Rage My Bitch – 17-12-2011

Interview with: Rage My Bitch
By: Sabine van Gameren

Rage My Bitch is the last band we spoke with in 2011, the guys have their very first album out so there is quite some to tell.

It’s obvious that the guys have loads to tell, they want people to know about how it all started. It seems quite a long story, but begin with the beginning, the very first song the guys have made. The guys felt they wanted to make something different from what they have done before in other projects and got together for that. “We drank some beer and made one song” they tell. But considering what the guys tell more it was not just as simple as they make it sound with that sentence. How it all went on is also accompanied with some booze: “After some more beer we thought we should try it with some growling, a bit different. We drank some more beer and booked a studio”. In this initial phase the band did not have a vocalist yet, but with three days in a studio ahead they suddenly felt like they need one, so after some calling around they found one in Toni Kukkola. Toni felt he was up for the job and in the rehearsal place they quite fast agreed that he was the guy. “So we go to the studio, drink a lot of absynth and beer and then I started singing” Toni starts to tell. The band had recorded the verses first but when they came to the chorus they got a little stuck. “We tried different variations, but it just did not work. The guys said we needed really good clean vocals”, Toni continues to tell. In just a few weeks they got Andy Peltola on board, who they knew from his vocal duties for the Sentenced-like band Access Beyond. This very first song is called ‘Evolution Of A New Born Sin’ and can be find on the band’s debut release. After this first song things suddenly stopped after the death of the band’s drummer Antti Pousi. The guys tell he killed himself and they had a hard time after that. “It was a tough phase for us all. It happened out of nowhere”, they tell. But what has been started must continue, the guys went on and asked Teppo Ristola to do the drums. Joni Kyynäräinen played guitars in the band Ruïn where Teppo was also playing. Convincing him was not the easiest job as he lives in another city, not really close but eventually he said yes to their request.

The band has to play a concert at the Finnish Metal Expo in Februari 2010. Quite a big thing, considering that the band did not really play much gigs before that. “We had four songs to play live and a cover song, WASP – Fuck Like A beast. It was a really big gig for us, out of the blue” the guys tell. There were only a few months between their first concert and the gig at the FME. How a starting band like them would end up there, you might wonder. It was because the band had a deal with the musicstore Musamaailma. “When they heard our music, they wanted to invest in this band so we got a deal with them” they tell about it. Seem to go quite easy for the guys. This seem to be the case as well for their actual recorddeal with Inverse Records. The band had recorded the album in 2010 and 2011 and when they had it all finished they offered it to the label. The guys explain: “Nowadays it is really hard to get a deal without having any material, so we had this really ready stuff and we had the music and even the covers. We asked if they want to sell it or not and they were up for it.”

‘Fell On Black Season’ came out on 7 December 2011 and while the guys try to explain what the album is about it comes down to the fact that the lyrics are always very important in the band’s music. They talk about the guy that is on the cover, who looks like The Screamer (the painting which got stolen a couple of times). “He has these adventures and when he realizes about himself he just keeps on doing. It’s the whole experience”.
To explain themselves a bit further the band picks the song ‘Red Dead Lovesong’ which is a different kind of love song. Toni tells: “Actually, it is really sensitive and melodic. It’s a good song, girls like it”. But then to illustrate how important the lyrics are in their music he goes on: “It is like when a man falls in love with a woman but it starts to become obsessed with her. He starts to stalk her and he has the courage to ask her out. The girl actually likes him. But then his true nature finally comes out and he locks her in a cellar. The final thing that settles the deal is when I sing ‘I’ll carve a hole to get out of your soul. This obsession outweighs my guilt you know’. It is a love song when a man falls in love with a woman’s body, not her mind.”

From this album we go on to ask what is up for these guys in the future and they seem to have some good ideas about that already. “The next thing we want to do is make an album about seven sins”, they say. But what the guys highlight is that it will not be a too obvious them album, but keep that undercover. They have their explanation about that ready as well. “Theme records are not really good. If you make different songs, you make more hit songs than if you make a record that goes on a certain theme. Then there is not one song that pops out. Well.. Swallow The Sun can do it, but they are really good.”
The band tells once more that their way of working is quite different. They prefer to make different songs that does not really need a theme to connect. Also, because the band members all have their input in the final product, leading to the fact that songs may change in the process quite a lot. “When we hear our songs, with Tonmi Lillman’s programming, it is so different. He turns it upside down. We have the perfect example, a song called ‘My Art Is Divine’ (not on the record but it is on YT). It is a really fast, Thrash Metal thing and then afterwards when Tomni Lillman did the programming it was: *makes noise* It was the same tempo, the same riffs but when he did the programming the synthesizers, it sounded really epic and really depressing”.

Concluding this all, you got quite an idea on how Rage My Bitch work and makes their music. Before we leave them the guys have some last words they want to share: “Please, listen to the record a few times. Read the lyrics, because that is the big deal in our band”.

Links:
Rage My Bitch Facebook