Rock Overdose and Sofia Ntouska, on the occasion of the new LORDI’s studio album “Sexorcism”, had the pleasure to have an interesting interview with LORDI’s singer Tomi Petteri Putaansuu better known as Mr.Lordi, who said many things about the band's new album , the odd and bizarre Lordi's uniforms, and about the Finnish metal.
Rock Overdose: Hello from Greece and welcome to RockOverdose! How have you been?
Mr.Lordi: Hello! Thank you! I’m fine, just got back home yesterday and I’m finally enjoying sometime here in Finland at my home in the middle of nowhere with my dog.
Rock Overdose: Cool! But not much rest for the wicked. You have just released your 9th studio album, called “Sexorcism” . What can you tell us about it? How would you describe it? Are you satisfied with the result?
Mr. Lordi: It’s traditional Lordi stuff! I’m quite pleased with it. It was my plan to write a traditional Lordi album, you know, really hooky choruses, heavy stuff, pretty much like going back to the roots of Lordi’s recording career. There are songs that remind of Lordi’s early days but at the same time also have elements from the latest albums. Of course I am really satisfied about it. I am always satisfied with all the albums we release. There’s no point of putting out an album unless you’re truly satisfied with all the work you’ve put into it and the result.
Rock Overdose: Your imagery plays a huge part for Lordi. What was the inspiration behind the monster-like looks? How did you come up with it?
Mr.Lordi: Well, I’ve been a fan of monsters since I was a little kid. Even a fan of special make-up effects since I was a kid. It all started with my mom’s make-up kit when I was 7 or 8 years old. So, actually, I’ve been doing the make-up thing, longer than I do music. I was probably around 9 years old when I started being interested in making music on my own, but I was already into monsters by that time.
Rock Overdose: I guess you like horror movies a lot…
Mr.Lordi: Oh, absolutely. I am a huge fan, I’m a freaking nerd when comes to horror stuff. Also everything that has to do with science fiction, comic books and stuff like that, I am a huge fan. Also being a huge KISS, Twisted Sister, Alice Cooper, King Diamond and other shock rock bands in the 80s really had a huge impact on me, so it’s basically the combination of all these.
Rock Overdose: Actually, now that you’ve mentioned KISS, I happened to re-watch your performance at Eurovision song contest 2006 recently, and I noticed that one of your back up singers was actually in KISS make-up... that was awesome.
Mr.Lordi: Yeah, yes!! We’ve always had many KISS references over the years here and there. I’ve pretty much owe all my life to KISS. If it wasn’t for them, if it wasn’t for me being a fan since the age of 8, we wouldn’t be doing this interview right now, that’s for fucking sure. KISS changed my life, I wanted to be Gene Simmons, I wanted to be KISS. Well, I actually wanted to be myself, but what I mean is that Lordi wouldn’t be the same without it. We wouldn’t have the platform boots, we wouldn’t have the same attitude.
For example, what I do on stage, the kind of expressions I make, I don’t do them consciously – I don’t think about it. But truth is I’m actually mimicking a lot of Gene Simmons’ moves. Well, I’m a huge fan for almost 30 years now, so..
Rock Overdose: Hmm, huge platform boots. I was always wondering – is it hard to perform in these Gene Simmons kind of boots and in full costume at the same time?
Mr. Lordi: Well, I don’t know any way better!! (laughs) I mean, I really can’t remember myself performing without all these. I wouldn’t say it’s hard. It’s like, your body “learns” to be part of the package. When you hit the stage, you get ready by putting the costume on, putting make-up and boots. This is natural for me. When we do sound-check, it feels really naked, haha. It feels so weird to do it in your everyday clothing, it feels wrong, like something is missing.
For example, when we’re doing sound-check, one of our crew guys always says that “Dude, dude.. Again, you’re singing with so less energy!” Less energy, less power, less everything, because I’m not wearing my costume, I’m just Tomi then. When I’ll put on the costume, I’m gonna be Mr. Lordi, so there’s a completely different energy and vibe there.
Rock Overdose: And you’re the one who designs all the costumes right?
Mr. Lordi: Yes!
Rock Overdose: You designed your costume so it would match your Mr. Lordi persona. But do you also get to decide who the other guys in the band will be and design their costumes according to that?
Mr. Lordi: It’s pretty much 50%. The thing is that we’ve had a few line-up changes in the band over the years. You always think that the line-up you have is going to be the final line up, but sometimes shit happens. There have been 11 or 12 different characters in the band already and whenever there’s a new member about to join the band, I will ask “Ok, what kind of monsters do you like?” and “What kind of monster would you be?” haha. Because, the main point here is that you cannot really portray the character if it doesn’t feel like yourself or you don’t like it. You have to be the number one fan of your own character. Otherwise it won’t work.
For example, Mana, our drummer, he’s a really quiet, down to earth guy, so you can’t make a raging werewolf out of him. That’s why his character is the way he is.
And Hella, our keyboardist, she really wanted to be something animated and creepy, so that’s why she became a doll. All these things have to match your own personality.
When our basist, OX joined the band, we had no fucking clue what he was going to be. We were rehearsing, and I randomly told him “Damn, you look like an ox, like a fucking bull!” and that day it was decided that he would be OX, because he looks like it when he plays the bass. With that said, I do decide the character, but I always ask and discuss the others’ opinions.
Even now, while this is the longest running line-up of the band, everytime when I start to design the new costumes and new masks, I always ask everybody what do they want and if they have any ideas, because they are the ones who are using them, not me.
Rock Overdose: Now let’s change the subject and talk about something you probably hear a lot. You’ve won the Eurovision Song Contest 12 years ago, here in Greece. I want you to tell me, after all these years, how would you describe the experience overall, and the impact it had on the band. Would you do it again?
Mr. Lordi: Actually the last question is the one that we get a lot. “Would we do it again?”
Last weekend I was in Portugal doing promo (for the ESC 2018) and I got that question like a million times haha. “Would Lordi join Eurovision again?” NO. If we wouldn’t have done it before, then maybe yes. But now, having done it once before, it’s an absolute no.
The thing is, that we wouldn’t and couldn’t do any better than we did. Best case scenario is that we would only do as well as we did last time, but I don’t really think we would. For the Eurovision audience, that whole gimmick is gone now. There’s nothing new that we can offer. It’s something that we absolutely feel we wouldn’t do again. Many of the old winners do it, I mean it surely is fun, but we wouldn’t.
And did ESC had an impact on Lordi? Fuck yes! The media exposure that we got from the event over one night pretty much. It is something you cannot buy with money, no matter how much money the record company will put on a campaign, you cannot get the same media exposure you get from Eurovision.
Rock Overdose: Of course, it was a huge exposure for Finland and the Finnish metal scene, in general. You guys are probably the most metal country, so what do you think of the Finnish metal scene? There are like a thousand bands emerging from Finland and most of the bands that I listen to are Finnish, and they are the reason I visit Finland so many times a year. You guys are the best!
Mr. Lordi: It grows strong. Even though we are a very small country, with population just over 5 million, it's a big percentage, we have many, many metal bands here.
Rock Overdose: Any favorites? You have friends playing in other metal bands?
Mr. Lordi: Quite a few actually, what could I say... Judging by my personal music taste, I really like melodic stuff and '80s orientated stuff very much.
Rock Overdose: So I guess you're a big fan of the '80s metal scene!
Mr. Lordi: Fuck yeah, you know, I'm 44, I was at a very young age when I found Twisted Sister, Alice Cooper, W.A.S.P. and the '80s was the time when I grew up into music.
Nowadays they call it classic rock or hair metal, but back then it was just metal, that's what it was, I've never been a fan of speed metal or thrash metal, melody was what I was into, my main focus was therem, especially in the vocal melody, so I grew up with the vocal melody stuff, that's why bands like Slayer never did it for me, I mean I like those bands, but they are not my favorite. So bands like Slayer, Megadeth, Metallica, Anthrax, though I did like them, they were not my favorites, so those bands that are labelled thrash metal didn't affect me that much, because they come from a different breed, I come from the breed of Kiss and Twisted Sister, I think there's a mutual respect, but it's different soil.
Rock Overdose: You have many new metal bands in Finland, that emerged from those bands as you mentioned, they're still doing great job!
Mr.Lordi: Yes, that's 100% correct!
Rock Overdose: I've had the pleasure of watching you live a couple of years ago at Tuska festival, and I was wondering If I’d ever had the chance to watch you guys here in Greece at some point!
Mr. Lordi: I am wondering the same thing myself, 'cause actually we had only played in Greece once, that was a club gig, it didn't even go that well, it was actually before Eurovision, during that week with Eurovision, we did one TV show, I don't consider the Eurovision a real show, which is really plainy, only the vocals are live, everything comes from tape, because that's how we do it in Eurovision, that's how you mainly do it on TV. Usually the TV programms they don't let you play live, I never put those performances seriously, they want you to do one song, we had one gig, we had one show in Greece, in a small club, I think it was two days or a week before the actual Eurovision, so we had one show during our stay there, it was like a promotional one.
Rock Overdose: Still it was twelve years ago, so maybe it's time for you to come back.
Mr. Lordi: It's not up to the band, as you know. It's up to the local promoters if they want us, that's the thing. For example we have never played in South America, and we have thousands of maniacs asking us to play there, like ''please come to Mexico'', yes we want, but you guys have to go to a local promoter, we want to play but if the local promoter says ''I don't know if you have any fans here'', I always urge to people that if you wanna see yourself a band, not only Lordie, but if you wanna see yourself a band in your country, you have to be active and you have to tell your local promoter ''I wanna see this band''.
Rock Overdose: Especially this year, we had a lot of bands from Finland, coming here to play, just by popular demand, for example Turisas played a gig some weeks ago, just because they had the fans asking repeatedly the promoters to get the band here, so maybe some time in the future...
Mr. Lordi: That is really cool, that is a perfect example how it works, you gotta ask and something may come out of it.
Rock Overdose: So let's hope the same thing happens with Lordi. So, I wanna thank you for this interview, it's been a pleasure talking to you, and I wish you guys the best for the new album. You can take your time in closing this interview the way you want, a message to the fans maybe.
Mr. Lordi: I gotta tell you something that definitely exists, we have a warm spot for Greece in our hearts, absolutely. It is quite uncanny that we haven't been there. We could actually one day be there and meet our Greek fans, it would be awesome!
For Rock Overdose
Interview-Sofia Ntouska
Transcription
Sofia Ntouska-Dimitris Aloras
Translation
Pavlos Giannakopoulos
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