 HISTORY - OLD INTERVIEWSHybrid Children Slam Magazine Aug 2004 (Long Version)by Fabio Magliano Please, introduce Hybrid Children to the italian crowd.We're been around for ages here in Finland, our 1st cd Bleed Baby Bleed came out in 1993. And after that we've been blasting out pretty much on the same lines musically, cause this is what we want to do. We're not in the business for money, and that has kept us going through all this time. I'm a punkrocker by heart and that never washes away. If you like raw rock'n'roll based on vocal melodies with singalong choruses and punkrock energy combined with a touch of heavy metal, then we're your band!! What has Hybrid Children been up to? If you mean lately, we've been struggling with recordcompany hassles, and fucked up things like that... and our new album of course!! Well, the songs have been ready for a while already, but at the moment we're doing vocals, and start mixing the stuff in June. Record will be out September-october. How much has the band grown, musically and personally, since your heyday in the early '90's? Guys have come and gone, and I'm the primus motor of this neverending cruise with this rocking boat full of dropouts-drunks-rockers-outcasts and all-around wackos!! Musically we've gone more into simple output, if you know what I mean.. In the early days we arranged the songs full of weird bumps and hooks and stops (which was fun at the time of course) but somehow it seems a bit humorous these days, heh, so we concentrate on vocal melodies in a traditional way and straight ahead with style (??) and leave that 1000miles an hour -tempos and hick-ups and "useless" tricks to younger and more skillful punksters. How much has the music scene changed since you first came on? Quite a lot. Cause this punk-comeback thing was just about to raise it's head in the early 90's and people were still on the aftermath of speedmetal/thrashmetal era, or on grunge-hype. And we were longhaired guys doing "beautiful"vocalharmonies backed with metallic punk guitar sounds and fast drumming and hooks. We didn't fit in any cathegories, and that was a problem for the record company, magazines and radiostations... and still to this day we seem to be outside every trend, which is a bad thing if you want to sell a lot of records, heh, but you can be proud of yourself being "timeless" in a way, you know.. I've always thought we do timeless loud rock-music that never really goes out of style.. That must be the reason we keep on doing these records on our own way. That keeps your music honest, I think. I think we're established ourselves as one of the most honest bands around. We're easygoing streetwise guys,and we are honest, yeah, that's the reason why people have liked us for so long! Talk about the difference in expectations you may have had for the band in the 1990's and expectations you have today? There are none. If we'd expected to earn a living with this, and heading for becoming stars, we'd quit looooong time ago. But of course you must head on doing better and better records, otherwise there's no sense doing anything. My ambition is to write songs that people like, not in an ass-licking way, but to bring pleasure to people. I hate those "artists" that say that they do it only for themselves.Fuck them! If I'd do this for myself, I'd be playing my acoustic guitar at home in my bedroom and wanking with my other hand or giving head to myself while reading "my own poetry". Fuck that kind of wanna-be-bohemians. I like people to like our songs and shows, that's the reason I'm in a band. ..and because it's fun!! What's happened after "Stardom Is Here"? Our guitarist suddenly went to Peru, found a wife there, and so we got a new shotgun-youngster guitarhero Lauri to kick our old asses to make a good record! I worked on the national cable-TV show as "a star guest", Our drummer founded a backline rental company, and our bassist have had this speedmetal band Divine Decay ..and getting drunk. We also had some major recordcompany problems, that has taken a lot of time, which is really straining and fucked up. Could you tell me about the new H.C's material? You can download a new single from a forthcoming album for FREE from www.hybridchildren.com It's called Downtown Downer and it pretty much sums up what we feel at the moment, heh.. It's an ultimate singalong-racket in a traditional HC way. Album contains also 3-4 more midtempo songs, which are more radiofriendly...and I HOPE that no-one gets frightened cause of that word, heh..radiofriendly sounds horrible and wimpy, ouch, a curse-word for rockers. Album's gonna be less noisy than stardom is here, maybe because of the melody-lines. Lyrics are maybe even more melancoly and dark as they've been, heh. You know, I've suffered from a very serious depression after stardom -cd, so that reflects straightly to the lyrics. I write about my life, and what happens to my friends and people around us here in dark and cold hellhole called Helsinki, Finland..so there's the backbone of those hopeless stories, heh. But we're still trying to maintain the positive vibe to it: kind of "never surrender although everything's bound to be FUCKED UP whatever you do" -mentality is still there!! It HAS to be, otherwise we'd get suicidal. How has your approach to writing, recording and touring changed over the years? You tend to get more lazy in touring in Finland I tell you!! It's a bit boring to play in same places all over again. Lazy bastards we are! Writing and recording hasn't changed that much, that just happens. Is there a time, in your career, you would like to remember with pleasure? This is easy one: a trip to Tokyo to support my long-time heroes The Wildhearts at Akasaka Blitz for sold out show on 1997. That was great, and I'd do that again anytime. A support tour for Die Toten Hosen in Germany for sold out venues was absolutely awesome too!! And a negative time you would like to cancel? All the cancelled things that were supposed to happen but eventually didn't for business-reasons: a support slot for Social Distortion, U.K. Subs, Bad Religion for example. And cancelled record deals for different countries. Stuff like that piss me off. Could you say me just 3 Hybrid Children's song you think are important for the career and for the image of the band? This is a hard one, but... Our first 7" ep's (Reveal Your Charms -ep) a-side All covered with red was one, cause it was the first song that I wrote in this "hybrid children" -style. That showed me the direction what kind of songs I like to write more, and after everyone said that "this is great, this works, and nobody does this kind of stuff "(at that time no-one else did!), everything was clear. That verified for me the "hybridchildren -formula", if you know what i mean. Cash is our god (from Drugster -album) showed a mellower side of us, and had string arrangements and stuff. That was a bit of a radio hit here, and we did a "beautiful" video of that one too. But we didn't want to do that kind of stuff more than that, what record company would've liked us to do. It was for us mainly, to try if we CAN do that kind of song, and we could, so we returned back to what we are...doing straight-forward rock songs. Third one....I can't say really, all the rest of the songs are basically the same, heh... What does it REALLY mean "rock" for you? An attitude. More than anything else, it's an attitude. Same as "Punk", it's a state of mind, a way of life. But too many people are missing that point. But that's the way everything goes. You even get it or not. Simple as that. Do you like to play live? And what would you like to communicate to your fans when you play? I love to play live. But I'm sure that if we'd do 150shows a year, I'd not be that delighted, It would feel "a work" then...I think. And I hate work, doesn't everyone, heh? What goes through your mind when you are playing live onstage? "When do I have time to take a breath, for christ's sakes???" If you could take any 5 musicians, alive or dead, and create a rock super group, who would you choose and why? Goddamnit Fabio, you bastard...these questions are really hard ones!!! well, let's see... Johnny Rotten, Steve Jones, Paul Cook, Glen Matlock.... wait a minute...it's the sex pistols!. and they already exist, heh... so that won't do? Steve Jones would definitely be in. Iggy Pop. Cliff Burton. Glenn Danzig. and a finnish drummer called Twist-Twist Erkinharju from a band called Peer Gynt. I think that line up wouldn't work as a unit, but it's full of great blokes! And having Iggy and Danzig sing in a same band wouldn't be possible, heh. I respect all those guys a lot. At least what they've done in the past. By the way; I'll have to boast with this: I saw Danzig last september on his own backyard in Hollywood!! That was the highlight of that trip, heh. Can you imagine; Danzig lurking in his backyard going to a piece of junk -woodshed in the back of his badly gardened yard..brilliant! He even waved his hand to say hello, nice! Hilarious for me: an old man Jasse, a diehard Misfits fan! Do you think the time is right for a new hard rock explosion? Time's always right for that! What was the most shocking thing that you witnessed while performing? Some stagedivers who land headfirst to the floor when people don't catch them. Or some close-to- moments when a bottle or a glass has flown towards the stage and nearly hit someone at the frontrow audience. ...yeah, our audience really likes us, that has only happened twice, thank god. Also one memorable moment was at a sold out gig in Helsinki: one really big guy dragged himself to the stage without a shirt and kept lying on the stage (he's a longtime fan of ours!) and 3 securityguys tried to lift him but couldn't (!!) and at the same time 2 guys run from backstage TOTALLY naked and dived to the audience, and two girls were in the audience topless on the shoulders of their friends and we were playing our old song "We were all born naked" !! That was what rock gigs should always be: funny, sweaty, loud and hilarious at the same time. Could you say me your opinion about: Hanoi Rocks I've loved them since I was a kid. I bought their first album immediately when it came out. I still like them, also their new stuff is really good. And I've had really nice moments meeting Andy and Mike in different occasions during many years. Very loveable characters!! The Rasmus They rehearse in the next door of our rehearsing room nowadays. Nice blokes, but I'm not too keen on their music, although they do have couple of good songs. A bit too neat "rock" for me.. AOR -stuff made by young guys. Too clean in some way... But as I said, very friendly and down-to-earth guys. The 69 Eyes My old friends. I lived in the same apartment with Bazie back in early 90's. And we've toured with them in the early days quite a lot. Before they find Jussi to play drums when their original drummer left, they asked me to be the drummer, but my style was too heavy! They played a bit more rock-stylish stuff then. I could write a book of these guys, so many good stories;) HIM When they started, I knew that they are gonna be stars! Me and our bassist Pale took their demo to our recordcompany back in 96 when we were doing cover-art for our own album. The recordcompany wasn't interested no matter how we said that these guys are brilliant...heh, they fucked up BIG time. I still got one gig poster where headliners are us and Babylon Whores, and support act is His Infernal Majesty, what they were called at first. Helsinki is a small city, so everyone at rock-business knows each other, and people are overall very friendly and nice, and HIM-guys are no exception. And they like to drink..at least Ville and Gas. The Darkness (I know, are not from Finland, but i MUST know your opinion about it!) It's a bit Spinal Tap, which is mostly because of the voice of the singer...and of the image of course. I've only heard their videosongs. But when they come to Finland, I'm definitely going to see them. Quite interesting that that kind of stuff sells so much!! And that was a positive comment! What's the strangest thing that you ever received from a fan? Nothing that strange, luckily. Some teddybear underpants, and ugly photos.. quite lame, heh. Our fans have sent me really cool stuff mostly: Wildhearts' 4CD -set, Motörhead-shirts, Misfits' CD's, Videos... that's nice! OK, that's all! Hopefully I have more time in coming month to mail you, and to take care of our business-side when we finish the record. Cover-art, photos, PR-stuff, mastering, mixing, deals and all that take some time. Now I'd better get some sleep, haven't had good rest for some time, but what the hell!! Yours, Jasse |
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