Disco Ensemble – 06-05-2008

Interview with Disco Ensemble
By: Nina Mende

This Disco Ensemble interview we did on May 6th in Frankfurt before the show as they were on tour with the Donots. Mikko (drums) and Lasse (bass) answered my questions as we sat down in the tour bus hoping it would be quieter than in the venue itself. But people kept on opening the bus door. All of us were quite tired….

How are you?
Lasse: A bit tired but basically ok.

How was your Vappu?
Mikko: We were in Dornberg in Austria, at the river. I think we went to sleep after our show. So a bit different from the traditional Finnish Vappu.
Lasse: Well, I always try to escape the Helsinki downtown. Because it’s so different. Everybody is so wasted.

Do you have any embarrassing stories about yourselves or about the crew you would like to share?
Both: Our manager Rowan with his t-shirt, all over his head. His upper body was naked when he did the changes. His boxers up high. He kind of dressed really silly. He always does stuff like that. But I don’t think we do anything embarrassing.

Do you care for what’s in the press about you?
Lasse: Well, of course it’s always interesting to hear people think about a new album or so, to some point. But we don’t get angry when somebody calls us stupid names, as long as there are not total lies, like somebody tells something we don’t do.

After “bad Luck Charm” what will be the next single?
Lasse: I think it will be “Headphones”.

Will you record a video for it?
Mikko: Yeah, that’s the plan.
Lasse: We haven’t set up a plan for the video yet, though.

Tell us something about the new album.
Lasse: Well, it’s a lot different from the previous albums. There’s a lot of diversity, different types of songs. I guess that’s what you can say about it in a nut shell.
Mikko: Maybe it’s a bit more challenging because there is so much different stuff.

“Bad Luck Charm” has a lot of electronic stuff in it. How did that come up?
Lasse: I don’t know. It was the producer. He made a really electronic mix out of it, then he played it to us and we said “No, we don’t want any of that” then he stripped down most of it and left something of it. I think that’s fine. He also added some samples for the drums.
Mikko: It kind of sounded pretty electronic in the beginning. There was no sequences in the beginning.

Tell us something about “Poltergeist”.
Lasse: We wrote it in like three minutes. We just played it through and then we were like “This was fun, let’s record it”.
Mikko: Sometimes we work on a song for like three months trying to get it right. And sometimes it just happens.
Lasse: It was like almost like a joke at first. But then it sounded really cool.
Mikko: We first thought it might be something like a black sheep, because it’s a bit different. But on the album there are a lot of songs that are a bit different.
Lasse: It has all the songs that seem a bit different.

How was the recording time in the studio?
Mikko: Well, we had a lot of work. Lasse recorded the bass, in another room one recorded the guitars, in another room there was the singing, and all at the same time. Me and Lasse recorded a lot of guitar when Jussi was playing.
Lasse: We did like the drum and bass track mostly. We did all the recording together. That was different from before, because we always recorded every instrument separate. So it was new for us now.

Why is the album called “Magic Recovery”? Do you have to recover from anything?
Lasse: No. But I think it sums up how everything is really fucked up, but then you somehow find a solution that you didn’t expect to find. In a way like the song making process we just talked about. When you feel like this song is never gonna work and you want to stop it. And then later that day you find out how it works, then it’s a good song again. That is magic recovery. It applies to every area of life.

Tell us something about the new DVD?
Mikko: I think it was a good time to release the DVD. Because with the new album we turning a new lead. So we wanted to get all the extra material we gathered up and the live footage on a DVD now, so that we don’t have 16 hours of it on a DVD.
Mikko: Of course is it weird to see yourself playing live. It’s so different from the real life situation.
Lasse: I haven’t watched it yet, because it is so weird: “What? I did that?”

And the extra footage? Isn’t that weird as well with the backstage sequences?
Mikko: Yeah, that’s weird, but in a good way. That’s always fun to watch.
Me: What’s your favorite ice cream?
Mikko: Licorice.
Lasse: Ice cream with blue berry.
Mikko: No, it’s licorice.
Lasse: No,… and it’s coffee ice cream…

How do you prepare for a tour?
Mikko: You make a list that contains everything you need. Then you work it off, and when you have everything packed you can go. I am slow at packing. That is at least how I do it. All different hair products listed, all you need for your suitcase.

And mentally? Do you prepare or just go?
Lasse: I think I try not to make a big deal out of it. I rather just like throw the stuff in the bag.
Mikko: Because we don’t tour so much, we don’t want to stress about it.

How was the tour with the Donots so far?
Mikko: Great.
Lasse: Really nice guys. It’s really nice to tour with them because they are the same.
Mikko: They are really professional, so they don’t whine about stupid stuff. It is really easy to tour with them.

Do you play at any festivals this year?
Mikko: Yes.
Lasse: Rock am Ring, Rock im Park, Southside, Minirock Festival… In Finland Ruisrock, Provinssi Rock, Ankkarock, Jyväskylä Rock, Jurassic…
Mikko: Hultsfred in Sweden.
Lasse: And the Warped tour. Sixteen shows there.

Are you excited about the Warped tour?
Lasse: Yeah.
Mikko: The funny thing is we have like eight shows at the Warped tour, then a festival in Switzerland, and then the rest at the warped tour. So we fly to Switzerland for one show. It’s gonna be funny to see how fucked up we are then.

Do you have any expectations about playing in the United States?
Lasse: It’s really hard to say. We have only played a couple shows in the USA, but we don’t really know what to expect about the Warped tour.
Mikko: We probably just gonna sit in the bus and talk to each other. Just like here.

How does the audience differ from place to place? Are there differences?
Lasse: I think it’s only about how familiar the audience is with our music.
Mikko: Because if they sing our vocals it’s still the same song. You can’t really tell whether the audience is Finnish or Swedish or German. But you can always tell when there’s a Finnish guy in the audience in Germany. Because he will always shout something stupid.

Is there anything else you would like to say to our readers and your fans?
Lasse: Buy the album, buy the DVD, buy the merch
Mikko: Or get it for free because we are really nice guys.

Links:
Disco Ensemble MySpace