суббота, 18 марта 2017 г.

Interview with Lauri Tuohimaa



Hello! Here is an very nice interview with our friend and collaborator, guitarist Lauri Tuohimaa from the Finnish band TUOHIMAA and ex-member of CHARON. Lauri has recorded solo in the track "The Deep" from the album "Planetary Cancer" by DISSECTOR and also one solo for the future album by THE LUST. We are very happy with results!

1. Hi Lauri! I am glad to talk with You. For those who maybe don’t know You, introduce yourself and your band.

- Hi Jan! I’m Lauri Tuohimaa and have been playing in different groups from the mid-90´s. I was the vocalist/guitarist in Embraze and played guitar in For My Pain, Charon and Maple Cross.

2. Your new group Tuohimaa plays great drive-rock in Finnish and with that significant Finnish melancholy. Personally, I cannot get enough of the song «HyvästiJää», which has for me some quality and bitter-sweet, wonderful emotions of your former band Charon. Do you have enough of the Finnish market for your new band? Are there some options with foreign tour? How do you evaluate the prospects of Tuohimaa at least in the local market?

- Thank you. Hyvästi Jää indeed represents the more melancholic side of our band, I like the song myself too and very often it’s the final song of our concerts. It would be great to perform abroad too after a long time but it’s a bit tricky when you perform in Finnish. We are still a new comer in Finland but are getting more and more “foot between doors” in the market.

3. I simply must take this opportunity to ask you about Charon group because at the time I used to listen to your albums a lot, and considered your sound as a model for the whole genre. Was it really a collective decision - to disband? Or were some of the participants against it and would like to continue?

- Yes, it was a collective decision. For a long time, we tried to complete new songs but unfortunately it just didn’t feel fun and inspiring anymore. Also, other projects took lots of our times. Our path with Pasi Sipilä diverged two years earlier before we quit the band.

4. I think that no one has believed that after such strong albums as "The Dying Daylights" and "Songs For the Sinners" with powerful b-sides, Charon have run out of ideas for songs, and the band has split because of this. Everyone was so tired of the music you played? Do you keep contacts with former members of Charon?

- We simply just burned ourselves out: we toured a lot in Finland and abroad. Straight after the release of Songs for The Sinners, we continued making of new songs –lots of very good songs were never published. Our relationships between each other were also quite sore and we were frustrated in the whole music business. After Charon split, it took couple of years that I didn’t see any of the former band mates. But at the present, we keep in touch with Antti and JP quite often and are good friends. Actually, me and JP are co-actors in music theatre and he’ll be visiting in forthcoming Tuohimaa-album as well. I see Teemu occasionally as well, but haven’t seen Pasi since he quit the band.

5. Do you still have some unreleased songs in the archives of Charon, which wasn’t maybe included in the compilation of «A-sides, B-sides & Suicides»?

- We do, a whole album of them! You never know if we end up re-recording and releasing them 

6. Do you personally get offers to play in some famous Finnish rock band or to organize a super-group after Charon?

- For some groups, I got asked after Embraze and Charon had finished but I wanted to take some distance from making music. These days I have politely said no for all inquiries, because I want to put all my creativity into Tuohimaa band. It would be nice to sing hard metal someday, though.

7. Did you have any other side projects, in addition to participating in the recording of the album Dissector "Planetary Cancer" a year ago?

- After Charon, I played for a while in groups called DevilSent, Haavat and Cvalda, in Cvalda were also Reflexion singer Juha Kylmänen and Embraze drummer Ilkka Leskelä. We released one single and few gigs but then the group split. It was great to play in Dissector album, I like the band very much.

8. Your hometown Oulu is one of the most iconic places for Finnish metal. You lived here all your life? Why do not you moved to Helsinki?

- I’ve lived most of my life in Oulu. This is nice, rather small and peaceful town. I travel a lot around Finland with my cover band and because of the music theatre project, and Oulu is convenient because it’s as far from South as it is from Lapland. I’ve often thought about moving to Tampere or Helsinki, maybe someday but now it’s a no.

9. Where do you think, live the most sociable and hospitable Finns?

- I think the most social people come from Eastern Finland.

10. There is a Russian proverb - "What for Russian is well, means death for the German”. If we reinterpret it to "What for Finn is good, means death to everyone", then what could it be?

- Maybe Finns are people who can take the hottest heat in sauna and hardest drinking of booze  If tar, booze and sauna doesn’t help you, it’ll kill you. I haven’t used alcohol for years myself, though.

11. Are you very susceptible to the famous Finnish melancholy and depressive states?

- Yes, I believe I am.

12. Tell us about your favorite vacation spot, your favorite food and drink.

- I like having my vacations in warm places, Spain and Greece are my favourites. My favourite food is definitely pizza, and drink is water, black coffee and non-alcoholic beer.

13. To what point in your life would You return again and again?

- Tuohimaa band’s gig in Oulu’s Qstock-festival last summer was so awesome that I could go back on that stage again and again! Afternoon sun was shining so brightly, there were thousands of people who participated with our show with great energy. That was fantastic. Charon also played great shows e.g. in Moscow and St.Petersburg, those are warm memories.

14. Thanks for the interview, Lauri! We wish good luck to your group, and we will happy to hear the new joint recording with you.

- Thank You so much, have nice and sunny spring and summer 2017!

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