“There’s my snare drum,” says Mikko von Hertzen, strapping a skinny rail of bells to the aspect of his boot, holding it in place with what appears like a yard of gaffa tape. His brother, Kie (guitar, vocals), opts for a jumbled ball of small bells to connect to his boot. They stroll off with a smile, jingling. Jonne, probably the most reserved, and youngest of the three, sits fortunately again in his chair, his bass guitar low on his hips, a low rumble of notes gravitating throughout the ground of the images studio within the basement of the Future constructing in West London the place the band are being filmed and photographed.
The studio is surprisingly full, and it shortly turns into obvious why when the three brothers break into an acoustic studying of River (from 2006’s Method album), Mikko supplementing his makeshift snare with a bass drum long-established from a plastic case, he’s taking part in a guitar too and singing lead, although that may very well be any of them. As soloists they’re past achieved; collectively they’re out of this world. After three runs at River – all observe excellent, however on the cameraman’s insistence – they cheerily set about rattling off Queen’s Don’t Cease Me Now, leaving the makeshift viewers quietly astonished by their virtuosity, to not point out the truth that they appear capable of simply hurdle most of Freddie Mercury’s considerably testing excessive notes.
Snow has set in over London, and is falling closely because the band settle into the Future boardroom, a nook workplace with tall home windows looking over the crystalline sky. Whereas the UK’s in thrall to a smattering of the white stuff, the three Finns are much less impressed. Kie glances out of the window: “You name this snow? This isn’t snow.”
The final time the Von Hertzen Brothers felt the chilly was late final 12 months on a brief European tour opening for Opeth. Their newest album, 9 Lives, their first the place the band had opted to report, engineer and oversee every little thing themselves, was working late. They’d overshot their self-imposed deadline, and consequently discovered themselves all bunched up at the back of their tour bus, wrapped up tightly of their sleeping baggage, recording the ultimate harmonies for his or her fifth album.
“It was a trial,” says Mikko. “We booked ourselves on tour with Opeth whereas we had been nonetheless within the studio, so we had been careworn over that. We really missed the deadline, we couldn’t maintain it – we received delayed by a month.”
“We had been really singing the final backing vocals for the album at the back of a chilly bus in the course of a snowstorm in Sweden,” says Kie, wanting a little bit pained by the reminiscence. “It was fairly tough and nerve-racking. Everybody had a day without work, and we had been at the back of this freezing bus attempting to get the ultimate vocals performed.”
“It did work and it was robust, however we modified the best way of doing issues by recording the entire album ourselves, engineering every little thing ourselves, enhancing all of it ourselves,” provides Mikko. “We didn’t go to an costly studio. We went to our rehearsal area and took extra time with it, to have that extra relaxed ambiance, to really feel that we weren’t in a rush, despite the fact that we had been.” He pauses for a second, earlier than including, “That’s how you find yourself singing in a sleeping bag.”
You’ve typically publicly complained in regards to the sound of 2008’s Love Stays The Similar album. Was {that a} case of the deadline impacting on the ultimate end result?
Kie’s sigh is audible and exasperated.
“That’s an ideal instance of the deadline messing with the ultimate outcomes. Nonetheless, after I hearken to it, if solely we’d had one other two weeks to combine it, there might have been extra finesse, extra room for the songs to breathe…” He tails off in what looks as if quiet frustration.
“The songs had been okay although,” asserts Mikko. “I don’t assume we now have any songs the place we predict: ‘that’s a shitty tune. I don’t know why we did it.’ Possibly on the primary album [Experience] there are a couple of?”
There aren’t, and one hearken to 9 Lives and also you’ll forgive the Von Hertzen Brothers their tardiness. It could be their fifth album, but it surely’s the one that may doubtless introduce them to a brand new and extra worldwide viewers. At residence in Finland they’re as widespread as ice hockey (which makes them extremely popular certainly), with a slew of gold albums, and even a Finnish Grammy for his or her second album, 2006’s Method. 9 Lives is, should you’ll excuse the gratuitous hyperbole, one thing else solely; a grand step up – if maybe not the cohesive and extra streamlined report they deliberate to make once they began writing it over a 12 months in the past.
“Each album you make, you wish to rethink or reinvent your self ultimately,” says Mikko, “which was the intention. Plus we hear on a regular basis that our songs are too lengthy. It’s not that we’re attempting to be prog or advanced, it’s simply the best way it occurs. After which if a tune is brief, we’ll typically really feel prefer it doesn’t fulfil us by some means, that there’s not sufficient dynamics, or the perfectionists in us assume we are able to make it a little bit higher with a little bit extra tinkering. So ultimately the album took the form that isn’t that a lot totally different to what we’ve performed earlier than, despite the fact that we thought that it could be rather more totally different.”
Named after the gorgeous artwork that adorns the album’s cowl, painted by acclaimed Finnish artist Samuli Heimonen – a self-confessed fan of the band who has been identified to work to their music – 9 Lives is, for all of Mikko’s protestations, a musical evolution for the band. (Mikko: “We had been considering: ‘Is it an excessive amount of to call your album the identical identify as an Aerosmith album?’ Not an excellent Aerosmith album, admittedly, however…”), Shorter, extra concise songs outnumber the longer, extra drawn out items, although all are united by their depth, dynamics and sheer invention. Although, as with all their recordings to this point, it’s unfettered by something approaching conventionality in strategy or thought. Impressed as a band by Boston as a lot they’re by Black Sabbath, the Von Hertzen Brothers are equally unafraid to offer as a lot credence to German composer Stephan Micus with regards to musical inspiration as they’re their extra rock flavoured brethren.
“I used to be dwelling in India after I was launched to Stephan’s music,” explains Mikko, enigmatically. “It was all so splendidly contemplative. He went to the monastery on Athos Mountain and made an album about it [1994’s Athos on ECM]; the journey to the mountain, to the monastery, and it was very reflective, and, in a great way, spooky. So, I was reminded of this, as a result of we went to a monastery to report an a cappella tune devoted to our late grandmother, Katri Willamo.”
World With out opens with the three brothers intoning a haunting melody of their native tongue, cloistered within the monastery in Valamo in Finland by icons and artefacts that their grandfather had bequeathed the church after his demise.
“Our grandparents collected icons and artwork from Russian Orthodox church buildings and imported them to Finland,” explains Mikko. “So we had a bond to this place, as a result of it now homes one thing like 400 items from their unique assortment. We received entry to this church the place no rock band has ever recorded something earlier than, and it was actually particular to us, due to the connection we needed to the issues.”
“It was superb, it was the nighttime and the complete moon was excessive within the sky. It was very, very particular,” provides Kie, nodding.
Mikko’s in one thing of a reverie: “We needed to only seize the area of the church, the sense of the ages – there’s something very actual to it.”
Had been you near grandmother? “We had been,” says Mikko. “She was an enormous lover of tradition. She went to the opera and classical performances, and she or he was very into artwork and music. She by no means performed, however she was very culturally enlightened. She made an enormous impression on us.”
It wasn’t simply their grandparents who would depart an indelible mark on the boys. Their dad and mom began them early, enrolling them into musical kindergarten earlier than they might barely learn or write.
“It’s singing and taking part in with music,” says Mikko. “We had been very younger. All of the taking part in that we did there with the opposite youngsters was by some means associated to music – the dancing, the video games – my enduring reminiscence is of it being actually enjoyable.”
After they had been youngsters, their father would journey overseas for his job with an insurance coverage firm, and would all the time obtain a hero’s welcome on his return; not least due to the High quality Avenue toffees and music – Queen, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd – he’d carry residence with him. Years earlier than that, he additionally performed with an instrumental guitar band a lot within the mould of The Shadows referred to as The Savages.
“They had been good,” says Mikko. “It was ’63 or ’64, and so they gained the very best band of the 12 months competitors in Finland. Earlier than then they actually didn’t have bands in Finland. Within the early 60s you’d have a singer and the backing band, however then in ’62 or ’63 there was a shift, and my father’s band was one of many first to really name themselves a guitar band. It was due to him too that we went to see folks like Johnny Winter and Frank Marino after we had been younger.”
“You had been 10 and I used to be 12,” remembers Kie, “and we went to see John Mayall with the Bluesbreakers. We went with our dad and our godfather – our uncle. They each used to take us. My first gig was Eric Clapton after which The Shadows got here and performed after I was about eleven.”
“I believe that Mayall gig was one of many greatest exhibits for me,” says Mikko, “The one expertise I bear in mind vividly. We had been on the Tavastia Membership in Helsinki, which is our residence venue today. We play there quite a bit – it’s the very best membership on the town. We had been actually younger and there was an age restrict, however we had been youngsters and we had been having dinner and other people had been boozing and watching the band, and we had been consuming French fries and other people had been like: ‘What are these youngsters doing right here?’ We had been the one youngsters in there and by some means our father spoke to the supervisor, who continues to be the supervisor, who allow us to in. And I bear in mind it being so cool. Jonne was a lot youthful, so he didn’t get to go. However even now it’s fairly defining; that was such a robust expertise.”
It’s been 12 years because the band’s debut Expertise was launched. Its preliminary recording periods had been performed in a employed home referred to as Lonely Planet in India, the place Mikko was dwelling on the time. He nonetheless retains an residence there. That report apart, the band has by no means moved to report or dwell away from their beloved residence metropolis of Helsinki, not to mention Finland. Is that why it’s taken them this lengthy to achieve actual recognition internationally?
“It’s the everlasting dialogue,” says Kie. “Will we go someplace with telephones off and computer systems off and have this two weeks with no interplay with the remainder of the world? It may very well be an excellent factor, however our households are there, our rehearsal area, our studio…”
“When Love Stays… got here out,” says Mikko, “we had that dialogue. We had been speaking to totally different folks within the UK and the US, and so they each mentioned that we must always relocate the band. We talked about taking our stuff to LA or London and ranging from scratch once more and attempting and make it work from there. However then we simply thought: ‘Let’s make one other album, and let’s attempt to discover a manger who is aware of what they’re doing.’”
You do look like remarkably affected person for a band on this fast-paced enterprise.
“So long as there are songs that wish to be heard, that should be written, then we’ll maintain going,” says Kie. “The music all the time comes out; it’s in regards to the course of. It’s not like we gained’t be pleased till we’re taking part in the Royal Albert Corridor…”
Mikko smiles: “Although we’d actually, actually wish to play the Royal Albert Corridor.”
This text initially appeared in problem 34 of Prog Journal.
