Dazed and Confused
One evening in April five Finnish monsters came to invade Brighton, UK. Nothing to worry about, they were just here to play us some spectacular heavy metal. The band made history in 2006 by becoming the first, and still today the only hard rock act to win the Eurovision Song Contest. Since then they released four more albums, the last one called “Scare Force One” in 2014. HMA briefly catch up with Ox the bass player to tell us more about the visual and artistic side of the band.
HMA: Hi Ox and welcome to Heavy Music Artwork. About the creative process of the cover art for your albums, how involved are you?
Ox: Up to the point where we discuss what we want, what kind of costumes we wear because for each album we update them. The characters are still the same of course. We talk about what kind of updates and stuff, and from then on Mr. Lordi takes over and makes it by himself, everything, designs and makes it.
HMA: Do you give direction to the label, if involved?
Ox: No, the label does nothing. All artwork is Mr Lordi, he does all the covers, all the posters, every mask, everything is by himself. No label involved in that at all.
HMA: In metal, we have many distinctive names for sub-genres i.e. black, death, thrash, some crossovers, etc. If we would start giving names to art styles, how would you call or describe yours?
Ox: It’s really difficult to describe because it seems like anything you want to call it… perhaps it’s not great for somebody, or it should be something else or whatever, but I don’t care… What would I call it? Well, definitely it has something to do with monsters and stuff.
HMA: Monster art!
Ox: Yeah Monster metal art or whatever!
HMA: How important is art in your perception and for your audience to experience your music?
Ox: It’s obviously for artists a very big part of this, how it looks, how the stage looks. Art is a very big part of Lordi, he’s the artist, definitely. Lordi gives so much attention to the videos, the imagery, and the photography so the overall experience is enhanced.
HMA: Do you have any favourite cover or any album in particular in general?
Ox: There are many nice ones. I’m thinking about… I like almost all, I’m a big Motley Crue fan, so I like all those like “Theatre of Pain”, “Girls Girls Girls”, “Dr Feelgood”. Then I’m thinking about the band Ratt also their covers are pretty good, I like them. Those ones I like. Mr Lordi would definitely say some Kiss albums, I’m pretty sure.
HMA: How is it going the tour so far? Today is your last day.
Ox: Last day, yeah. It’s been going very well. It’s been our longest tour so far and it’s been really good. It actually is so long that it feels weird going home because I’m so used to this now.
HMA: Do you see any difference in the audience compared to a decade ago?
Ox: We’re lucky in that we see people of all ages in our concerts. It depends on the country a bit. Some countries there are 30 or 40-year-old metal guys, some countries, there might be kids, there might be grandmas even.
HMA: Okay Ox, we are out of time. Thank you very much for this interview, see you later!
Interview by Vixena – Copyright 2015 © Heavy Music Artwork. All rights reserved.
