HELLCITY 13
Helsinki 2007


(Photo by 
Jarkko Tiitinen)

"It actually doesn`t matter which kind of music you play as long as you believe in it"

Suiciderock: First of all can you tell us more about your band?
Mica:
My name is Mica, LL Stud is our guitar-player, our keyboard player is Mr Kess and furthermore we have our female vocalist Susannah, our bass-player JT Guilt, Tommi our other guitar-player and Pitkä on the drums. Hellcity 13 was found in 2004.

Suiciderock: The music industry usually tries to put bands into a certain corner. How would you describe your own music-style?
Mica:
That's a good question. Let`s say Hellcity 13 is something else comparing to all this hard rock bands in Finland. We try to mix different styles. It actually doesn't matter, which kind of music you play as long as you believe in this music. We try to create the type of music that makes us happy.
Mr Kess:
And you have to know that we are not concerned with the music industry. At the moment we are negociating. A important point in our band is that we are in control of the things and that nobody should tell us what we have to play or how our music should sound like. It`s our own job.
Mica:
We are trying to create a new style for the Finnish music scene. In my opinion all the hard rock bands here in Finland are following the same type of style, but we try to do something else.

Suiciderock: Do you have any specials plans for a record release? I heard that you were planning to go to the studio.
Mica:
We will finnish the record pretty soon.
Suiciderock: What will it sound like and what can we expect from it?
Mica:
The new songs are going to be wider than the three demo songs, which were produced by Johnny Lee Michaels. There will be some similar songs, but also songs, which will be totally different.
Mr Kess:
We rehearsed all the songs before going to the studio a lot. This time we really wanted to make a band album and not so much a producer album. I think all the songs are really strong. I guess we will get a problem with choosing a song to become our first single.
Suiciderock: Do you know the exact date for the release?
Mica:
Not exactly. It's better for us if it comes out in spring like April or something.
Mr Kess:
And once again we are negociating with various labels. So the release date for Finland may be different to the one for Germany.

Suiciderock: Are there any plans for touring after the album release?
Mica:
We have had already a talk about touring in Greece, in Cyprus and in Germany etc. I guess this will happen this year, but I do not want to promise anything.
Mr Kess:
We will definately tour in Finland and around Scandinavia.
Suiciderock: What can people expect from your life shows? Do you use any specials like pyrotechnics?
Mica:
No, no, no. We don`t use any pyrochtechnics. Basically it`s just us and our instruments. I think we do a really wild show. We are trying to get better and better.

Suiciderock: Who made up your band name? Is there a special story behind it?
Mica:
Well, we were just trying to figure out what the best name is for a band. We are from Helsinki, so we just added another "L" so it sounds like hell. The number 13 came from my idea of "Lucky 13", but when I found out that there was this American Company existing, which was called "Lucky 13" I decided to use only the 13.

Suiciderock: Who is responsible for the songwriting? Is it a group project?
Mica:
I`m the main songwriter, but everybody adds his ideas for the songs and the band makes the arrangements. But in the future it might be somebody else who writes the songs.
Suiciderock: What inspires you for the songs?
Mica:
Life itself does and of course the bands I was listening to when I was a kid.

Suiciderock: You had a couple of line-up changes. How did that happen? Is the current line-up fix?
Mica:
You never know. Especially Hellcity 13 is a chaotic band *laughs*.There are so many different personalities. There are like 7 people in the band, there are some problems every now and than. But for my understanding this is the fix line-up.
Mr Kess:
Yeah, it feels good.
Mica:
At least we have nothing to complain about.

Suiciderock: So many bands from Finland have reached stardoom all over the world for example Nightwish, HIM and The Rasmus. Can you explain that?
Mica:
I guess Finland has pretty long roots in hard rock. This roots go back to the 70's, but nowadays it`s bigger. The bands have their own style. For my taste the bands in the States sound exactly the same.
Mr Kess:
You have been in Finland for so many times, so you know that the view out of the window changes every time. Especially in winter time it`s very hard to jump on your bike and drive to the rehearsal place, so you really need to love what you are doing.
Mica:
It's like living on the edge when you are living Rock`n Roll. *laughs* I would not like to get myself mixed with those "Hollywood-type rockers", you know, let`s party 25 hours a day and so on, with all my respect to the glam-scene. Not that we couldn`t have fun though...just didn`t wanna point that out.

Suiciderock: The new year is just two days old. Have you ever made stupid New Years resolutions?
Mica:
I was thinking about this last year already, but I made a decision that I won`t make any promises like that.
Mr Kess:
I think you know this kind of dropless January. A friend of mine decided to have a dropless January, so I decided to have a Kaasu free January, because he is boring without any alcohol.
Mica:
Did you make any New Year's promises?
Suiciderock: Not really.

Suiciderock: Your future plans for the band except releasing the record and touring?
Mica:
I will write new material for the next album already. I have 10-15 songs already done so far. Not really finnished but the basic work has happened. That's are my futureplans for Hellcity 13. I hope that we get bigger and that we get the chance to release more records.

Suiciderock: Some closing words for your fans and the readers of Suiciderock?
Mr Kess:
Well, watch out the new album is coming hopefully this spring.
Mica:
We want to go on tour and see you guys out there.
LL Stud:
You really should come to see Hellcity 13.


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