Since I could not see the WALTARI show quasi in front of my door, I got another chance one week later. But this time WALTARI as headliner, supported by Remember Twilight. Armed with the questions Psycho has prepared, added with some own ones and before I could enjoy a great show I met singer and 4-stringer Kärtsy for an interview. He was good humored but looked pretty tired. Spoken to him upon this fact he said: “After such a long break and now touring without any day off so far, it is quite exhausting and I need to get used to it again …” … what led me directly to the first question …

Waltari

Dajana: Ok, Kärtsy. Did WALTARI disband 4 years ago or was it just a long break?
Kärtsy:
No, we never disbanded. We made just a one year break. We had the last European tour in 2000 supporting Radium Round album. And after that for the first time in 14 years we had break, we needed a break. Because, at the same time when we released Radium Round we had this massive spectacular, many concerts in Finland, presenting this freaky Metal symphony made together with the Finnish National Opera called Evangelicum.
Dajana: Yeah, heard of it …
Kärtsy: Yeah, so we had 12 sold out shows in Finland in front of 15.000 people on the mainstage of the Finnish National Opera. And at the same time we were touring for Radium Round … So after that we had the feeling, we needed a break, but we personally just had around one year without touring. And in 2001 we already started collecting the songs together in order to the Rare Species album. But then, when we changed our record label it took one more year. In 2002 we were supposed to finish everything with our deals, as we got problems with our Scandinavian distribution, who stopped their working. At this time we already were at studio and suddenly we heard the news from our local distribution like … sorry, but your company does not exist anymore. So we had to look for other companies again, so it was in the beginning of 2003 when we finally could go back to the studio and finish recording our new album. But on the other hand it was a good thing, because I now feel like 18 after 2 years depressively waiting about everything.

Dajana: After having released Evangelicum and playing the shows for it, and doing an album with Angelyn as well as doing music for a known PC game … it all kept the band extremely busy in the past. Did you really have some time for your own, time to relax and to recover?
Kärtsy:
No, not really. But it was nice to recognize and having the chance the first time in more than 10 years to enjoy and to realize: hey, there is life around me. Wow. So it was nice to learn again something about normal life. And sometimes it is very important – and now we recognized how important it is to have some break.

Dajana: What about the responses to Rare Species? I have seen many reviews on your official website. Are you satisfied with the responses you got so far?
Kärtsy:
I don’t know, I did not read many of them, how are they? Are they good?
Dajana: [laughs] yeah, they are, most of them …
Kärtsy: That’s what I have heard, that most of them are really good. I just know the reviews from Rock Hard for example, from the basic magazines. Most of them are in German and I can’t speak “deutsch”.
Anyway, we are satisfied with our work and after all theses years and especially after the break we were in mood to do just a simple Rock’N’Roll album. Which I think, many people has been asking about that before.

Dajana: Did you expect this kind of success after all this years?
Kärtsy:
Oh, not really. Of course, during the long break we had a kind of feeling that nobody is listening to the band anymore. But the good point was, that we got a lot of support through our website and through our fan club, because there were been a lot of fans writing to us like: hey, hey, hey, when is your new album coming out … And our fan club was even increasing. Now we have more fans in our fan club than ever before. So the story continues and we are ready to take that. We got the will to come back.

Dajana: On our magazine your material to Rare Species got reviewed as too straight …
Kärtsy:
Yeah, that’s I wanted to say before … People and media they are never satisfied. Ya know, if you are doing this, somebody is complaining it is not straight enough, if you are doing something straight, then it is too straight … What can you do?
Dajana: Ok, you said is was your intention to make a simple Rock album, but on the other hand I could state it was made under a safety aspect …
Kärtsy: No, no, no … That was the point even after Radium Round album. We already decided before the break that the next album we want to do, would be a straight Rock album with more guitars. That was an original idea from the very early period of the new songs. As longer as the break took we just wanted to enjoy playing, not trying to be so fucking art every time. That would make a lot of bands also feel boring, if people always expect us doing something like a metal opera. It might create a little image of an intellectual rock band, but that is something we don’t wanna be. With the last album we just wanted to show the people, hey we are just a rock band and we want to be a rock band. And using different elements from different genres does not mean, that we are no rock people inside ourselves. Anyway, we are back now and we enjoy playing. With every album … we have made funky songs, we have made metal songs, techno song, pop songs, whatever, We don’t wanna start repeating ourselves and that’s one thing I’m sure about, WALTARI never will repeat itself.

Dajana: On the other hand you were known for pushing boundaries in all musical direction …
Kärtsy:
Yeah, but we had to change our image … [laughs] … Anyway, there is no idea how the next album will be. We were already thinking about getting more diversified again. I still want that the next album should continue the red line through the years. The early 90’s were the time of Crossover with Funk and Metal elements. If we would do it now, it would be boring. We are all into darker music at the moment, a little more Gothic…

Dajana: We were already talking about the tour and that it turned out great so far. Do you think, you got the contact back to the audience?
Kärtsy:
Yeah, yes. That was probably the easiest piece of cake. Of course, when we played with Subway To Sally, there fans are really kind of fanatic. Maybe a little too serious in their likings. But we accepted that fact. At least there were huge crowds and definitely many fans didn’t know about us before, so I think it was good to play there and the feedback was very positive for us. People really jumped and had their hands up during our shows. Which is not so common for a support act I think.
On the other hand, the headliner shows we are doing now are very comfortable for us, because a lot of old die hard fans are coming to these shows, enjoy us playing every song from the old albums. That is fun. Due to the fact that were so many years away from the scene we decided to put quite a lot of old songs on the setlist. It is now kind of a retrospective on our entire career, with songs from every album … except from Yeah! Yeah! Die! Die! … ‘coz of the symphony orchestra …

Dajana: A propos symphony orchestra … There was to read that you wanted to release this rock opera on CD and DVD, but is was stopped for financial reasons … ?
Kärtsy:
Evangelicum?
Dajana: Yes …
Kärtsy: Yeah, there was a time, German BMG was willing to put Evangelicum out as a license CD. But unfortunately the recordings were not so good, technically. So we don’t wanna put out anything which is not good enough and we are not satisfied with.
Dajana: Is there any chance in the future?
Kärtsy: Yeas, of course … We now started to work with that project again. You may understand, when we got the new idea, that it was our first question to them like: “yeah, we have this kind of freaky piece classic Death Metal stuff, would you please put it out now?” [parodies himself] Maybe that was our first question. We decided first to release Rare Species and maybe even the second one and then … We will work it out somehow, because we personal are very satisfied with Evangelicum. We are thinking that it is better than Yeah! Yeah! Die! Die!. It is darker, faster and more extreme in a way.
Dajana: And all shows were sold out …
Kärtsy: Yes, all 12 shows were been sold out. It was really funny. Some very old people came to the show to see how it will work out, dressed in tailcoats, dinner jackets and evening dresses and next to them evil longhaired metal heads. That was amazing…
Dajana: Cool, no doubt, just must release Evangelicum on CD or DVD!
Kärtsy: Yeah, yeah, of course, especially the CD.

Dajana: You have the original line-up together, except the drummer. How is it with the new drummer Mika? Is there a little bit of melancholy ‘coz of the “real old line-up” or …
Kärtsy:
There was. In the beginning. To be honest, we were been so close to break up [shows a really tiny space between his fingers – Cal] , when Janne left the band in spring 2002. Because we were working with Janne more than 10 years, 12 years. Of course we wanted to continue with music but not as WALTARI, as somebody else. But then, on the other hand, we had festival offers in Czechia and we were thinking about to find someone playing the drums for these shows. To try it out with somebody else, if it would fit. And Mika – to our big surprise – did perfectly fit into the band. And now it feels like home again. To be honest, is was a big wonder, because, we were playing so long time with Janne and it felt like a pretty impossible task but then when we found this guy [hints at Mika, who just came in getting new beer] we recognized … it was like: hey it still sounds like WALTARI. And especially where Sami is back now, it sounds much more like the original sound, because he have the same guitar sound like in the past.

Dajana: A pro pos Sami, he also plays in Kreator. Do you think, you might get in trouble in the future ‘coz of shows, festival and organizational things like that?
Kärtsy:
We tried to work it out. So far we don’t have any problem. We gonna try to organize everything in a way that WALTARI and Kreator don’t mess with each others business. For example, when we are in studio, Sami can travel with Kreator wherever he wants [Kärtsy is the main songwriter and composer in the band - Cal]. Because, Samis parts just take 2 or 3 days in studio.

Dajana: Talking about the cover songs on Rare Species, there is a medley consisting of 2 Unlimited, Megadeth and Your Funky Rhythm. And I know, many metal heads were shocked about that. It was already kind of a sacrilege to combine Megadeth with 2 Unlimited …
Kärtsy:
Yeah!!! That’s why we did it. We wanted to shock people. On the other hand, we found both songs very exiting to cover. No Limit is a song that perfectly describes the attitude of the band having no limits. When we were choosing the songs we remembered this title from the early 90’s and this title is cool. And the lyrics of this song are good too. Actually this is an old cover song we played for many years live and people kept asking if we will put it on CD. And we have always covers on each album. The combination with Megadeth … well, both songs came out about the same time and both songs were been hip songs at that time. I’m sure that people don’t have this kind of feelings about styles, they just pretend to have them. I’m sure, if you listen to this song, you don’t know the original songs. They kind of suit together in the end, if you listen to a version. In a way it is quite about the living of this band and describes it very well. It tells people, stop being narrow-minded, every music can be good music.

Dajana: That brings me to your support band. What do you think about Remember Twilight? I mean WALTARI could have been spun off for this kind of music. It’s something new, innovative.
Kärtsy:
Of course. I respect what they are doing. I think it is a pretty cool idea to take classical instruments like oboe and violins. So they fit perfectly to us as support band ‘coz of the crossover idea.

Tourmanager Tom drops in and knocks meaningful with his finger on the watch …

Dajana: Ok, ok, last question, time is over … The craziest, freakiest, funniest thing you would like to do if you ever had the chance.
Kärtsy:
Hmmmmmm … to form a funny line-up. With Madonna, Mike Patton, maybe Dave Lombardo, maybe Eminem, maybe Trent Reznor from NIN, and John Lennon, playing guitar. Having a noisy jam session with them in our rehearsal room with lots of Whiskey and joints. [laughs] On the other hand we have the same dream as many other bands have too: to get the chance playing on the moon. [laughs]

Dajana: Great idea, you should start working it out, except John Lennon, maybe something interesting will come out of this idea … Thank you very much for that interview, have a great show and a great tour. Cheers!

 

4/2004 © Dajana Winkel / Michael Cichocki • Waltari