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HISTORY - OLD INTERVIEWS

Courtesy of Mindwarp-Zine 1/98 - mindwarp98@hotmail.com
Interview With Jasse by Katz Volume

I guess I interrupted your video meeting a bit. Did you choose the song of which the next video will be made?
We talked about Gangrene Lane or Cash Is Our God. The latter one is a Manic Street Preachers kinda track. I don't know....maybe after few weeks we'll choose other song. Nevertheless it must a action song you know?!

The history of Hybrid Children in a nutshell.
We were old friends, me & Kelly. Got drunk together and shit - one day we thought we have to start some kinda band. We got the name, Hybrid Children, from some rehearsal joint's wall. For couple of years we banged songs like Metallica's Seek And Destroy and some Misfits stuff, just Kelly and me. Then my old friend TV came along with his guitar. Now we had two guitarists and a drummer. It was time to put something on vinyl. We booked a studio and recorded four tracks. Beside the guitar I also played bass... I played the tape to my cousin Jarno and asked if he would like to join us as a bassist. He was in the band during all those three EP's (Reveal Yow Charms, Another Dose Up Your Nose, Brutal Babies) we recorded in a year and on the first album (Bleed Baby Bleed) we made. After the first record Jarno just walked out... actually he left because he drank too much and rest of us were really furious 'cause he was just a mess while intoxicated. He picked a quarrel with people and shit. He really gave us a bad name. Yeah, he realized he wasn't able to do shit during his boozing sessions. When he was forced to be sober while on tour, he wasn't interested at all being in the band. Pale came to bass and ever since the four of have been together."

Are you actually claiming that the name Hybrid Children is off some wall and you didn't just want to take a name that could he abbreviated as HC?
It was just a coincident. We haven't ever been too keen on hardcore music. Of course we dug these old HC-bands from England like G.B.H. & Discharge.

But still at the moment you're using HC as your 'logo'. What doe HC really represent to you ?
On the other hand it's a shitty thing that your band is named Hybrid Children and the abbreviation of that is HC 'cause we ain't no HC-band, It doesn't have any symbolic meaning...don't know what to say, this is really a tuff question!

As strange as it might sound there are still people out there who don't know a bloody thing about Hybrid Children. It's time for you to civilize them.
Since the day one people have thought us as a punk band...who the fuck even knows what punk is these days? Our music's like distorted, guitar-oriented, melodic, high volume rock, based on melodies.

Your new single (No Apologies/Gangrene Lane) sounds brilliant! Can you explain how it's possible, that a old sleazebag like me who is totally is struck into Berry/Thunders kinda r'n r can dig your music?
Well I guess in the end our music touches those primitive feelings; it's raw, heavy and loud rock' n' roll. But still you can't forget the melodic point of it. Still our songs are "beautiful" if you know what I mean. In a classic way, like Berry's Johnny B. Goode and old Beatles tunes. We have just used more raw energy for the music. Certain values have never disappeared. We have old fashioned brilliant tunes.

You were on tour in Germany (fall 1997) with Die Toten Hosen. What was it like to play with these German punk millionaires?
It was just fuckin' awesome! Totally the highlight of our career so far. Every place was sold out 'cause Hosens are truly megastars in Germany. There were over 5000 people in one place we played...The Hlosen guys were reallv fair to us; we were able to do good soundchecks, we could have all these Star Wars figures on stage and shit - yeah and there was always some guy from the Hosen to welcome us to stage. It as brilliant!!! Hey we even got paid for playing. As you know, the support bands usually have to pay to play. These fellows paid us not only salary, but also our expenses. We were at the same hotels with them and those places were high class "joints". You just couldn't wait for the gig - big stages and packed venues, great lights, great sounds and of course all the catering services available (I guess in this case that means booze and maybe, just maybe even some food. Katz) Fuck, I could have continued that tour forever.

So did the German audience like you?
You bet they did. At first I wanna tell you about our shiny luck. The firm that sold Hosen's gigs was owned by this couple; Kiki & Kirsten. Kirsten loved our stuff, so she took us under their wings. So now the sold Die Toten Hosen and Hybrid Children. Then what happened was a rupture between this couple and Kirsten moved to another firm. And because we were "Kirsten's" band, our chances were flushed down the toilet. Right back to the question... We were told that it's really tough to be a support band for the Hosen. Every time the song stops people start to shout 'Hosen, Hosen, Hosen...' Kirsten told afterwards that she had never seen a support band of Hosen that the audience has liked as much as they liked us. We didn't hear a single 'Hosen" word shouted in between the songs. Of course it also felt good when Kirsten told that before us Hosen was supported by Ash and Social Distortion and we were the most popular act.

People from Italy write to me a lot and ask if I could send them all kinda Hybrid stuff . Have you ever considered playing there?
Yeah, that is one place where we should definitely go. Thru Poko Rekords our albums are available there as imports, but a real distribution is a must. England would be a place for us 'cause there are strong traditions.

There was a tour called 'Hell On Wheels' (Hybrid Children, 69 Eyes, Tehosekoitin & Apulanta). You played around Finland....
...and it was just gasss ! It was like a handshake between the new Finnish sung r'n'r generation bands and the old, English sung rock'n'rollers like us and the 69 Eyes. (Tehosekoitin & Apulanta are like Gods to the Finnish teens Katz). After that tour we got a lot of mail where kids told us that before Hell On Wheels they hadn't even heard us and shit. And we have been playing forever. Of course there are kids who are like 14 and the only two albums they own are Kolme by Apulanta and Köyhät Syntiset by Tehosekoitin. Hybrid Children is a totally new band to them. So for us that tour was reall great. We had a chance to play outside of Helsinki for the teens who don't necessarily come to see us, or the 69 Eyes, under other circumstances. The whole "packet' was brilliant. I would go on a tour like that anytime.

Some time ago you were in Japan on a promo-tour....
"It came in the right time. That tour was a good example how Toys Factory (Hybrid Children's record label in Japan) had put time and money for it. As you can imagine, it was fuckin' expensive trip. I think I should mention that before the tour our records didn't sell a shit. After the tour we have sold pretty well. It was a good move from them to make an investment in that trip. Now the Japanese have seen us in action, we are more closer to the audience now than before - we aren't just some band from some fuckin' Finland. Every buck Toys Factory spent on us has been "paid back". We were on Burrn's rock charts for at least three months and we keep on getting letters where people are demanding us to go back there...

C'mon, you know that ain't what I wanna bear. Gimme some dirt - I heard that there were quite a few chicks slobbering all around you.
Harg, harg, harg... it's a totally different "system" over there. In Japan it's much more punctual than here; people don't spend that kinda "rock'n roll life" like we do. Here half of the people are jobless and boozing is their number one hobby. In Japan people are working really hard, but despite of that, or because of that, they are so fuckin' fanatic when it comes to r'nr. It's like when they order something they send enormous amount of money and gifts. I just read from Suomi Finland Perkele (Finnish metal mag. Katz) that Paradise Lost's singer got a CD-player... Another thing I noticed was, that the fans can spend hours in front of your hotel just waiting to get an autograph. Sure, there were groupies hanging around, but I can't tell about those things in public 'cause half of us are already reserved. It's a fuckin' bad thing if you're in the band and going steady with someone. I have always been against that kinda behavior - so me and Kelly are this other half. It was a bit too strange - those groupies had toured with Metallica and everything. I mean screwing them after uh, like Hetfield or Tolkki (Stratovarius), ha ha ha, would have been quite strange. It was more like drinking than huge orgies - although there are few ladies who still write to us...

How was it between you and Wildhearts?
Well, Ginger didn't like Pale at all. He (Pale) staggered there in a typical "Helsinki friday nite condition"...stepped into this bar and gave his jacket to Ginger and muttered something like "Hold this while I'll take a leak". Ginger wasn't too impressed. Otherwise we partied with the Wildhearts' guys a lot. One night I was wearing this Hellacopters T-shirt and Ginger asked me where I got it from. He wanted the bloody shirt. I didn't feel like giving it to him 'cause it was a cool lookin' shirt. Then he wanted to trade it for something. Eventually I traded it for this great picture some fan had made for Ginger. It was made out of cardboard -- it's kinda hard to explain what it's like. There's Ginger and a Wildhearts logo, it's framed and it looks so damn great. So I asked several times from him "Are you sure you wanna give that to me 'cause a fan made it for you..". He was yeah, yeah. I ripped the shirt off and told him to wash it before wearing it - it was quite sweaty. The man was like "Yeaah, I dig Hellacopters..." Yeps, Ginger didn't like Pale. He said to me "Three of you guys are OK, but sack this guy" and he was pointing at Pale. And Pale was swinging there totally smashed. It has to be said, that with other Wildhearts Pale came along really well. I have heard that Ginger is well known to be a quite hot tempered guy. Whatever, he was a reliable man. The other support band, Strawberry Slaughterhouse, was treated a bit differently by Ginger. For example when they wen't to eat to the same restaurant where the Wildhearts ate, Ginger asked their roadmanager to make sure that Strawberries would go to another place. There was nothing like that with us. When it was time to go to party after the gigs, they always asked us to join them."

By the time this 'zine comes out, your new album, Drugster, will he out. What's happening after releasing it?
We'll start touring Finland in March and we have a serious intention to go back to Japan as well. Our previous album sold really well over there, so I hope this new one will do even better. About summer festivals I don't know nothing yet. If those fuckers don't want us, fuck 'em!

I heard that you had some kinda problems with the title of your new album.
Actually, we didn't. The staff at Poko Records assumed it would cause some hassles in Japan but the word came from there that it was OK to name it Drugster.

Are the lyrics of No Apologies personal for you?
You bet they are! Maybe not word for word, but yeah they describe my everyday life these days pretty well.

What would be the ideal band for you to tour with?
Huh, I guess it would have to be bands like Wildhearts or 3 Colours Red that play the same kindastuff we do. I would also like to tour with Social Distortion, despite the fact that we play different kinda rock compared to them. What the fuck, if the band plays honest r'n'r like us, we're ready to support anyone. Or maybe not just support some band, double headliner tour would also be a cool thing to do.

I know you're a big fan of Sex Pistols and Misfits. What do you think about their famous or should I say infamous re-unions?
Well, in a way I guess you can call it re-union when talkin' about Misfits. The point is that they were great. I could never believed they could be so great. I even had this horrible vision, that there will be guys on stage wearing just jeans and leather jackets or something. But no way. Even their latest album is great. It could be compared to Misfits' first albums without a shame. As a matter of fact when I even wrote Godchild Of The Gutter, I was inspired by the Misfits. In my opinion the Pistols re-union was a disappointment, but it has nothin' to do with the re-union itself. I went to Roskilde with a good friend of mine, Stone, to see the Manic Street Preachers and the Pistols in '96. I'm such a fanatic Pistols fan, that I didn't give a fuck if it was a re-union gig or not - I just had to see 'em. When we arrived to Roskilde it was a big disappointment to realize that Manics had cancelled the whole thing. When Pistols played, man they sounded so good. We were in the front row pogoing and shit. I have to confess that I was quite drunk and stoned, but they sounded fuckin' awesome (Stoned with Stone! Sounds totally stoned!!! Katz). They played approx. five tracks and then someone threw bottles to the stage and the band stopped playing immediately. That totally pissed me off. And they sounded so great...

People have asked me about Mystery City Five (Hanoi Rocks tribute band Jasse on vocals). Would there be any more of these gigs?
Yeah, why not. We talked about doing some festival gigs last summer, but for some reason that never happened. None of us has said "no" to this project. It seems, that these Hanoi guys can't get anything done, so why not. Give us enough money and we're ready to rock ha, ha, ha. To be serious, we're all big Hanoi Rocks freaks so everything is possible.

OUTRO:
Buy our records and make us millionares, so we could travel around the world, buy convertibles for each of us so we could also get chicks! Buy our records, so you can read about us from magazines and papers - not only from Financial Times' bankrupcy section
XXX