| Interview with Jarkko Aaltonen Of Korpiklaani |
| Written by Derek Harrison | |||
| Monday, 21 November 2011 10:02 | |||
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Times Square (TS): How long have you been the bassist for Korpiklaani? Jarkko Aaltonen (JA): Oh I don't know, that's a good question. It was 2005, I think, so six years ago. TS: How did you originally get involved with the band? JA: They needed a bass player. I was an old childhood friend of Jonne, the singer. We hadn't seen each other in years but we met again at a wedding. Then he remembered "he plays the bass, or at least he has a bass."
TS: Tales Along This Road was your first album with Korpiklaani and also the first to feature the same man the cover. Who is he? JA: I'll tell you about that dude. We used to have a runic symbol of the shaman on the cover of our album. Then we decided to create a mascot. We gave the picture of the rune to the artist and asked him to make a man out of it. So it's the same symbol, but now it's alive. We call him Baari, which means Grandpa.
TS: Korpiklaani will be promoting Ukon Wacka on this tour. Tell me about that album. JA: I think we are continuing to develop from the previous one. Jonne has this thing where every time he buys a new instrument he has to write a new song on it, so for the first time with have a baritone guitar and a seven-string guitar. The title track is really heavy because the guitar is so low. The main thing about Ukon Wacka though is that it's the first one where every song is in Finnish. Except for Tequila, but that's not in English either. Our previous record label didn't like it if we did too many songs in Finnish, they always wanted English songs. But we didn't realize we were doing it, it was only after that we noticed every song is in Finnish, and the record label said it doesn't matter anymore. It feels like rock and roll to me, which I like. It's driving, thrash and rock and roll. Almost like Motorhead. I like that.
TS: And you recorded a Motorhead cover as well. JA: Yeah we did. I actually forgot about that.
TS: The concert in New York will be only the third stop on a month-long tour, with 24 concerts in 25 days. How do you prepare for such a demanding tour schedule? JA: I don't think there's any special preparations, except that we have to pack more clean socks. For people like us, the off days are the more difficult ones. Shows are normal, are what we are supposed to be doing. Shows keep us from getting too drunk. They give meaning to our existence. On the last tour we had one day off in New Orleans. We spent the whole day in strip clubs.
TS: How has your experience of New York City been on the previous tours? JA: New York has been the best show of both of the last tours. I really like the New York audience. Both times we played at the same place, the Gramercy theatre. It's really nice and well located, right where you can be a tourist.
TS: How do the North American tours differ from tours elsewhere? JA: We are still not huge in Europe, but even by those standards we are really small in North America. We have to work a bit harder. In Europe you can play anywhere whenever you want and you always know you will have an audience, but in the States you can play Monday and have only 16 people there. It's like going back to when we first started touring.
TS: What will this Korpiklaani tour differ from past North American tours? JA: We just, decidedly, changed the setlist a lot, so even to people who have seen us before the show will be new. There's a lot of stuff from the new album too. We were just getting tired of a lot of the material, and we decidedly that if we were tired of playing it, people would be tired of hearing it too. We decided that the people deserve something new.
TS: Tell about the bands who will be joining you on this tour. JA: A couple of American bands, including the oddly-named Polkadot Cadaver, and the Russian band Arkona, who we have played with many times but this will be the first time going on tour with them.
TS: Is this the first tour with your new violin player? JA: Yes. We have played some festivals and some clubs with him, but not even ten shows yet. This will be his first tour ever, so we'll see how he handles that.
TS: According to your website, Korpiklaani has already begun work on the next album. JA: Yeah, we have all the studio time booked already. We wanted to get one song finished before this tour, but when we went in to do that drums for that song we ended up recording the drums for the whole album. So we have one song basically finished plus all the drums.
TS: What can we expect from the next album? JA: I don't know yet, but I think it followed the previous album quite well. I have the demos for all the songs in the order that they will probably be in on a CD in my car, and I think we are doing a good album. There's a lot of upbeat songs as well as the slow, heavy songs. I already like it a lot, and it's just demos. Usually our songs develop a lot in the studio.
TS: Are any of the new songs being played on this tour? JA: No, we haven't been rehearsing the new songs, and the last album was only recently released in North America. This is our first tour of the States since that album and we are still trying to promote it.
TS: Thanks Jarkko, do you have any last words? JA: Just that I'm really looking forward to the show in New York!
Korpiklaani will be playing at the Gramercy Theatre on Friday, November 25.
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