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SUNRIDE
Helldone / Helsinki 2005

(Photo by Mikko Rikala)

"Tours are usually the time of my life, when I laugh the most”

Suiciderock: What`s your opinion about the Helldonefestival and what was your gig like? Did you have fun?
Wille: We always have fun at gigs. The festival is a great thing for starters. I like the idea. The show yesterday was fun, but then I felt a little bit that we have the wrong audience. This little goth girls at the show. So 90% even didn’t know who we are. It was fun but a good challenge.

Suiciderock: Do you think it’s a good chance to introduce your band even if it’s not the right audience?
Wille: Yeah because it’s been all over the media. A lot of people don’t know us now. At least they know now the name because of the media hype behind the whole thing. It’s been all over the TV and radios. For us it is a great thing to be part of it.

Suiciderock: You have a special guest musican on your current album, Michael Monroe from Hanoi Rocks is playing the Harmonica on the song „One Tragedy“. How did it come to this cooperation and what was it like to work with him?
Wille: We were recording at the same studio where they were also doing their new stuff. Every once in a while he popped into our room where we recorded the stuff. He liked us and he had never heard us before. Then one day he asked by himself, if he can come and play something, because he likes the stuff. We told him that we will look if there is some empty spot we need something to fill in, then he can come and try something at least. There was one song for which we still needed a guitar solo and we asked him to play it. He did it and he did a good job. It sounds good.

Suiciderock: Who is responsible for the songswriting and what are your major influences?
Wille: Jani is.
Jani: Many things, but mostly life, people’s life. Some of them are like real stories, but of course it is also fiction. I just look around and write about what I see.
Suiciderock: Is it like a diary for you?
Jani: A bit yeah. My lyrics are a bit dark. They are not about happy, happy joy to everyone. I think that the world isn’t such a good place to be, sometimes and it’s not my thing to write this kind of „girls and fast cars“-lyrics. It’s easier for me to write about stuff, which is a bit more dark.

Suiciderock: Which reactions did you get after the release of „The End Justifies The Means“?
Jani: They were mostly good. Surprisingly good. Not so many bad reviews.
Wille: Yeah they were mostly good. It’s a different kind of record, noone expected us to do. I was expecting the worst, but luckily I was wrong. People seem to enjoy our music.
Jani: We started as a stoner rock band and people expected us to do the same thing. But we decided to do something completely different and I think it went well.
Wille: It’s our best record...
Jani: ...so far.
Wille: I hoped people would like it. It got mostly good reviews and a few of them liked us aswell. That’s always like this.
Jani: After the recording and mixing, I was completely satisfied with this record.
Wille: Yes, I agree. It’s the first record I’m almost completely satisfied with. The other two records are more or less wicked. There were tings we could have done better. This time I just could listen to it at home and could be happy.
Jani: I was nervous before the release because I knew we’ve done our best and we couldn’t have done anything better. So this album is our best shot.

Suiciderock: Who came up with the idea for the album title and can you explain why you decided to take this one?
Jani: It’s your title, Wille.
Wille: No, no it’s not my title. We had all the song titles and there was also this album title. We had afew alternatives, but this specific one has a special meaning for me. So I voted for that and eventually it turned out to be the album title.
Jani: I think it’s something like... You’re forced to do things along the way and you aim for something and you want to please everyone or yourself, but I think the end justifies your means.

Suiciderock: So many comparisms were made about your newer sound. Some said it would be stoner rock, heavy metal,... How would you define the music of Sunride?
Wille: For starters it’s ridicolous, if they read the reviews. I wonder what they have been listening to.
Jani: They compare us to bands, we haven’t even heard about.
Suiciderock: Which bands did they compare you to?
Wille: One time I counted the bands we got compared to. There are over 50 different bands. You know, usually bands who play a certain kind of stuff, they get compared to 2 or 3 different bands, but in our case there were 50 bands. People desperatly tried to find an adequate comparism. I don’t know how long it will take until they admit that it is just us. There was this German band: The Vision Bleak. We got compared to them and then ended up on their website and their music is something completely different. So mostly I just laugh.
Jani: Some finnish guy compared us to U2.
Suiciderock: That’s a good comparism, isn’t it?
Jani: Yes, but we don’t like U2.
Wille: Comparing us to them is like heaven and hell, but this are the ears of reviewers. I can’t do something against it. I just have to live with it.

Suiciderock: Besides Sunride everyone of you has a „normal“ 9-5 job. Is that right? Wille e.g. Works as a graphics designer. What are the other guys doing and how can you combine this with your music?
Jani: Yes, I do some graphics and designs for websites as a freelancer. That kind of stuff with computers. I’m a nerd...
Wille: I also do something with design for the venue of my hometown in the middle of Finland. I do posters, websites and record covers and that kind of stuff as a freelancer.
Suiciderock: Would you quit, if it would turn out that you can live from your music?
Wille: I would keep it.
Jani: It’s fun.
Wille: First graphic design was my hobby, then I got money for it. It’s the same with music. It was a hobby and now I get money.
Jani: It’s not something we have to do. It’s something we like to do.
Wille: My job gives me absolutely freedom to decide what I like to do because I’m a freelancer I can go on long tours and do whatever I want. So I don’t want to loose it either. I like to keep things as they are. I’m pretty happy.

Suiciderock: Almost everyone of you lives in a different town of Finland. So for example Janne lives in Tampere, Mikko and Jani in Helsinki and Wille in Jyveskylä where also your rehearsing room is. How do you manage this situation?
Jani: That’s hard. I live in Helsinki, our other guitarplayer Mikko lives in Helsinki as well. Wille and our drummer Veli-Matti live in Jyväskylä and our bass-player Janne lives in Tampere. Our rehearsal room is in Jyväskylä.
Wille: It’s hard to get all the guys from different areas to the same place. Usually we gather some days before we have a show in our hometown to rehearse every day.
Suiciderock: So you don’t rehearse once a week?
Wille: No, no. For example for this show I was on tour with another band and we even didn’t have a rehearsal room, so we didn’t rehearse for about three month. But now it felt good to come to the new rehearsal place.
Suiciderock: Aren’t you nervous to go on tour without rehearsing?
Wille: No, we are not. We are a ten years old band. We don’t have to rehearse rehearsing. It’s enough if we have like 3 days to rehearse. Usuallly when we start to rehearse, it’s difficult for us, but on the next day it’s like there haven’t ever been a break.
Jani: We are so talented musicians...
Wille: It would be good to rehearse more, but at this point it’s impossible.
Jani: We have to find something that’s ideal for everyone, but I doubt that this is gonna happen someday.
Wille: We will see what happens. At the moment we have to take things as they are: Rehearse when it’s possible.

Suiciderock: Do you have a funny tourstory to tell?
Wille: There has been funny stuff going on on each tour but I guess I forgot 90% of it. Right now I can’t think of anything really funny. But tours are usually the time of my life, when I laugh the most. We laugh about stupid inside jokes. That’s what happens if you are on a bus for three weeks with 4 different people. Then things just start to role and develope. It’s just stupid things we laugh about.
Jani: If you are consider that there are 5 finnish guys go around through Europe with some alcohol to play Rock’n Roll, something funny or something not so funny happens.

Suiciderock: How do you normaly celebrate New Years Eve?
Wille: We will play an anniversary show in our hometown. It will be something special for us as we haven`t played a show on New Years Eve before. This year we wanted to do it so we booked this show. Hopefully we will have a good time, just play the show and get drunk and spend the night with friends. That`s it.

Suiciderock: Are you going to make any New Year`s resolutions?
Wille: I just started to smoke after a three-years-break maybe I try to...
Jani: ...I try to be a better person.
Wille: Just to take it a little bit easier. I try to chill out the first month, I try not to party so much and just load my batteries.
Jani: Everytime when I try to make a promise to myself like e.g. quit drinking, I can’t keep the promise. So maybe it`s better not to make any promises.

Suiciderock: Your futurplans?
Wille: To tell you the truth: we don’t have much plans now just this two shows. When we returned from the last tour we didn’t have a rehearsal room so everything was very quiet around us. Now we got a rehearsal room some weeks ago. So now we can start the engeens and do our songs. We have to find a new record label, we just finnished with our German record label and so we are much pretty free for what we want to do. Things are really open so it’s gonna be exciting to find out what’s gonna happen. At this point I really don`t know.

Suiciderock: Ok, that’s it. Thank you very much guys.
Wille & Jani: Thank you.