apocalyptica Blog and Journals

A DAY IN A LIFE OF APOCALYPTICA by Perttu Kivilaakso

Hello again lovelies. How are you? Hopefully well.

Well, this time I thought of writing something a bit different, so I decided to write a memo of yesterday's meeting/gathering/whatever... I use the European clock because I am from Finland.

It is not too cold, yet very grey and foggy, a smelly Wednesday morning in a little known suburb of Helsinki. This is a typical area of factories: gas, broken glass, graffiti everywhere: an abandoned bicycle lies on the ground; someone has stolen it's rubbers. This slightly frozen asphalt jungle awaits what the new day brings. So does this old building, where bands can bring their instruments and play - I mean play music - and also play like children play. The building is, anyhow, quite far from the Hilton standard (actually pretty fucking far from it, but it doesn't bother, only increases that certain anxiety level one should have while working on this kind of stuff. Maybe it's a positive thing).

 

Clock: 09:45: nothing happens. Clock: 09:57: nothing happens. Practice room number xxx... Silence. Clock: 10:00: rehearsals are marked to begin. Clock: 10:07: no lifesigns. 10:13: Paavo arrives. Little bit sweaty, cleaning his glasses, searching out sparkling water to satisfy his thirst. "Ach so, again I'm the first one, and most likely will be the last, like always..." Paavo is very energic, and diligent. Clock: 10:18: Paavo goes to toilet.10.22: Eicca arrives. "Oh - you're all alone. Sorry I'm a bit late. I took the wrong hard drive with me. I realized half-way that I had the one where I keep my lullabies. I made a new song yesterday. It is called 'A song'" he explains.

Paavo listens to the ipod as Eicca looks for sparkling water."Is coffee already ready? Paavo puts his thumb up.10:26: Mikko arrives."I went into this shop to buy new drumsticks because I realized that I have only broken ones, but the shop wasn't open yet. And then I realized that I din't have any money with me, so I asked them to send the bill to you, Eicca." "Good morning. How kind of you, where is the sparkling water? Is coffee ready?" Paavo puts his thumb up and takes off the headphones. "Hey, I listened to song number 13 -you remember the fast one that goes like... tadam-tam, tadam-tam, didudidu, tadam... Yes,that one? How about if it would go instead of didudidu-didudi, instead?" "Hmm... I didn't think of that possibility yet. Could work though. Let's try!"

 

10:33: Perttu arrives. "Damn it. I couldn't get up from bed and..." Eh,we are not interested of your excuses... This is already the third time you are late, so tomorrow is your turn to vacuum the whole room!" "NO! But..." "No excuses." "But... I don't even vacuum-clean my home!" Paavo continues: "...but since we all were late today, you don't have to massage our backs this time." "Okay, I will try to wake up better then in future." (Behind Perttu's back, the others give doubtful glances). "Is coffee ready?" Paavo notices that the can is already empty, and a bit resigned leaves the room to get more water.10:45: the flavour of new coffee fills the room. "Did you see yesterday the program about black holes?" Perttu asks. No response."It is so cool, unbelievable that those things exist, but I don't get how they work." "I guess no one really does. How could it be possible for a material to disappear?" "But surely we have one black hole in here," Eicca begins to tease. "Please, guys. No!" Perttu weeps.

10:53: "About this didudi," Paavo says."I think it's a good idea," says Perttu. "You don't even know what we're talking about!" "No, but i decided to be positive and optimistic today." "Well, look in the mirror. On a scale of 1-7, how positive do you look? Oh we don't have a mirror, but believe me, you look like shit!" Mikko praises. "Thanks. When was the last time you shaved?" Perttu tries to strike back. "Ah! Don't you know that these whiskers are in style at the moment. You should really follow what's happening on streets." "I don't have time for that, all my spare time is spent watching historical or astronomical documentaries." "Yes... And believe me, that's exactly how you look!"

Now we come to the point of the day's first "must be censored" scene... 11:13: "didudii"...a cello makes a sound. Paavo plays the "didudii". "Yeah, that's good!" Perttu continues. "You haven't heard the entire song yet!" "True. I just want to be difficult." 11:15: Paavo puts the cello away and joins the others who have found some cookies. Mikko also brought a newspaper and they are reading it silently. 11:18: "Didudii" soughs Perttu. 11:19: "OK. Let's listen to 'The Song'" Eicca says and goes to the toilet. 11:21: "Didudii," whistles Perttu. 11:22: Very loud music can be heard, fast beat, d-minor, quite dark. Paavo plays along with the CD. Now it comes...didudii...song ends. "Yes. It is a good opportunity. Then Mikko begins to write a textmessage, Perttu opens the window and lights a cigarette, Paavo begins to read a slalom magazine, Eicca lifts weights. 11:36: Four men sit behind their instruments, looking stupid, as if someone would have something to say. "Okay, what did we do yesterday?"  asks Eicca. "Well, actually pretty much nothing," Mikko answers,"nor the day before..." Silence... "Let's play song number 3 once, that we all know." Mikko is lively - almost..."  Perttu mutters. 11:43: "I am so tired! More coffee!"

 

11:59: "Have you heard the new muse-album, it's amazing!" Mikko is lively. "True!"  Paavo jumps into the conversation and follows a long 7minutes analysis of what kind of chords and effects they are using. Eicca calls to the manager. Perttu smokes. 12:06: "I am so hungry, let's go to get something to eat," Paavo suggests. 12:24: Boys are back. 12:37: Food is in the stomach. 12:52: Everybody visited the toilets and ate crackers as deserts. 12:53: Song number 9 begins."I think this could be still faster."  "No,much slower in my opinion."  "Why? Can't you play it faster?"   "Not yet, since i haven't had time to..." "No excuses, let's play!" "Faster!" 13:19: "Yeah! That was good!" Perttu screams and looks like a washed dog. "Good! There's still some hope for you as well... But not much..."

 

What follows is the next "must-be-cencored"-scene. 13:49: "Do we have any candy left?" Mikko asks. Mikko is a candy-monster. 14:01: "Should we still play something?" Paavo asks. Funny...because so far we played maybe thirty minutes during four hours. Says Eicca: "That's the way it goes." Says Perttu: "Goes what?" "Well, if this is not going any faster, then I'm going home, because i have another life, too," says Paavo, a little bit irritated. The final result: "When was the last time I said that I love you guys?"  Perttu asks. Surprised silence. "You know, I need to share my feelings, because life is so unpredictable, and you never know what the next corner brings, and it's better to express your emotions than suffocate them..." "I think it was yesterday... Or maybe the day before...Yes, Monday, yes...Yes, you told us many times...It is good to know how deeply you care." Eicca whispers: "You guys are so important to me, I don't know what I would do with out you three." Perttu cries the tears of a dragon. He hugs everybody. Paavo's heart melts too."I love you, my friend, my brother, and don't forget that!"  Mikko shouts: "And they lived happily ever after!" Eicca encourages, "Yes! Come, my brothers! Let's create a beautiful sound together! Let's play "The song"! Happily they take their instruments and Mikko counts the beat in, but nothing happens."Perttu, you should begin the song!" "Ah! This is the didudidu didudii." "Whatever...ok,  ok...didudii...tadam tadam...dum dum..." It's going to be good, if Perttu will just play the same song as us. Another try, everybody! Make the changes.

 

15:13: Cookies and coffee!

 

15:20: "But truly, let's not fall into despair! Hope remains while the company is true." "Oh, you saw that movie too?" "What movie?" "Oh, the movie...sure." "What was the point?" "...that we should not give up now that we are so far." "Yes, we are pretty f***ing far from far" Eicca growls. "What do we already have? Ten, thirteen, fourteen songs?" Mikko counts. "Yes, but we need more." "What do you think of the dum-dum after the didudii?" asks Paavo suddenly. "How about damdum?" Perttu offers. "NO! That sounds so silly!" Eicca laughs. "I still doubt the whole idea of didudii," says Mikko. "Do we need that passage at all?" Perttu gets angry again. "No, come on, look into the mirror! Oh, we don't have it...

 

15:54: Peace and love! "Ok guys, I have to go soon, so what shall wedo next?" Mikko asks. "Let's drink beer," Paavo suggests. "Good idea!"  Eicca is in. "But not with you," Paavo continues.  "I want to go skiing. Let's meet after one week," Mikko decides. "I want to go with you to Lapland" Perttu says to Paavo."I don't want you to come with me," says Paavo. Another word-war between two mights. Paavo smiles widely and Perttu gives him a big hug. Mikko feels tears on he's cheeks because he is so touched by how much two people can enjoy each other's company.

 

16:28: "We can rest for a while and come back tomorrow," Eicca says, "So no sleepy days?" Perttu is disappointed. "Look at the bright side, an evening with lots of work, a night without sleep, or dreams of didudii...didudidu. What did we decide? I don't remember anymore" Mikko says. "I think we didn't decide anything" Paavo remembers. "Let's think about it next week" Eicca says, "What about tomorrow?" Perttu asks. A new day... The door is opened, the electricity is switched off, the sound of a lock can be heard, and the room is empty and silent again.

 

18:08: The last musician has left the building. The scene ends with a close up of the broken bike and the distant drone of a car engine. The bus passes just in front of their noses - Perttu and Mikko -  as they stand in a hard rain with nothing more to say than..."didudii!"

 

Cheers lovelies

 

 

                                                     Perttu

"The black carbon fiber cello. Yes, well," says Perttu Kivilaakso. "I no longer play that one."
Paavo Lötjönen chuckles. "It was..." he makes a V with his hands, "crushed by a large truck. It looked like this."

"It was in pieces," says Perttu.
"Where was that?" Paavo asks.
"Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam" says Perttu.
"We have bad luck at Schiphol," says Paavo.

I like cellos, I like carbon, and I like fibers, so my curiosity about carbon fiber cellos is preordained and I have been on a quest to get my hands on one and draw a bow across its strings and see what it feels like and how it sounds.

Being a fan, I already have Apocalyptica tickets. Then I notice on a website that Perttu plays a carbon fiber cello, so I ask his management whether I could meet him while he is in Vienna and interview his cello. I am honest, I tell them it is for a blog. I call it a website, but I give them the URL. I don't get my hopes up. To my surprise, they readily agree.

My next surprise comes when I arrive backstage on the afternoon before the concert and everyone is nice to me. It turns out Eicca Toppinen, the founder of the band, is a big fan of metamorphosism! "We of course all understand it, being intellectuals," he says, shaking my hand.

Actually, I just made that up. He is busy brushing his hair when I arrive. The guy is a walking Wella ad. Talk about hair. They ought to get a shampoo company to sponsor them. Both he and Perttu do the hair thing in concert, the headbanging hair whip thing?

Eicca is busy brushing his hair and the fourth man, the quiet one with dark glasses, the John Entwistle only with cello one, the one whose name isn't on the website, the one I have no pictures of, is practicing classical licks on a cello from the 1700s because, as they tell me later, he has an orchestral audition coming up.

That leaves Perttu Kivilaakso, who happens to be the one I wanted to see in the first place, and Paavo Lötjönen (pronounced "Paavo Lötjönen"). They march into an interview room with three or four of their cellos and a bunch of other shit and we get to work. If you ever happen to be someone who knows very little about rock music and equally little about cellos but have to interview someone about those subjects? I highly recommend these two. They practically interview themselves, in a nice way.

Perttu is a tall, slender young man with some fancy dye work in his hair, black fingernails on his left hand and a can of Red Bull connected to a vein in his arm by IV drip. When he pronounces the word "knife" he doesn't let the letter "K" go to waste.

Paavo is a bit shorter, stockier, athletic, with short black hair and a little thing growing on his chin. Maybe he's more hyper than Perttu, maybe he just got more sleep.

In great detail and in perfect English they tell me more about cellos and their use in heavy metal music than I could have hoped for. I am now an expert. They show me their cellos, they tell me which rosins they use, they explain their pickups and their earplugs and why they use new Chinese cellos.

Basically, new Chinese cellos are cheap. When a baggage truck runs over one at Schiphol Airport, they merely laugh derisively and say, "Schiphol is as hard on cellos as we are." They also use piezo pickups on the bridge of the cello, so the actual sound of the cello played acoustically is not that important, since they don't use microphones. "We use a wireless system so we can move around on stage without tripping over cords," Paavo explains. "We're sitting down at the beginning of the set, but then we start moving around quite a bit."

They display the cellos. "Look," Paavo says, opening the first hard case. "Eicca's is the oldest, it's a few years old." All the varnish is worn off the back, and every corner that can be broken off is. More varnish is worn off the front, where they use sandpaper to remove rosin. Paavo proudly shows me the sandpaper. "We are hard on cellos," he says. They are hard on everything. He showed me the carbon fiber spike on the otherwise wooden cello. "These are good. They are very light, and very strong, but Eicca broke one."

Many of the bows they use are also carbon fiber. "I broke one on stage once," Perttu says. "The luthiers back in Finland said that was impossible, but it wasn't."

They break a lot of strings too. Half the cello strings sold in Finland every year are sold to Apocalyptica. Paavo grins. "The luthiers love us. We give them a lot of business."

They unpack their bows. Perttu takes out a carbon fiber bow that is just shredded. "This is what they look like at the end of the set," he says. They use double bass rosin on their bows for rock songs, and cello rosin on different bows, sometimes wood, for the ballads they play. I get some double bass rosin on my hand somehow. That stuff is like glue. "It is good for the attack," Paavo says. He demonstrates, playing something on the cello. "Wow," I think. "That sounds just like Apocalyptica." Then, you know, duh. He hands me the cello and the bow. I play a little. I sound like shit, but the cello just roars with that sticky rosin. You can practically pluck the strings with it, the attack is just amazing. Sounds a bit rough on the "A" string, but the lower strings just growl.

Paavo opens another case. "We also have a blue cello." They had a sponsor on their German tour, who asked them to paint a cello blue and play a few numbers on it. "I asked all the luthiers I could find, but none of them would paint a cello blue," he says. "Then I asked all the guitar makers I knew, but they all refused. Finally one gave me a number to call." It turned out to be the number of an automotive paint shop. Paavo masked the cello and they sprayed it with car paint. He grinned as he told me the story. "It's a Chinese cello, too. This used to be yours, didn't it?"

Perttu nods. "Yes, the neck was broken off and when we had it repaired it was better than before."

"Where was it broken?" asks Paavo.

"Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam" Perttu says. "We've lost three there."

Paavo plays some more and talks about technique. "We play a lot of fifths," he said, demonstrating. "so it looks like we have bad technique, but for fifths you have to play like this." He holds his fingers flat across the strings and plays two at a time.

Their bowing technique is different, too, with a stiffer wrist. "if you have a relaxed wrist, your arm gets very tired by the end of a set."

Perttu shows me the bridge on one of the cellos. It has a slightly different shape than an average cello bridge. "The A string must be closer to the fingerboard, and the other strings a bit higher, because of how we play."

Paavo takes out some yellow foam things and explains how they work. They are ear plugs and earphones at the same time, allowing them to hear themselves and cutting out noise at the same time. "It is the only way to play in tune," he explains. "And I have no problem with tinnitus." The sound engineer can adjust the volume and "location" of all the musicians. "In the earphones, Eicca is on my right, Perttu is on my left, the drums are behind me and all the other stuff we have on tape is about here." He waves his hands above and behind his head.

They tell me they no longer take their cellos into the cabin when they fly. After spending about $100,000 buying tickets for their instruments, they decided it would be cheaper to put them in baggage and replace the ones that break. "It's a big savings," Paavo says.

"As long as we avoid Schiphol," Perttu says.

Finally my time runs out. As they pack everything up, Paavo and Perttu say they like to play classical music when they're not on tour. They're all classically trained. Perttu, the son of a cellist, plays in the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, Paavo, whose parents are both musicians, plays somewhere else.

When you're playing a cello, Perttu tells me, the most important thing, more important than the sound of the cello, he says, is the sound in your head you're trying to produce. He says he tries to replicate the human voice. He's a big opera fan.

 

April 12, 2005

 

 

 

Vote for Apocalyptica........and whatever you want.....hahahhahahaha

http://www.metalhammer.co.uk/gods/

The mind boggles. Hold on – aren’t classical musicians supposed to be stiff-upper-lip chaps with bow ties and a broom handle up their jacksies?

“No!” grins Eicca. “My other big hobby is cutting down trees. I have a forest by my house and I really like to do that. The other day I thought, ‘Fucking hell, if I get the chainsaw into my finger, it’s gone forever!”

Apocalyptica, currently made up of cellists Eicca, Paavo Lötjönen and Perttu Kivilaakso and drummer Mikko Sirén, are famous for erupting into the limelight in the mid-90s thanks to their strange habit of rearranging Metallica songs for cellos. Everyone knows that, but few have heard much about their personal lives or the band’s early years. Until now…

 

It all started with a kid who was equally into rock and classical music.

“I was nine when I started playing the cello,” says Eicca. “That’s old for classical musicians!” Indeed: we’ve all seen the freaky five-year-olds laying into a Rachmaninov aria on TV. Nine is positively ancient. How come Eicca didn’t pick up a guitar like the rest of us?

“Well, I also started playing the drums at the same time – just the usual rock shit,” he says. Coughing in slight embarrassment, he adds: “Back then I was a big fan of Duran Duran and Billy Idol. But then I discovered Jimi Hendrix and from there I got into metal. Our music teacher was a big fan of classic rock from the 60s and 70s, so we did a lot of that too.”

Eicca developed a split personality, with his interests in classical music and metal developing in parallel.

“My biggest passion was chamber music,” he admits. “But I always listened to metal – Metallica, Pantera, Annihilator, Sepultura and Slayer. Death and black metal wasn’t my thing, apart from Carcass. Nothing against those bands, I just preferred thrash. I also loved the more innovative bands that followed, like System Of A Down and Rammstein.”

This begs the question of what metal and chamber music have in common. Eicca is one of the most technically literate musicians on the planet – what’s the secret?

“Classical music and metal have a lot of technical elements in common that are appreciated by skilful players. I like all kinds of music, including pop, but Metallica had some magic. System Of A Down are the same – it’s freaky, difficult music with a million difficult parts, but you can follow it.

“The funny thing is,” he laughs, “When I was 15 I was sure I was going to be a horse-riding teacher! I wanted to do something different with my life and I was a horse-freak. I never thought I’d be a full-time musician!”

Horses? Be off with you. A different path awaited our man, who no doubt considered his career options over a few lengthy sauna sessions back then. At 17, a year younger than most people, Eicca was granted entry to the renowned Sibelius Academy, the Helsinki music school also attended by various members of Nightwish, Children Of Bodom and, uh, Lordi.

“I wasn’t a virtuoso, but I had some talent,” recalls Eicca. “When I got to the Sibelius Academy, there was a turning point.” Surrounded by some of Europe’s most prodigious musical talent, the teenage headbanger was forced to knuckle down to his studies. Luckily, he was saved from becoming a speccy geek his love of metal…

“Luckily, I had interests other than classical music,” he recalls. “I was in a cello group, the Total Rock Ensemble, playing everything from Hendrix to Bach. One day, I thought: ‘We should form a cello band that plays Metallica!”

But why choose to cover Metallica as opposed to say, Anthrax?

“The music is very passionate, and it’s both simple and difficult, so it’s interesting,” explains Eicca. “Even the most complex album, like ‘… And Justice For All’, are still very easy to listen to. Also, Metallica are incredibly popular in Finland. It’s not the same for other bands, apart from Rammstein and Iron Maiden. The Scandinavian bands like In Flames play basic club shows [compared to stadiums].”

Just for a laugh, Eicca and his fellow students Paavo Lötjönen and Perttu Kivilaakso put together a set of Metallica songs for cello, dividing up the guitar and vocal parts between the three instruments and playing for their friends’ amusement.

“People thought it was a joke. We played a few times a year at parties, just for fun,” Eicca says now. “Then, around Christmas 1995, we got invited to play a metal club in Helsinki. There were four bands, all playing covers. Funnily enough, it was one of the first shows by HIM. They were playing Type O Negative covers, we were doing Metallica stuff and one band was doing Rage Against The Machine songs. An indie record label gay came up and asked if we wanted to make an album. We thought he was crazy! We assumed nobody would want to listen to this shit!”

Struggling with the idea of HIM covering Type O Negative songs? Imagine how odd the concept of classical Metallica covers sounded on paper. Nobody took the idea seriously, least of all the band themselves. However, the album, ‘Apocalyptica By Four Cellos’, issued by the Finnish label Zen Garden, sounded ace.

“We did it for fun, but we took it seriously – if we make a record, we want to do it as well as possible,” says Eicca. “Some metal fans thought it might be funny but other people found it genuinely innovative.”

A lot of people, in fact: the album was a sizable domestic hit.

“We would have been happy if the album had sold 1,000 copies,” laughs Eicca, “but now it’s up to one million!”

Gobsmacked by the wave of popularity, Apocalyptica embarked on a series of albums and tours which has sustained them to this day. A surreal moment came early in the band’s career, when Metallica invited them to play support slots. Eicca shakes his head in disbelief.

“Playing with them was strange. It happened just six months after the first album. I remember at the first show, James Hetfield came up to say hello and told someone, ‘Fuck, these guys are really heavy!’ Ha ha ha! That’s a compliment I’ll never forget!”

 

As the years have passed, Apocalyptica have moved away from exclusively covering metal songs. Although their albums have included songs by Sepultura, Pantera and Slayer among many others, Eicca and the others spend most of their creative abilities on writing original material – and attracting a host of guest talent in doing so. Musicians who’ve appeared on Apocalyptica albums include Max Cavalera, Dave Lombardo, Corey Taylor, Till Lindemann, Matt Tuck, Cristina Scabbia and Ville Valo. Many of these appeared on the 2006 best-of-collection ‘Amplified: A Decade Of Reinventing The Cello’, and latest album ‘Worlds Collide’. Not bad for a bunch of so-called classical nerds, eh?

“Ha ha ha, yes!” sniggers Eicca. “It’s been a long journey to get to this point. When this band started, we all tried to keep a foot in the door of the classical world, because nobody knew what was going to happen. Perttu had a lifelong vacancy in the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, but he had to quit recently. They wouldn’t give him any more years off to be in Apocalyptica – he’d used up his limit! So he said, ‘OK, what the fuck…’ We all had to make this decision. I made mine about eight years ago.”

Still, you get the impression that Apocalyptica like to live life to the full, despite their dedication.

“I’m the hardest-partying guy in the band!” announces Eicca. “I don’t drink like crazy any more – I stay on beer and avoid trouble! I don’t like playing shows when I’m hungover – it’s not fair to the fans. Off-days when we party hardest, because when you’re on the raod you just sit around, talk bullshit and drink beer.”

And when the band come off the road, it’s time to get back to nature…

“I live in the countryside away from Helsinki, and I like to do sports – cross country biking and forest skiing,” reveals Eicca. “Paavo does extreme sports, too: he’s extremely good at downhill skiing. The shows are so intense that I love living in a place where I can see people or not, as I choose, and go out and enjoy the fresh, good air. I can go to a party if I want, but I don’t have to.”

Apocalyptica aren’t all sports freaks, though (“Perttu doesn’t move his ass if it’s not necessary. He can watch 10 DVDs in a row – the complete opposite of me”), and drummer Sirén has a thing for dressing as a marsupial (“Mikko has a million bands. One is called Kangaroo Action and they play for kids, dressed up in kangaroo costumes”).

Then there’s the band’s obsession with who can visit the most countries…

“That’s very serious and bloody competitive!” declares Eicca. “We have strict rules. Just landing at an airport is not enough – you have to go outside the airport area. Also, how do you count different countries? We don’t count Scotland and England as two different countries.”

We dare you to go to Glasgow and say that…

“Yes, ha ha, but we’ve decided to count the UK as one country. It’s the same everywhere – Germany, for example, is divided into 12 different states. Our monitor guy has 76 points because he goes to Africa on holiday and gets points that no one else is going to get. I’ll have 51 points after I’ve been to Ireland. Have a look at my Facebook entry, you can see my map with the countries where I’ve been!” Have a look – he’s not exaggerating.

And so the unlikely tale of the classic band who went metal comes up to date. You couldn’t make it up, frankly: it sounds like the kind of hallucination you might experience after too many sessions in a small, steamy place with lots of naked Scandinavians…

About Finland and Finns:

Paavo: "Finnish people are basically not talking bullshit - if they want to say something, they will say it straight and honestly."

Eicca (about Finland): "We have a strange language..."

Eicca: "Sweden is a pop country, Finland is a rock country"

Perttu: "The truth is that in our country, also because of the weather, we don’t have many things to do, nothing special ever happens and that’s why we put so much effort in actually making sth good. We feel very melancholic in general."

Eicca: "We make things which we otherwise never would do. Go to places which we would never seek. Extreme situations. We Finns like that. Heat. Cold."

Eicca: "It's very common! Being naked in Finland."

About music:

Eicca (about Finnish music): "Finnish music is in the minor key; if people wrote music like that in other countries, they’d be taken for suicide freaks! But Finnish people aren’t as depressed as you’d think..."

Perttu: "Music is like a big cake, that consists of many pieces with different flavours. You just cut and take the one you like..."

Perttu: "The good thing about orchestral music is that it can create different feelings for each and every one of us."

Eicca: "I understand nothing about writing lyrics. For me it's like a black area!"

Perttu: "What you have to do is collect experiences and feelings, put them into music and then each listener’s imaginations can fly away."

Paavo: "Lyrics limit the fantasy".

Eicca (on being asking about any favorite classical composers): "Mine is Shostakovitch, but you shouldn’t listen to him in the summer. He’s no good for Summer."

About Cellos:

Perttu: "I think that the sound of cello is very melancholic and also very dark."

Eicca: "We've always been playing cello with no lyrics, so for us, it's nothing strange. Sometimes you can tell much more by the music than the lyrics".

Interviewer: "So, a guy with a cello is a damn site more sexy than Keith Richards with a guitar?"
Eicca: "DEFINITELY... you will see."

Perttu: "Don't know how it happens. BUT, i always hit the head against the cello."

Q: "Why are cellos so sexy?"
Perttu: "Firstly, we keep them between our legs."

Paavo: "No, no, no, no!!! Not violins!!!!"

Eicca: "Perttu has always been a very, very hard cello-player."

Eicca: "Oh, a man with a guitar is nothing compared to a man with a cello! Girls really like the way that we handle our instruments."

Perttu (on being asked if he ever plays cello on the toilet): "No it's too small, but sometimes I need a toilet on stage".

About the band:

Eicca: "We are the most smiling metal band in the world."

Mikko (about Dave Lombardo): "I think he is lunatic as we are."

Perttu: "Antero has a Terminator kind of seeing system..."

Paavo: "We don't drink much if we play the next day".

Eicca: "We just spent all our money on the videos".

Eicca: "Perttu composed like a maniac in the summer".

Paavo: "Antero, a very cool and wise guy."

Antero: "Ja, Perttu has an ego 50 kilometres wide".

Perttu (on being asked if he's ever called Pera): "I HATE that name. Him - THAT guy (pointing at Eicca) He calls me that!"

Eicca (on being asked why he calls Perttu 'Pera'): "Because I likes to tease him and make him mad."

Eicca: "Perttu got a little excited during that last song. Let's calm him down with some Slayer"...

Eicca: "Joo. Perttu gets diarrhea always."

Perttu (on being asked how he scores Eicca out of ten for kissing): "Eicca is good to kiss and he has nice body - but no tits."

Paavo: "Antero is very cool on the outside, but inside he rages."

About oneself:

Eicca: "I'm actually the only one who played all the shows this year, from the band".

Perttu: "Sorrow and anger are surely inspiring for me, but sometimes I am inspired by positive feelings as well."

Antero: "No, it's ANtero and not AnTEro."

Perttu: "Look at my lunch in Poland, isn't this disgusting?"

Antero: "It's not THAT hairy!"

Perttu (locking Antero out of the van): "We don't need you any more!"

Perttu (leaning against the door after hard, hot gig): "My body is broken!"

Perttu: "We always have group sex in the studio. Music is love between men".

Perttu (being asking how do he kill time when he in the bus): "Smoking cigarettes and talking shit !!"

Perttu: "I'm actually pretty bad guitarist... You can't play cello in bed and most of the best ideas comes during night in the darkness...lying naked with the cold guitar on your skin...oo...maybe i should stop before it's too late...!!!!!!"

Perttu: "Kitchen...What's that?"

Perttu (on the Phorum): "I would prefer to be James Bond - not more or less."

Perttu (being asking who is the most weirdy man in the band): "It HAS to be me. There's no other options!!!"

Eicca: "Yeah! We're always nude when we are together!"

Perttu: (after attempting to sing during an interview) "Maybe I should just... play."

Apo and fans

Eicca: "I have to say that there are more girls coming to our show than to the Rammstein shows! But we are not interested in groupies - we are all old and married men!"

Fan-girl whisper something to Paavo
Paavo: "NO! I'm married!..."

Perttu: "WHAT?? I stink??"
Nika and Katti immediately: "No, not you.... it's an inside joke".
Perttu: "Ah - ok".

fan: "Please write something nice."
Perttu (writing in finnish): "Something nice".

Perttu: "And I was driving towards the ditch - with VERY high speed..."
Eicca: "Yeah he was driving around, in the first gear always".

Eicca: "No i'm not staying here. You might kidnap me and beat me!"
Terrë: "I wouldn't beat you...."

Deby to Antero, who's just been locked out of the van by Perttu: "Are you staying here with us?" (us = fans)
Antero, with horrified look: "NO!"

Antero (on being told he wasn't quite so cool after all): "Perhaps."

Fan (on the Apo-forum): "Perttu, I love you. Will you marry me?"
Perttu: "This is so sudden. Can I think about it?"

Eicca: "Sauna and concert areas should be separated".

---

found on http://apocalyptica.apocello.ru/

Go to www.rockinvasion.de, then click on "Episode 6" in the dropdown menu, then on "Apocalyptica".

Funny interview with Paavo and Mikko fighting over what the first word sung in "Helden" is.

Enjoy!

 

 

 

Since 2 months ago I knew the big news, at least for me, I’m a big concertmaniac! And then there is in myspace, Apocalyptica Monterrey February 4^th. I couldn’t feel gladder then; it was something I was waiting for 2 years! I planned with all my friends go to the concert and try to meet the band! We all can have different music tastes, but Apocalyptica have been the common band to us, we all love them!  Even we decide buy some gifts for the band. With the past of the days we got more excited and some things seems going harder, like my friend from Huston that told us maybe she couldn’t come. Anyway we keep the spirit (and some of you noticed it).  

 

The idea of wait for the band in the airport appeared in our minds so immediately we tried getting info about it! We mailed half of world to get it! And thanks to Perttu for answer us. So it gave us hope. When the big day was getting close everything got ready. Our Friend was able to come, we won tickets for fila 0(it made us save some money) and I got the day of concert off (I worked hard to get it).

Sunday Morning, I woke up, excited our friend will arrive at 6:00 am to Monterrey... too early and I was going late, then after get lost there and get scared for not see none of my friends and listen a taxi driver sings rancheras. I saw her! She and my friend Die was in the back. And then more late the rest of my little group arrived, and then we took our way to the airport excited and happy. .and that was how our day was passing by and nothing happened; I will not say more of it. We back home (Gaby was hallucinating Ville Valo (of funeral of heart times) coming down from an airplane and smoking, she didn’t sleep during the road)

 

Next day we didn’t any plan just be there in the row. I arrived late :/  but my friends were already there. After eat something we went to the back of Café and see what was happening there. I saw some guy I had already seen before when I was walking at the café and they were not talking English ha-ha so we were walking behind them but we decided stop to buy some gums. And we back to Café when all of sudden a friend called me. She told me the band was already inside the café making the check sound and maybe it will take 2 hours went out to go at the hotel. So we went for our other friend and when we back we saw a beautiful blonde head walking in the street and yeah there was Mikko we ran to him. We asked him pictures and sign some photos for us! And we gave him his gift, was funny because when he was signing our stuffs my friend asked me a marker and I gave her one saying white in Spanish and he repeated the word, and the my friend said “no negro” (no black)! He repeated black! And then again me saying Negro! And then he again XD after that we were waiting there for a while till we understand they didn’t go out for the hotel, they had all they needed there. We decided back to the row, we bought some shirts and then the guy of the contest called all the winners, and there we go! We were the third couple in the row of winners, so that’s meant we will be able to have a little meet and great with them :D We went inside, the security guards took some of our gifts away for consider them dangerous(that was some tequila shoots with the name of every member of the band) but they didn’t saw I keep 2 of them with me, the one for Perttu and Antero. We also had chocolates for them and a Panda for Perttu XD

 

Mikko

 

I got so nervous! The guys of contest took some pic of us and after we went inside an unknown area for me! Even I have been there many times before O_O the place was so nice, and there was them in a table with other guys and there was a lot of food and drinks of course. We just had 5 minutes with them, so when the band walked to us I run with Eicca. He kissed and hugged me and I did the same :P then I went with Perttu and my friend too, and she gave him the panda we bought for him. I cant remember the exactly order of the facts so I just remember my friend throwing to Paavo and me telling him “ohh she is crazy for you man!” then I took her a pic with him, and she took me one and then she back and hugged him again and she was with him for some time...I ran to Perttu and asked a girl took me a pic with him and I gave him the other shoot with his name. And though my friend gave the chocolate box to Eicca and he said “ohh that’s heavy” . We got so excited we couldn’t believe it! It was one of our dreams come true: D and they were all nice!! Perttu was playing with his panda en singing damn cute my boy!

 

When we went out, we looked for our friends they were already in front of the stage. The wait was long but we still excited!. We were screaming making some noise with the metallic barrier. All of sudden lights turn off and the curtain was opened. Antero was the first and go out to the stage, Perttu behind him and next Eicca and Paavo...I was in front of Perttu :D but (I wasn’t screaming Perttu all the time ‘¬¬ ). And then the first notes of World Collide invaded the place. the crowd start screaming and at the same time were contemplating the moves of the band. Perttu of course was wearing his top hat that left beside his chair after the 2^nd or 3^rd song. Antero splendid, serious and formal he was just there making his work only stand up to thank the crowd. Eicca the boss! He was just great! Feeling excited glad! giving the best to his public,  he never stops, after the first song they played Refuse/Resist I just loved that song and more because with the past of the year I became more heavy in music. Many fan complained about Apocalyptica making a nu metal song but I’m not Jesus was one of the most chanted. SOS was a magic moment! And more for those who love lacuna coil as me :P beautiful performance!  Thanks to god they didn’t play I don’t care but they play Helden  :D also Seemann, two wonderful songs. One of my moments was Somewhere around nothing! I just love that song! I have a bad recorded of it! You know I had camera and security guards scared me! And I was in front of all of them. Something sad for me was 2 of the most chanted songs were Bittersweet and Life Burns there was a lot of the rasmus fans thought haha, but I would like everybody sing Nothing Else maters. Ok more about the boy on stage! Perttu gone wild after some songs, you know making headband! Moving side to side of the stage, cheering up the people, also flirting with Eicca and playing with him and Paavo, he look down and smiled us some times, and Paavo was winking my friend many times and also other girls but really she never stop of scream him! XD I enjoined every moment of the concert really even when the metallic barrier and me became one. The guys were so happy, they didn’t care it was an small venue the make the best for us! And we tried making them feel glad with this back! Apocalyptica’s concerts are the favorites of my life. When second encore ends I was sure they wont back but I felt pleased.

 

The set list was the next

World Collide
Refuse/Resist
I´m Not Jesus
Fight Fire With Fire
Grace
SOS
ION
Helden
Somewhere Around Nothing
Seek annd Destroy
Bittersweet
Last Hope
Hall of the mountain king
Enter Sandman

First Encore

Nothing else maters
Life Burns
Inquisition Symphony

Second Encore

Seemann

  

After the concert I went to the back of the venue, to try to get the rest of the gifts whe had for the band. So while we were waiting to get the gifts we saw Perttu and Antero left the place, after that and with the gifts in our hand we run away to see the rest of the band in the hotel, we met more fans there :D and some time after the band arrived and we had a great place with them! We gave Eicca and Paavo his shoots, Eicca got so glad to see the detail of his glass. And then they said good bye to us! Really I couldn’t feel more happy! They all are so nice and cute, and the only one thing I have to tell them is thank you for so awesome show! And more for my friend who came from Huston only to see them!

 

 

Thank you metallijedi for Apocalyptica forum for the complete set list

Most of this is true,i'm not sure about the rest. I found it on a fansite. ( all credits to apoland.com)

He was born on the 5th of august 1975 in Vantaa, Finland. He wasn't born as Eicca but as Eino Matti Toppinen. He has a sister whose name is Aino and to avoid mix-ups, he called himself “Eikka” which evolved to “Eicca” because that is more international.

He started to play cello at the age of 9 and graduated from the Sibelius-academy in Helsinki. When he was asked what he liked most about Sibelus-academy his words were “getting drunken daily”.
He played in several orchestras like the Avanti! chamber orchestra, the symphonic orchestra of radio and the cello sextet.

Now he is the leader of Apo because he is the one who does the most work, aside from the recording. He writes and produces many of the songs. He also plays the most notes in concerts.

Eicca is married to Kirsi Ylijoki. She's a famous actress in Finland. She was on a couple of TV-shows and in some movies. They live on a farm (where he drives around in a tractor) with their two children, Eelis (7) and Ilmari (4). He's a real family guy who wants to be a role model for his kids, a man who is not afraid to show his emotions and who can say sorry.

Eicca is also not afraid to say what he likes or dislikes. He was asked in an interview if he had to choose a band to wipe off of the planet, which band it would be. After a long thought he said: “maybe… maybe cradle of filth… we played some gigs with them and they were so bad”.

Eicca has some famous quotes and one of them is “I want to bird you”. The band was playing at a German song contest together with Marta. But since they are Finns representing a German district they had to learn a little about Germany, so Marta first tries to teach them some things about Germany and then they exercise pronunciation. Eicca translates “Ich wil dich vögeln” to “I want to bird you”

A couple more Eicca facts:
• He likes to cook. His favourite is pasta with vegetable based sauce.
• When someone asked him in an interview what he would have chosen as a profession if he couldn't play cello and he answered that it was very difficult to say but that when he was younger he thought about becoming a horseback riding – instructor.
• His favourite book is “Crime and punishment” by Dostojevski.
• He once showed his… um… behind trough the window when they were recording

(i didn't know this last one)

Ok, call me crazy, but I just booked another plane ticket and bought another concert ticket to see my guys live again.

This time it's The Forum in London on March 7, 2008. I can't wait!

Just needed to share the joy with everyone here. I'm so excited!

BTW: I fucking LOVE living in Europe! Everything is pretty close here, and I get to travel so much to watch Apocalyptica and HIM gigs all over the place. My track record is constantly growing... Apo in October '07 in Hamburg, Germany; HIM in December '07 in Manchester, England; Apo in December '07 in Dublin, Ireland; HIM in February '08 in Hamburg, Germany; HIM in February '08 in Amsterdam, Netherlands; Apo in March '08 in London, England; then again in July '08  Hamburg, Germany.

I'm buzzing!!!