Hellcity 13 – 24/11/2007

Mika and JJ
By: Sabine van Gameren

Recently, the Finnish band Hellcity 13 released their debutalbum. As soon as Tempelores got the possibility to question them about it, we did.
Read all about tomorrows hottest band of Helsinki: Hellcity 13.

– There is not much info about Hellcity 13 on the internet yet. Can you tell
us about your band? 

Mika: “I am Mika, Vocals”

JJ: “I am JJ, bass and background vocals”

Mika: “We started in 2004. We run into each other at the street and we
decided to start playing together. I had a bunch of songs, and let them listen
to it. They said, yeah lets get the group together and here we are. Originally
we had another bass player and another guitarist but pretty soon we found JJ
and Sami and we are now in this line up.”

– What kind of music can we expect from Hellcity 13? 

Mika: “That is a good question, because I would say Hellcity 13 is a mix
of different types of music. It is pretty much like hard rock with the vibes
of punk rock, disco and gothic.”

– I mentioned the disco influences in my review of your album, I got some reactions like: How do you manage to mention gothic and disco in one sentence. 

Mika: “No doubt about that. It might be a good surprise.”

– You just released your debut album “Hellcity 13”. Can you tell
us something about the album in general? 

Mika: “Well basically these are all the songs we rehearsed. We also have
a lot of songs which we have not start rehearsing yet, but for the album we
just rehearsed that 10 songs.”

– Can you tell us a little bit about each song? (ideas, story, lyrics, personal
feelings)

01. In Love With Love

Mika: “In Love With Love is one of the newest songs. The last one written
on this album. The story is about people who are in love with love. They are
not in love with the person they are going out with. I usually write my lyrics
about the life around me. About what I see.”

02. American Psycho

Mika: “I never read the book. I saw the movie many years later after it
was released. It is fiction and truth. When I was in Hollywood, my first time,
I saw so many crazy things. I was staying at a motel in the heart of Hollywood.
It was a crazy time. It comes from all of that.”

03. One By One

Mika: “There are people who do nothing and this is a song against them.
You can do whatever you want! One by one. It’s strong.”

04. Shortcut To Hell

Mika: “I have always been a big fan of Tarantino, the moviemaker. And I
have always been a fan of rockabilly music. There is so many times a story in
these lyrics like someone killed my baby, and I have to go after him. Pretty
much the same goes with Tarantino movies like Kill Bill. I have been fan of
these things for so long that I had to write my own story about it.”

05. Masquerade

Mika: “It’s a story about a club in Hollywood. It is a really strange
club called: Sinister. It is a church and there is a club inside. There is a
quite different crowd in there. Gay’s, lesbians, rockers etc. It is so
much different from other clubs. That is the story about the song, about the
different crowd.”

06. Dead End

Mika: “The story of this song is like when you already see in a relationship
that the other one is not loving you anymore. It is sad when the other person
is still pretending that everything is ok. But you see everything is not ok.
It is about this sort of feelings.”

07. In Your Eyes

Mika: “Our guitarist LL Stud had a really stormy relationship a few years
back. I was looking at the whole thing and I tried to imagine how I would feel
in his shoes. You can see these kind of stories everywhere.”

08. Is Anybody Out There

Mika: “Is Anybody Out There is the first song we ever wrote. I went to
LL Stud his house and we decided to write a couple of songs together instead
of partying. This is the first song. He had this riff how Is Anybody Out There
starts and I came up with the melody and I finished the song. There is not really
any other special thing about it.

09. Yesterday’s News

Mika: “It is a love song. Like most of the songs. It is about that your
relationship is already yesterdays news.”

10. My World Has Stopped

Mika: “I told you before that Is Anybody Out There is the first song, but
actually My World Has Stopped I wrote already ten years ago. A typical love
song. If you listen to the song, you realize where it is about.”

– Do you have any favorite song on the album?  Mika: “Well… It is almost talking about your kids. It is very difficult
to name one.”  JJ: “Mine is In Love With Love”.

– Are there any points you would like to do different next time? 

Mika: “I have been thinking of what I would do different next time. I try
to be perfect when I write the songs. For this album I am pretty happy with
the results that we came up with. Next time, I would like to record it in one
place. Now we recorded most of the songs in different studio’s. It might
be a good idea to record some songs in different studio’s but still personally
I would like to record it in one studio. That is what I like to different next
time.”

– You made a video of “In love with love” featuring OX of Lordi.
Will “In love with love” be the first single? 

Mika: “Yes it is. It has been played already on several radio stations
like radio rock and.. the voice.. I can’t remember… so yes, In Love
With Love is our first single.”

– Can you tell us more about the video? Where is the idea coming from?  Mika: “The idea came from Teja, that is the owner of our recordcompany.
I mentioned that I know Ox from Lordi and then he came up with another idea
and we asked him in the video.”– Where would you like to see the band in the future? 

Mika: “When my dreams come true, I would be touring in another countries.
Also, release more records and just the common things usually hope and dream.”

– One last question, a little off the music. It’s about personality. If
you could be an animal which fits your personality what animal would you be and why? 

Mika: “Definitely a wolf! I am a lone wolf when it comes to real life and
I have already seen in my dreams that I am a wolf… I guess I just have
to be a wolf.”

JJ: “I would be a wolf. I am some kind of loner, but still with a group
like a wolf is.”

Links:

Hellcity 13 Myspace
Hellcity 13 Official