Aub Driver
Jyrki from The 69 Eyes, 4/19/07
You’ve been in the game for 17 years now. How have you seen the Scandinavian music scene change from the time you entered to now?
Naturally ever since the turn of the century Finnish bands and metal music from Finland has become more popular than ever. You could really say these days that Helsinki is the musical capital of Scandinavian metal, if not even the whole world in many ways! So, nowadays it’s more than an advantage to come from Finland than earlier days.
Your style has often been compared to that of “Horror Punk” or Goth Rock, but I see you as being slightly more upbeat than all that. How would you describe yourselves?
When we started we tried to combine our all influences from glam rock to punk and gothic to even psychedelic garage rock into our own sound. To develop The 69 Eyes sound as we know it now took nearly 10 years – there’s hints of glam, Goth and even horror-punk true but I think it would be fair enough to realize that The 69 Eyes sound like just The 69 Eyes and no one else sounds like us!
You’ve had a couple chart topping hits in Europe, why do you think European radio takes so kindly to Heavy Metal/Rock?
In Finland we are a mainstream band selling gold and platinum and our singles become radio hits. Finland’s musical national vibe has always been more into metal and rock – that’s also one of the reasons why such many metal bands come from here these days. We can’t dance or romance – WE ROCK!
American audiences are very hard to please, in my opinion. Yet your last video, and most popular single “Lost Boys” was filmed by cultural icon, Bam Margera. Do you see this helping you merge with the U.S. pop culture?
Actually our two latest videos were “Perfect Skin” and “Never Say Die” and both were filmed in Hollywood
”Lost Boys” with Bam was something we had to make since it was his favorite movie as well. All together I think The 69 Eyes is sometimes the most American band outside of America!
It’s been said that Jyrki is heavily involved with UNICEF, which is fantastic. Is this a band wide movement/statement? Or do you all take part in different charities?
Well, I’m a Goodwill Ambassador Of UNICEF Finland – that gives me another kind of challenges and visions to this world. The band is of course been playing at a UNICEF Christmas show etc and is welcome to take a part whenever possible but mainly this is my duty.
A lot of bands talk of going back to their roots. Does your change from the original glam rock to the darker side of things hold true, or might you ever make a return to the original?
Glam feels good again. It’s time for a party! Sleaze and sex need to be returned to Goth as well and the best way is to glam it up!
Comparisons have been made in vocal stylings from Pete Steele to Elvis. Which is it? Does Elvis really hold an influence over you?
Elvis is of course my original influence since I was a kid but I also respect Peter Steele’s wolfman vocals!
Not only has Mr. Margera filmed your video, but you’ve also been featured on his show. Will we be seeing more of the 69 Eyes in the U.S. over the next year? Is the takeover underway?
Our new album “ANGELS” was released there by Caroline Records and we just toured there with Cradle Of Filth for six weeks in January/March 2007. And to reveal you some news: we will be back in June/July 2007 for another tour – see you guys soon!!!
Aub Driver
Joel from Stone Sour 1/18/06
How are you?
Good. Doing alright.
New album is out sometime late this spring/early summer. How excited are you?
Oh absolutely man, I’m thrilled. I love the challenge of making album two and seeing what we can do with it. The ideas that we have and the variety songs beats the first album, so it will be interesting to see what everybody thinks of this.
So you’re going into the studio in a week. What are plans for recording the record?
We have Nick Raskulincz now. He came in to see us about a week and a half ago. Basically the plan is to lay the drums down first, create what he calls ‘the stripes’. Everybody is going to record their parts without drums and each song will have it’s own ‘stripe’ so that way I can do my drums first and that way these guys won’t have to sit around and wait. So Nick’s going to spend a good two weeks beating the ‘you know what’ outta me to get the best sound that we can get.
Any studio rituals which you practice?
Honestly, no. We just go in and get our energy up and then capture that moment. When that moment happens you have to be there and you have to be ready. That’s one thing, for example, with me on drums, we’ll be playing and playing and every musician has that moment where you’re on it and you feel you couldn’t mess up if you wanted to. But we don’t have any dances or anything like that.
How do you go about choosing songs for the album from the 30+ demos you’re going into this session with?
What we’re gonna do is, we’re gonna go in and we’re just going to record the vast majority of everything. The reason is, it happened off the first album to, you’re sitting in a basement and us five are all going through these songs are are like “yea that sounds pretty good.” And then you’ll have some songs where you’re like “yea, I’m not really digging on this one.” But then you’ll get it down, you’ll record it and you’ll listen to it and all of a sudden everybody is blown away. Perfect example is off the first album, Idle Hands. Idle Hands was a song, it was good, we all liked it, but boy, once we got it recorded – we were all like ‘wow’. You want to put everything down; you don’t want to miss any opportunity.
The first record was a huge success; do you see this record as a sequel?
I don’t want to say it’s a sequel; I want to say it’s different to a point. But you know, we have our heavier songs. Each member has their own style and we’re all very different. Songs like Dead Inside, songs like that come for the most part from Josh. Josh is the metal side of our band. So we have some songs, they don’t sound anything like Dead Inside. We definitely don’t want to bore anyone with another Dead Inside Part II. You have to move on. The way it’s going to be different is more variety. We’re definitely going to be bringing in more variety. You know we actually have a song that starts out with some funk in it where Sean is slapping the bass. You haven’t heard anything like that for a really long time. At first we were like ‘eh, maybe this is dated’ but now we’re like ‘no, this is cool, let’s go with it’. That’s the last thing we want to do, worry about what’s dated and what’s not, we just want to roll with our feelings.
What's changed since the last record?
We all grow as musicians always. The only change I can think of isn’t with the band, it’s with my son. He was diagnosed with a brain tumor. When you say change, that’s the only thing I can think of. It’s going to make it really tough for me leaving. This is a serious brain tumor, and you can’t do surgery on it so the chances are low, but it has happened. So we’re going one day at a time and that’s something that’s been hard for me as far as writing, is being able to focus like I did on the first album because my mind drifts a lot. But the band is extremely supportive and we’re just turning that corner as we get to it and trying not to think past that.
Did you write this one for yourselves? Or is this one for the fans/radio side?
I think it’s definitely going to be written for ourselves. When we write, whatever comes out comes out. Perfect example is Jim Root. You know he’ll write some really off the wall stuff that just makes you look twice and go ‘whoa’. But, if it feels right, we’ll go with it. If it feels good, we’ll go with it. We don’t worry about anything else besides that. There’s going to be some slower tunes on there where people might go, ‘wow, what are they doing here?’ But you know, it’s definitely what pleases us and I think we pleased us on the first album and it pleased others. So I think we’ll be going down the same road.
So there was a producer switch. Dave Fortman vs. Nick Raskulincz? Will this affect the album?
I think to a point. We met him and he listened to our songs the other day. Nick likes really aggressive stuff and I could see maybe him and me butting heads on a few things. I like to hear some beauty in songs, but he is pretty balls out. But then again, I’ve only met him once and that was my first impression. There will be compromises though. Nick could add a bigger ballsy edge to this record too.
Do you see a lot more touring coming from this album? Perhaps some festivals?
We’re going to start out with the festivals in Europe. I think we’re going to do more touring this time. With the exception of what’s going on with Isaac (my son), as far as what I’m going to do, I’m going to be watching him and if things start sliding downhill, I’m going to have to get off the road. What we’ll do from there I don’t know, but we’re playing it a day at a time and seeing how everything goes. Excluding Isaac though, I know we’re going to want to do more like South America, Japan and Australia. We didn’t get to do those last time and we’d love to get there this time. We have a lot of fans over there who would like to see us. We’re excited.
What is Stone Sour’s preference – Touring vs. Recording?
On stage that’s on thing, but being in the studio writing, that’s another. We might lean a hair towards the studio over touring, but the only reason why is because of our families. We do enjoy touring though. It’s great going to Denmark and hearing them chanting “Stone Sour!” That’s extremely cool, you have to love that.
This album has been and will be kept under wraps pretty tightly, but what are your thoughts on downloading music?
I’m not as bothered as some musicians are. I think you have to be willing to turn with the way this world revolves. I don’t see why the music industry can’t conquer this problem. I know it’s damaged the industry to a point, but I think if someone really likes a band, they’ll go out and buy the CD. I know it’s not how it used to be, where you hear one song and go buy the CD. But me myself, I’m not that troubled by it.
What are you listening to nowadays?
I hate to say Foo Fighters, but I really dig that album. I’ve always thought they were the coolest band. I’ve always loved those guys. And you know what, I love Green Day too. The two biggest bands of 2005. I’m a top 10 guy, I really am. I don’ dig deep to find something, the band has to bring me stuff to listen to and say “Joel, listen to this!”. I’m a radio guy, always been. I’m a rock and roll guy. I’m not a big metal person. When you hear me play on some songs, you’d think, ‘no way’. But I love playing it, I’m just not a big fan of listening to it.
Stone Sour is easier listening for a lot of people, are you trying to reach a different audience?
We just go with what feels right. You’ve got 5 guys pushing in different directions. When you’ve got 5 different opinions/tastes you’re going to have the variety like that. That’s why the band is this way. So many times we write songs and just go, “what?” We’ve stuck with it though, like the song with the funk riff (which will hopefully make the album). It’s smooth and it fits, we’ll go with it.
Your sound doesn't necessarily fall into any specific rock or metal category, is that what you were going for?
We put the album together and say “hey, we got it,” and then however people want to place it they can. But we never, I mean NEVER, sit down and go “we need a heavier song”. You want to talk about the famous phrase, ‘selling out?’ To me, that’s selling out, to me, you aren’t being who you are. When we’re sitting in the basement writing, we’re all writing what we feel at that moment. If you sit there and try to do something that you’re not, well to me, that’s being fake and selling out. We’ve got that variety. We were jamming a week ago on this song, it almost had a southern rock feel to it. We just said ‘man, are we cheesing out?’ But we were having a ball with this song! It was a fun song! It was comparable to the song, Road Hog, off the DVD. We roll with it. Sometimes you cross the line and someone goes ‘alright guys, that’s too much’ and we bring it back. We keep it real.
Do you see the future for Stone Sour? If so, where do you see Stone Sour in the next five to ten years?
I see us together and having fun. I don’t know if that’s my own wishful thinking, but this band has been around for so long. But the big reason is – we get along well – sure we have our arguments like any other band but we know how to pull together. When one guy gets outta line, he knows how to come back and say he’s sorry. This band knows how to pull together and I can see this band, for that reason, having a very long life. We’re all really good friends.
Last words?
Watch out for us on tour. Be ready. It’s going to be a different story from the first album. See you on the road.