be the face of the present. Also remarkable is not so much the exponential and immediate success of The Rasmus- we've been here before with Pape Roach and Evanescence- but the fact that they've done it in this way, that they've taken five albums to fo it and that thay come not from Orange County, California, but from the frozen, industrial north. And without the loks of Ville Valo of the esoteric charisma of Rammstein, because The Rasmus, really, have flown without either strings or, it seems, wings. And only they are the ones who appear unsurprised. "We are a good band," says Lauri Ylonen, "we have been a good band for a long time. Now people are hearing that. It doesnt matter where we come from, it doesn't matter what we look like, all that matters is what we are. We dont care that we dont fit into peoples little pigeon-holes. It people cant make sense of us then that is not our problem. To us, it makes perfect sense".

Thanks Louisa for re-writting the interview!