Perttu Kivilaakso
of Apocalyptica 

LONDON, March 7, 2008. It's a grey and chilly London afternoon and ticket scalpers are already prowling the perimeter of the Forum, announcing that Apocalyptica have tonight sold out this iconic British 2000-seater. The backstage door is besieged by journalists and photographers, adding to the atmosphere of excitement and anticipation, confirming that these days the interest in the band is no longer a reaction to a phenomenon, but a genuine appreciation of the act. My interview with Perttu Kivilaakso is in 5 minutes, and I go through my notes one more time before being called in by the tour manager, a sharp, alert man with floppy grey hair and an affable smile.

Inside everything is austere, and the third-floor backstage room looks stark and somber, lit by dim, early spring daylight seeping in through tall art deco windows. Perttu is alone, and finishes a phone call before saying hello and sitting down next to me on a leather sofa with cello bows laid out on a coffee table in front of us. He cuts a svelte, demure figure, speaking in a careful, genial voice with intonations at times bordering on coyness.

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Apocalyptica have been on the road since the release of their 9th album Worlds Collide six months ago, and will continue touring until the end of August, with 51 dates left to play in Turkey, the U.S. and Europe. This massive tour will most certainly propel the band into a different league, but neither the minimalist interior of their backstage lounge, nor Perttu's introverted manner are giving out any hints about impending global stardom.

ALISSA ORDABAI: How does it feel to be back on the road?

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PERTTU KIVILAAKSO: Actually, I would easily say that this is our greatest tour. We began it already like half a year ago, and we played 50 or 55 gigs in Europe, and then this year we went to Mexico and Russia. Now actually it feels funny to be in London again after only a couple of months. Last time we played at Astoria but I think the ticket sales were so good and so many people didn't get in, that we are now doing an extra concert. And of course it's an amazing feeling to play in the capital of European music, which London is, and us being stupid Finnish people with a crappy band [Laughs]. That's how I see ourselves [Laughs]. It feels, of course, amazing to have this kind of possibility to come here and to play to them again, but to a bigger audience. I think we have sold out the Forum today.

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AO: Do you have a favorite country to play in?

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PK: Of course there may be some places which you could say get you more excited than others, but basically I prefer democracy, so I have to say that all places are equally good and every evening is equally important. But of course, for example, if we think audience-wise, I should maybe mention Mexico because somehow it's a weird thing that suddenly there we have our biggest crowds. Just a month ago we played Mexico City to ten thousand people. It's really, really insane in there. I don't understand what's wrong with them because they like us so much [Laughs]. But Mexico is really exotic, of course.
 
AO: I guess it comes in quite unexpected because the culture is so different.

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PK: Yes. We have been many times there, I think it's 6 times now. Hopefully the same thing will happen in... well, Mexico is not really South America, but in Latin America. We have done only one tour in South America a few years ago, so I'm sure there is a potential there, crowds are waiting for us. But now it is getting really interesting to go after three weeks or four weeks on our first really big U.S. tour. We are going there for six weeks and I think 30 concerts or something like this. That is going to be interesting because now the first single from the album, "I’m Not Jesus" has got quite a lot of radioplay in the U.S.A. so it seems exciting that they have for some reason an interest.

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AO: About the new album, do you think that enough time has passed since its release for you to begin looking at it from a detached perspective and look at it objectively, or do you think that you are still very much attached to it?

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PK: I always get rid of it after it's released [Laughs]. At least I'm trying to forget it completely, the albums. Because of course the making of the album is really, really intense and you are living in that world and the only life you see is looking forward to when it's going to be released when there would be nothing that you can anymore change.

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AO: Would you now change anything if you could?

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PK: Of course you can see errors or even mistakes in everything you do, but then you just have to accept that it's there, a picture of that time with the skills that we had at that moment. If we listen back to the previous albums or even the first one, the sound is much worse...

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AO: Really?

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PK: [Laughs] Actually, the first album was a really crappy one [Laughs].

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AO: Does it depend on the budget or is it the musicianship that is not yet fully developed.

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PK: It's not only because of the budget. Of course now we are getting bigger and of course now we have possibilities to work in better studios, and it has its effect, but it's also our knowledge about music and how we can use cellos and also things like microphones that are developing all the time. The more we do this thing the more we learn. Every recording period is something... For example, now we spent over a year making of this last album--basically recorded it two or three times. First we have done the whole album in our rehearsal studio, and then went into Sweden to do it with the producer there. So it was really detailed. We concentrated on every little detail. I don't know whether you can hear it in the result, but it's really carefully done.

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AO: The production is certainly very sophisticated.

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PK: Yeah, we didn't want to leave any questions. But we wanted it to be more open-minded comparing to the early albums, there are many effects, for example guitar effects, and these kind of things. Trying not only different playing techniques, but also trying different plug-ins.

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AO: Do you ever wish you played another instrument?

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PK: Not officially, but I play piano, guitar, and drums, and bass...

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AO: What do you think was your biggest personal contribution to Worlds Collide?

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PK: This was the first time that we really did the songs together with the drums from the beginning.

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AO: Right. I know that before you used to add the drums at a later stage.

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PK: Yeah. Basically, earlier times the drums came in always the latest and they were just added to the songs. But now we have a possibility because Mikko Sirén is a real band member after the first couple of years when he was playing as a session musician with us.

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AO: After 200 shows.

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PK: [Smiles] Yeah, but then it felt like he was giving so much impulse and influence to the group that there is no any reason to keep him beside, so we wanted to take him into the creative part of this group, so everything we did for this record was built up together. One of the most important things for the producer, Jacob Hellner, was to make the riffs and the drums really communicate with each other. This is something that we have missed on the previous albums. We didn't think that drums were instruments [Laughs]. We just though that they are a rhythmical element.

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AO: It feels that before they were serving as a decorative aspect of your music as opposed to being a foundation which you build upon.

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PK: Now we kind of think that drums are an equal instrument of course, and it was really interesting to listen to Jacob Hellner's vision about music when he... for example, he told us, "You are a really, really good band. But if you would listen to each other more, that would make you great." [Laughs]. And we were like, "Hmm, yeah, he thinks that we are good, but not great, he must be right." [Laughs]. So we were practicing the new songs a lot together already during the demo process, and the producer was there with us. This producer became like a band member. We had a wonderful possibility to work with a producer in this way when he was there when the songs were still raw. So it was interesting to listen to the other parts, not only to concentrate on your own.

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AO: It seems that the new album in a way is divided because a lot of tracks sound in the style of mainstream rock radio, and other tracks sustain the symphonic sophistication that you used to lean on so heavily before. How do you balance these different energies and which of the styles do you personally prefer?

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PK: The combination of the album was an accident, I would say, because we didn't think about making a certain kind of album. And actually in the end we were really surprised at how dark it appeared to be. At least at some point I had a fear that we were now going to be too pop-y. And we had even lighter songs which we, in the end, skipped from the album. But then we had our first press release when we went to Berlin, when the album was already mastered, after two months of not listening to it. It was the first time we have listened to it, there in front of the press, and [we] realized that wow, this is really quite serious and dark and it felt like it was our darkest album in a certain sense. Even though there were tracks like "I'm Not Jesus" which is really a rock song. I think that heavy metal there appears in other ways than the music style. It's the feeling and emotion behind it. We were talking a lot about what music styles are and what heavy metal is, what it means, and basically we ended up with a solution that it's in a state of mind and emotion. For example, some classical composers are really, really heavy metal.

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AO: Like Shostakovich or Stravinsky.

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PK: Yeah, and Schnittke or those kind of contemporary composers. They are really heavy and heavy metal in their atmosphere, more so than many of the bands that think of themselves as heavy metal. So basically for us, heavy metal and heavy music are more about attitude. Even if we were to do an acoustic song, without distortion or whatever, it could still be heavy metal because of the mood. For us, music is really about emotions and moods, and therefore I think that our albums can take up different kinds of songs quite well, because the thing that connects them together is the atmosphere. I think that Worlds Collide is a very nice title for an album because the only thing that we don't mean is that the classical world is now colliding with heavy metal.

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AO: This is what I thought when I heard it.

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PK: It can mean anything except that, because we don't feel that there is any classical world in us.

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AO: Really? You've left that behind?

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PK: Yeah, of course it's a part of us, but it's not like a mission. We just happen to play cellos because those are the only instruments we can play and it's fun and a unique thing in this sense, but that's the only classical thing in this music. Of course, you can hear classical influences in many parts, but influences of other genres as well. Basically, it doesn't mean anything other than bringing up the question of what is colliding in the world. And then of course you have different kinds of songs and you can kind of compare them. But I think that the richness of the album is in the fact that we had a possibility to work with really great guests again and every time there comes a new vocal track, it brings life to the album. So think we really managed to do a nice dramatic line. In this sense we might have been thinking in a classical way and paint really big pictures. It's not like an album with only ten or eleven separate tracks. Even though they are really different songs we wanted to have some drama. And the important thing is when you push the play button you don't want to push the stop button immediately after [Laughs]. And hopefully listen to the whole album until the very end.

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AO: I think you are the perfect person to ask why a lot of people, even the musically aware and sophisticated people, still have prejudices against other genres. Do you think it's about the superficial elements like timbre of different instruments, or is it more deep-seated - is it about the lifestyle that people are assuming comes with certain genres?

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PK: I don't know, it's really funny, at least for me, it's weird why many people are so narrow-minded. And it's not only about their taste in music, but in everything, like in liking wine from a certain country. Many people like only those wines and they think that in France there can't be any good wine because Chilean wine is better. Of course, the best example would be fans of an ice hockey team. The way they hate other teams.

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AO: A tribal thing?

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PK: Yeah, it's something to do with that. For example, heavy metal fans many times think that it’s not true anymore when it's commercial. But I think that the best thing in life is when you have an open mind and you can keep your eyes open for many different colors. I would get bored with everything without changing. And actually I am more happy to bring heavy metal to the listeners of classical music than classical music to heavy metal fans, maybe. Because many times in the classical world they don't even want to find out.

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AO: But they are astute people in terms that it takes sophistication and it takes understanding to listen to a lot of classical music.

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PK: Absolutely, yes.

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AO: And you would expect these people to be able to be open to all sorts of manifestations of music.

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PK: A funny thing happened with my father, who was a classical cellist. I remember well when we had fights. I was a teenager and I wanted to listen to Skid Row and Iron Maiden, and he couldn't stand that music [Laughs]. He was tearing my posters from the walls and saying, "You never practice your cello." Actually, that was true, but that was my rebellion, putting AC/DC louder and louder, and he couldn't stand it. But nowadays when he has seen my development as a musician from a classical person to something else, and when he sees that, he goes, “Yeah, these guys do their thing with quite a professional approach,” and he actually began to like Apocalyptica. Nowadays he is even listening to Rammstein and everything.

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AO: [Laughs] Rocking out!

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PK: [Laughs] Yeah, so I think it's really cool.

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AO: Well, we are going overtime, can I ask you one last quick question?

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PK: Yeah.

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AO: How much is your cello worth?

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PK: Mine? It depends which one - the crappy one that I have here or the one that I have at home.

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AO: Both?

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PK: I have a number of instruments. We have very cheap ones when we are touring because they get easily broken at airports, especially Amsterdam, which is a bad place for cellos.

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AO: We'll print it.

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PK: [Laughs] I can't remember how many cellos they have fucked up in there. Once I got my cello back shaped like an L [Laughs]. What has happened here? Is it possible to get it so fucked up? But yeah, they are from 1,000 to 500 pounds, [approx. 2,000 to 1,000 US dollars], 3,000 pounds [approx. 6,000 US dollars] are the ones we are using now here. But I don't have any million-dollar cellos, not with these salaries yet.

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First published in Crusher magazine in March 2008.