The Making Of "Grandpop"
By Lasse

11.02.02

This is the first time we enter studio in recording purposes since 11.07.2000! Very exciting for all of us. We’re back in the wonderful Petrax studio in Hollola, FIN. We came in loaded with guitars (14), amps (5) and other instruments – and a table hockey. You can give me Play Station 5, or 500, but nothing can beat the good old Stiga table hockey. That’s man to man, sweat and physical contact kinda of shit. The way it used to be back when men were iron and ships were wooden.

Anyway, we’re here to record two new songs: “Glass Boy” and “Broken Record”. We’re slowly beginning the work on our fourth album with Jussi Jaakonaho as the producer, again. He’s Da Man.

We do this as we usually do: set our gear up around the studio, sit in the drum room and play the basic tracks live. We’re quite well rehearsed, these songs are also very simple rock songs so it doesn’t take us too many takes to get everything down. It’s harder work to get us upstairs from playing the hockey…

Ripa’s not in today, he’s in Stockholm mastering the Accu album. He’s a member of the band now days. They missed their ferry back, so they need to go to Turku instead of coming to Helsinki straight. But he’ll be in tomorrow.

Petri, the owner of the studio, just bought Hammond B-3 organs and everyone are so excited about this new baby in the house. It’s THE KING of the keyboards!

After we’re done with the basic tracks, we record demo basic tracks for Antti’s song “Is it you?” and another new tune called “Ballerina”. I can work and play with them home later. The rest of the evening is pretty basic set; hockey, beer, sauna, red wine and Colin McRae 2 til early in the morning. Some things never change.

12.02.02

Day two. It feels great to wake up in the country, it’s so quiet and beautiful. We of course will do our best to destroy any peace and silence there is – at least in this house. If one of us had forgotten how good food we are being served here, it surely is all coming back by now; the breakfast is massive and will keep us going until….eeerrrmmm…the next snack! We eat so much here. Were like babies sucking on that titty every 15 minutes.

It’s overdubbing day. That means a lot of guitars, keyboards etc. We thought that Ripa could play something but as he calls us from Helsinki, really fucked up, we decide to give him the day off. He comes in around five p.m. so fucking drunk that it’s hilarious. The Ripa Show has begun!

At the end of the day I sing “Broken Record”. That’s all I can do for the day. Too much yelling. It doesn’t matter, we’ve had a good day and can go to sauna in good spirits – literally. We’re down to our second case of beer and the wine seems to taste fine as well. Risto is still going strong which I find is amazing. A true pro. This is like a vacation with the boys.

13.02.02

Finally Ripa gets to play. Most of the day is just him playing, Kelly and Antti singing some backing vocals and playing keyboards. I’m finishing the lyrics for Glass Boy upstairs. It’s always the same, I don’t seem to finish them unless there is a deadline. Of course we play occasional hockey matches downstairs. Kelly is so good at it but Antti is picking up as well. We’re gonna have a good team by the summer.

In the evening I sing Glass Boy. It’s sounding like old Elvis Costello which I think is very interesting. Never thought of it that way before. Our late night show is pretty much the same as it has been for the last two days, so I’m not gonna dig in to it here again.

14.02.02

We do some quick overdubs and begin to mix Glass Boy. It’s a piece of cake and sounds great from the beginning. It’s easy when you arrange and record the instruments properly. A true lesson for all of you young musicians! In the middle of the day Petri comes in and plays some B-3 for Broken Record, his a great keyboard player and we thought it has to be he who plays the first sounds from this new baby on record.

In the evening were all so tired from partying every day, that no one feels like getting into the drinking thing. Sauna, hockey and Colin are still on the playlist, of course. Like I said, some things never change.

15.02.02

Final day of these sessions. We mix Broken Record, Jussi is finished with it by six o’clock and everybody’s happy. Ripa & Jussi go to Helsinki cause they need to work tomorrow. The rest of us stay in Hollola with Hara, our mate who can drive, and Petri. We’re running out of drinks, but Petri brings in the beer and “Jallu”. You can guess the rest. Because I’m such a huge fan of Iron Maiden’s “Live After Death” and especially the list of shit they went through on that tour on the LP booklet, I’ll do the same here: The list of drinks consumed during the week: 4 cases of beer (96 bottles), 9 bottles of red wine, 2 bottles of Jallu, 1 ½ bottles of Kossu and one bottle of liqueur (can’t remember the name).

Recording of ”Yearbook 2001” (25 – 26.3.2002)

During the next two days we are supposed to record a song called “Yearbook 2001”. This is a slow, very moody song that we decided to record to go along with the two more upbeat songs we’ve already recorded. We’ve decided to record this one at Hitsville studio. They have all these great weird instruments that we want to use on this tune to beef it up.

OK, let’s enter the studio:

The first day begins as usual by taking our gear into the studio, setting up and drinking too much coffee during the first hour. Too much means, that it’s going to taste bad for the rest of the day but you still drink it. It’s a habit hard to break. The song we’re about to work on is a moody song that I’ve written on my acoustic guitar. I’ve even performed it once at Semifinal club in Samettiklubi sometime last December. As I’m writing this I’ve played four of the next album’s songs in that club. Great club!!! Anyway, we’ve rehearsed it to be a bit stronger, louder, but still a slow song with acoustic guitar on top.

We approach the recording as we always do, which is the three of us (Kelly, Antti &I) playing the basic tracks live in the studio. We need to rehearse it for a while. We record one take of it, listen to the take and realise that the arrangement is absolutely awful. It’s too loud, nuances are absolutely non-existent and it sounds like some sort of a third rate modern rock band imitation. Very bad, truly. For some reason it sounded really good at the rehearsals. Jussi (the producer) suggests we play it easier. That’s what we do for a few rounds and there is some light at the end of the tunnel. After several takes we realise that the less we play, the better it sounds. The old wisdom has spoken again! We dampen the drums so they sound a little like Pink Floyd’s old recordings, and things are beginning to roll. After few takes we nail it and it’s absolutely beautiful.

The rest of the days go as always; overdubbing guitars, keyboards, singing etc. Nothing that you’d want to read about. It’s like the case where everyone wants to come over to the studio to see how everything is done. Once they get there, after 15 minutes people get restless and want to leave. It’s SO boring to watch, believe me. This is why I save you the trouble reading about it, even though I believe it isn’t as boring as watching it in the studio. This a strange equation.

We decide to mix the song sometime much later. We’re all pleased with the results, it takes us back a little towards the Maison Rilax sounds but at the same time takes us to places we’ve never been, and it’s a good place. Peace.

4 - 8.11.2002

MONDAY

After a rather long break, we’re back in Hollola to record the basic tracks for five of the “rock songs”. Plus we’ll do a piece of music that is to become the intro for the album. During the break we’ve all been busy doing things us people do. Ripa’s been producing many bands, but he also managed to record and release an album with the excellent Accu. Antti and Kelly have been very busy as musicians, they’ve played couple of hundred gigs with Anssi Kela as his rhythm section. As for me, I finally graduated from 8 ½ years of school, and spent most of the summer wondering how the hell did that happen. Writing songs for this album became some sort of an obsession for me. I’ve spent ridiculous amounts of time with these songs before I had the confidence to play them to anybody, and during that time I didn’t write anything else. The more you write, the more critical you get. Of course this doesn’t apply to Elton John, as we all know.

We also went around with our first batch of songs to see what people at different record companies think of them. Most of them really liked them, especially in Sweden, but in the end we decided to stick with our home country and the old label Spinefarm, as they are the wonderful people that they are. We like nice people. Besides, they gave us SO much money, we couldn’t refuse… And most importantly, we got to do this record just the way we wanted. No A&R men telling us what to do only because they want to get involved. Everyone wants their share of the pie even if they don’t know what it is that they are about to eat. Well, this pie only had five of us eating it, and it was GOOD!

Oh yes, this was a diary of some sort. Back to business.

We have plenty of time. We only need to do the drums, bass and guitars for 5 ½ songs during this week. We’ll record the vocals and keyboards later in Helsinki at Hitsville studio. Actually, I’ve already been in the studio for 4 days producing Egotrippi as our boys arrive Sunday evening with our gear. You can only imagine what happens when two bands that are mates have a boys’ night out in the studio like that. The Egotrippi guys are going the leave Monday morning, you see. It’s the regular sauna, ping pong, table hockey routine that we exercise every day, but this time it’s to the max. We have a video tape that’s filled with my butt cheeks, irrational art scenes and hopeless giggling among other chaotic takes. Sometimes it’s hard to believe that we’re actually adults. That’s probably why we’re in the rock’n’roll business.

Oh yes, the recording.

We have the same set up as previously; Kelly, Antti & I play live, and Ripa is still in Helsinki. He’s gonna come in on Wednesday. He can’t stand more than 2 hours of doing nothing. He’s a workaholic. We’re quite well rehearsed which seems to be the tendency nowadays. Maybe, just maybe, we’ve become professional?! Ouch, THAT’S a scary thought. Hope not. We begin the session with “Poor Happy Man” which is considered to be an easy one to nail. And it is. We don’t need too many takes to hammer this nail in to the wood. I don’t know how to describe this song, other than saying that it’s really swinging. Can’t wait to see all the girls dancing to the beat of this song…grrr…Kelly and Antti are playing so good!

Next we’re to record a very classic pop song in the style of Suede or whatever called “We’ll Be The Flowers On Our Grave”. Yeah, yeah, I know, I’ve been listening to Tom Waits too much. In this song it’s important that we get the mood down correctly. It has to be powerful but very relaxed. These two aren’t the easiest to combine. But for some reason this time it all comes quite easy. After few takes we decided that I will not play with the boys while recording the bass and drums. I don’t know what I’m doing and my playing is only confusing everyone. I go and make coffee. The take that is a keeper is maybe 5th, no one’s counting. This is a really beautiful song, I’m happy it’s sounding so strong.

That’s it for the day. We’re quite hung over from the night before, so this evening is very mellow. Hell, we didn’t go to the bed until 8 o’clock this morning. Gots to sleep.

TUESDAY

Ya’ll probably wondering how the hell did the previous take all day?!? Well, between the takes there are a lot of adjustments with the drums, bass sounds and guitars. We want to find a very distinctive sound for each song. That way the recording, and especially mixing is easier – and the final results are better. I forgot to mention that few days ago we received the two songs we sent for Richard Rainey to mix in England. Richard is a guy who’s been working with U2, Mansun, Alfie, Corrs, Clannad and, drum rolls, Zucchero! A friend of ours played our songs to Richard and he liked them and wanted to work with us. It’s very likely that he’s going to mix some other songs as well cause these two (Glass Boy, Broken Record) turned out really good. We have to see how much money we have to spend…

We begin Tuesday morning recording a song called “Ballerina”. This song is something that in my mind is a bit of a tribute to 60’s pop. I’ve been listening to the Nuggets 4cd box-sets endlessly, I think this track comes from somewhere there. I think all the 60’s music is the best music in the world, it’s never been topped. Something about that mood, songs and attitude – just love it. Anyway, about Ballerina; we’ve tried to do this with click, but the song dies that way. Therefore, we just grab the song by the balls and ram it in. I think it’s the 3rd take that is the one. Massive tempo changes within the song, very cool. Tempo nazi’s might have some trouble with this one, sorry. We try to do a more coherent take of the song, but it only sounds boring, so we stick with the one with them tempo changes.

As things are going really well, we decide to have a go with “The Killer I”. This will be the opening song for the album, right after the intro. It’s very ROCK and we just try to play the hell out of it. These kinds of songs you can’t play too many times. You have to get it on tape ASAP or you’ll loose something. It sure as hell doesn’t take too long. I have hard time holding my laughs as Kelly is playing the most insane, outrageous drum fills everywhere. Kelly is an aanimaal. Rock ‘n’ Roll is so much fun.

We only have our intro to do. We haven’t played it before, I’ve only done a demo of it with my drum machine. This isn’t the most complicated thing to learn, so we rehearse it few times and then record it. For some reason it seems that this album is insanely easy to do?! Maybe there are lucky stars after all?!

That’s it! We’re done with the basic tracks for this session. Next we begin overdubbing which is always the most fun part of recording an album. It means a lot of guitars this time – again. Our plan is to do the best live album that wasn’t a live album after all. We want things to sound like there are human playing the songs. That’s something you don’t get to hear too much these days. The evil computer has taken over.

WEDNESDAY – FRIDAY

These days are filled with guitar overdubs, so I’m not gonna get into it deeper. It means that the studio is full of guitars, different pedals and some amps. You cannot go to the main playing room because it’s so loud in there all the time. As Ripa is playing his parts, the rest of us are downstairs drinking beer and wine, and watching the entire The Osbournes series in one go. That’s entertainment! I think there are two ideal father figures/role models in telly, and they are Homer Simpson and Ozzy Osbourne. Two characters with a HUGE heart. Love & respect.

We’re into drinking again which of course isn’t a good thing (a word of advice for you kids!). But this evening we decide to visit the local bar, which we haven’t done yet. It’s as local as they can get, believe me. But in a very nice way, and they keep the bar open longer than usual because we came in. That’s the nice thing with small town people and bars, they are so friendly.

We continue our bad habits Thursday in the nearest city, Lahti. We go into a local bar that actually brews their own beer. It’s of course good – and we drink too much of it. Too much of everything else too… We decide to go to the disco right next door that is open til 4 am. Ripa is the first to hit the dance floor and he looks so fucking funny. Wasted and in the world of his own. Sexy moves brother! As the evening is about to end, I almost get into a fight with this fucking sales man or whatever. He’s got a problem with me and after all these drinks I don't really like him either. I never really get into fights, but this sucker really is an asshole. He seems like a miserable fuck keeping up a happy appearance - sorry mate, that doesn’t work. Stop pretending and deal with your problems, everyone will enjoy your company more, I guarantee.

Well, well, well. As I wake up around 2 pm Friday, Ripa and Jussi are full into work. I find it amazing, but they are professionals, as they say. I'm as hung over as one can be, it's a miracle that I made it from upstairs to downstairs without an accident.

We get everything done as we planned. Next up we have 2 weeks off and then we go to Hitsville in Helsinki to do the vocals and rest of the overdubs.

The Hitsville sessions 25.11- 1.12.

This is the week that we’re going to do the vocals and rest of the overdubs (guitars, keyboards and percussions) for the songs we recorded a week ago. I’m in the good spirits for singing, maybe because for once I’ve finished the lyrics way before the true deadline. All but Is It You’s verses. I don’t want to ruin the song with shit lyrics so I decide to take it easy with it.

The first two days are just me singing and doing some acoustic guitars. Very relaxed and easy it is. Things go well, no problems with my voice or anything, and most importantly, we finish early enough to go to the bar after the studio. Just kidding, it’s actually good to record in Helsinki for a change, don’t have to have that beer (or 10) every evening.

Anyway, I do my usual routine; two lead vocals per day. And Tuesday I decide to sing the choruses for Is It You as well. Those lyrics have been ready for a while so I’ll do it. This way we can sing the backing vocals to it as well. I’ll do the verses on the next session. This leaves me with a bit more time to write proper lyrics.

Wednesday Kelly and Antti come and sing their backing vocals, we’ll do some keyboards. Antti is our main keyman, he’s got the touch. He’s the one who’s got the theoretical knowledge of music in our band. We suggest things and he says whether it’s legal or illegal. Luckily he’s a twisted young man so very odd harmonies make the songs sometimes. This time around we don’t do many double or triple harmonies. By this I mean that we don’t double every note with the same guy singing his part twice or more. By not doing this we get this more lively 60’s sound. You can actually hear who’s singing the backing vocals. I think this is really important. Nowadays it’s all so processed and inhumane, we don’t want to do it that way. Keep it real, and make sure it’s slightly out of tune, this will guarantee the human touch.

Thusrday Ripa comes in and does he’s share of backing vocals and the rest of his guitars for the songs. He does the best ever solo for “The Killer I”. Wait til you hear it, it’s mind blowing. We don’t sing any backing vocals for this track because Ken Stringfellow (Posies) is coming to Finland with White Flag in two weeks and he’s going to sing the b-vox for the song. We’re saving it for him cause we think it’s perfect for him to sing it.

Maybe it’s just me, but I find it really hard to write anything interesting about these overdubbing sessions. There are a lot of interesting sound coming and going, the most interesting in my opinion is the sound of the wind that we do for the intro. I plug a wah-wah in to this small Fender amp and play with it (the wah-wah) so it sounds like it’s wind. This intro is so Morricone. We still need to record strings for that and for The Killer I. We don’t know when we’ll do them, but Antti Lehtinen said he’d translate our ideas into notes. Antti’s always helping us, what a good man.

By the end of the week we’re done with everything that was supposed to be done. All in schedule, this is like a factory where you just punch the card into the clock and check in and out.

THE HITSVILLE SESSION II 9. – 13.12.02 (Pt 5)

Monday-Tuesday 9-10.12.02

This week we’re going to record the two missing slow songs for the album. These songs are “Can’t Fall In Love” and “The Best Friends”. These are songs that we haven’t rehearsed, I’ve only done very rough demos of them at home. We don’t want to ruin these by rehearsing them because then they’d end up as boring band arrangements. We want to experiment with these two a little. Just record an acoustic guitar and demo voc and them start building on top of that. See where the song takes us. This is actually the most fun way of recording any song in the studio cause usually there’ll be very pleasant surprises along the way.

Tuesday Ken Stringfellow is also coming to sing his backing vocal parts for The Killer I. But first we start to work on Can’t Fall In Love. Actually, we begin this song by recording a drum loop from an old Optigan keyboard. This is like a very early sampler that uses optical records (sort of like vinyl) for the sound. Each record has a one bar loop of a drum beat, some other instruments and you can choose whether you want to play them all at once or separately. These sounds are actually recorded with real instruments. We find two cool drum loops that we put together as a click and the basic pulse for the song. These are very cool, dirty sounding beats with a lot of hiss in them. Just the way we like them. Then I play some guitars and marimba, and we’ll leave the song for the boys to work on as they come to the studio later today. We’ll also do the basic acoustic guitars for The Best Friends.

Ken comes in Tuesday afternoon. He loves all the gear in the studio and would like to play some keyboards on our record as well but we’ve only left him the backing vocal part to be sung. And, Jussi is really strict about not recording anything extra just for the fun of it. We want to keep this record as straightforward as possible. I think it’s a very good thing too. Anyway, it doesn’t take too many takes for Ken to do his part. His tone is perfect for the song. This is also the moment that our great A&R man decides that we’re going to release this album as a vinyl, too!!!! What a good man. In case you were wondering, Ken is in Helsinki with White Flag. Off he goes to do an interview at Radio Helsinki and then to the sound check. We continue our recordings with some drums.

At the end of the day, I decide that I want to sing Can’t Fall In Love and The Best Friends. The main reason for this is because White Flag are playing tonight at Tavastia and I know I’m going to be drunk there. This would mean that I couldn’t sing tomorrow, therefore, this is a very, very smart move, alright?

Wednesday 11.12.02

Well, as I said, it was a smart move to sing them songs yesterday. I’m hung over today. I can always blame White Flag because they made me get up on stage and play He’s A Whore by Cheap Trick with them. Not only that, but I witnessed Ken S. with women’s underwear on stage during the same song, so how could I not drink after that!? There’s absolutely no way.

I also promised a brief tour of Helsinki for them Americans. A brief it truly is, but at least they got to see the Rock Church. Besides, coming from Los Angeles, they’re not used to the cold weather (about 0’C at the time). I think it’s quite warm, though.

Anyway, I never make it to the studio. Jussi is working on some rough mixes as our record label head and Mr. A&R are coming to the studio tomorrow for the first time during these sessions. They don’t bother us much. This time they’re coming in to hear which songs we’re planning for Richard to mix.

Thursday 12.12.02

The day begins with Risto doing his guitars for the songs. They are mostly done as I arrive around two pm. Our guests are coming in at three. The label guests. We call them guests, that way it’s less official.

Riku and Hopponen (the guests!) arrive and we play them some rough mixes. They seem to like The Killer I, everyone seems to like it. Riku is funny in the way that he doesn’t look too comfortable in the studio, I think he’d rather be playing tennis. He’s always said, you do the music, I do the business. A good man. He wants to know if we have any songs that sounds like Coldplay. I say no, but play him The Best Friends which is the closest to it, I think. He thinks it sounds like Amorphis. Go figure.

After the meeting, we’ve decided that we’ll try to have Richard mix 2 to 4 more songs. We’ll have to see how things go with the studios, Richard’s schedule etc. The money, of course, is the issue. It’s not very cheap. But good things cost, that’s just the way it is in life.

The rest of the day is just little things recorded here and there. Like keyboards and stuff. Antti plays most of them.

Friday 13.12.02

Today’s the day that we’re to finish the recordings of this album, basically. There are some strings yet to be recorded and I’m sure we’ll find something, but no more dates has been booked for recording. The rest is for mixing. I think we have 10 days to mix 9 songs, which is alright.

The day begins with the rest of the Risto’s guitars. He plays the lead to the Intro today. He plays it with this cool Vox guitar that’s got a fuzz, wah-wah and tremolo built in it! It sounds very Morricone, just the way we like it. This is a tribute to all of the great songs he’s done, and a tribute to the great Laika & The Cosmonauts, the best instrumental band in the world. I do some very cool “wind” sounds to the song with just Dunlop’s Crybaby wah-wah plugged in to a small Fender amp with tremolo and reverb on it. Creative sounds pt. 1063.

I’ve finally gotten the lyrics for Is It You? and get to sing the verses for it. I did the choruses earlier, as I wrote before. The rest of the day goes to transferring the files, making back ups and all that. It’s been a very good week. None of the days were too long as far as the hours go, and we got everything done that we planned in a record time. I really think the record’s going to be superb.

THE FINAL RECORDINGS AND MIXING 2-6.1.03

There’s not any accurate diary of this period, but I’ll go through it briefly. We’re in Petrax to mix the Intro (which is now titled 84 Seconds In The West), Can’t Fall In Love, Yearbook and The Best Friends. What we also need to do is record the strings for the Intro and The Killer I. We’ve decided that Jussi’s going to mix all the mellow songs and Richard’s gonna do all the rocking ones. That way the album will be well balanced. Oh yes, we finally decided that Richard is going to mix seven songs, altogether.

Anyway, mixing the mellow tunes is easy and fun. Your ears won’t begin to bleed immediately and it’s just generally more enjoyable to mix beautiful music compared to the noisy one. I sing some of the lines in Can’t Fall In Love again. Few of the lines weren’t that good, I thought. It’s better now.

Sunday is the string day. Three girls enter the studio, and boy, can they play. It all goes so very fast and easy, that all I keep thinking is “should we record some more strings somewhere?!?!”. Well, we don’t and Jussi goes on with his mixing. The rest is as you all know: sauna, movies, games, music, a little booze… Let’s not get in to that again.

THE MIXING 12 – 18.1.03

It’s Sunday evening and we’re on our way to pick Richard Rainey from the airport. He’s flown over to Finland to do the final mixes of these sessions. We have no idea what Richard looks like and he’s got no clue what we look like, so we take a suspicious look at everyone at airport. But as things often go, you recognize your own species very easily, and we spot Richard at the same time as he spots us. Off we go to Petrax, Hollola, in the dark beautiful winter night. At one time Richard asks us if the car we’re driving is the only vehicle in Finland as there is so little traffic…

During our drive I find out that we like a lot of the same kind of music. Test No.1 passed. It’s good to find out that you’re soul mates with someone you’re about to work with. It’s always a bit of a risk when you get people from abroad, that you don’t know at all, to work with you. This time it seems there are no worries. We’re into the same kind of music, sound and attitude. And most importantly, Richard agrees with me that Beck’s Sea Change is the best album of the year. The only thing that worries us a little is that Richard has made up his mind about not going to sauna?! That’s odd, who’d want to miss such a great experience with other naked men?!?! We find out that he doesn’t spit in the beer bottle either, which is a good sign. Well, he’s Irish for god’s sake! Luckily he isn’t an alcoholic either, which is good.

When he settles down in the studio, the first thing we do is play him some of the “best of the Finnish hardrock videos from 1981-1991”. This stuff is absolutely hilarious. He’s quite shocked about Iron Cross, OZ (singing Abba’s “Money Money Money” live on television broadcast in Stockholm(!!!), this is hardcore, trust me) and of course Stormwing’s “Sexuality”. Richard is quite sure it’s the worst song ever. I’m quite proud that he’s spent a few hours in our country and we’ve already presented him the possibly worst song ever! Welcome to Finland.

13.1. MONDAY

It must be strange to come into a new studio with new people in a foreign country. Richard forgot to change the time in his alarm clock and wakes up later than he wanted. He’s a bit worried about it, we think it’s funny. And look at me; I woke up at one, so who am I to say anything about anything to anyone anywhere?

The first song that’s going to get the Rainey treatment is “Is It You?”. It takes a while for Richard to get on with the groove of the studio. Due to some sort of communication breakdown he never requested for the speakers he’s used to mix with. This causes a bit of uncertainty for a while, but Richard is a pro and he gets on with the work.

I don’t want to disrupt them so I take the motor sledge (from now on I call it skidoo) out and go rally in the woods. That’s life, let me tell you! Here they have skidoo tracks in the woods. With traffic signs and everything. Kilometers and kilometers of them - the tracks, not the signs! The winter is at it’s most beautiful, about –10’C below zero and a lot of snow on the ground and on the trees. This is going to be a great week. See, basically I have nothing to do. I play piano, guitar, watch movies, read, go out with the skidoo, eat and drink during the days. Occasional mid day sauna keeps a Finn happy too. Then at the end of the day we go into the studio and tell what we think about the song, and let Richard know if there’s anything we don’t like. Of course Jussi goes there every once in a while to see everything’s alright and to help Richard out with the automation of the new Amek mixing desk, which he hasn’t used before.

With Richard it seems that we don’t have to tell him that the overall sound in the song sucks. He’s got the same taste as us. He likes things big and rocking, like Dirk Diggler. At the end of the day our comments are little things like; turn up the guitar solo, how about that backing vocal, why did you mute my lead vocals this wasn’t an instrumental before?! (just kidding) etc. Anyway, the mix is really great. More driving, if you will, than I thought it would be. It seems that I will not have much to write about the mixing itself. I don’t want to write, and I don’t think you want to read me writing: “The mix was great, Richard did a great job. We just turned one guitar louder and it was sooo great”. So, I won’t bother. But I will write about our drinking and other interesting stuff!

After the mix is done, Richard comes downstairs with us. Of course, Jussi and I try to get him in the sauna with us, but no luck. Instead we begin watching Boogie Nights. Again. We always watch this movie here. Feel, feel, feel – feel my he-eat! Afterwards Richard goes to bed, and Jussi & I go to sauna and have a few drinks. It’s all about balance: what you sweat out, you must pour back in.

The rest of the boys are gonna come here on Wednesday. They had things to do and we thought it might be easier for Richard to become acclimatized with less people around. Besides, when we’re all together we do silly things that strangers might find a bit scary. We wouldn’t want to scare anyone, we’re basically good kids.

14.1. TUESDAY

I wake up around 13 (that’s 1 pm dear American friends of ours). A perfect time for breakfast. Richard is full on with the work on “Poor Happy Man” and Jussi’s educating himself with Classic Rock magazine. The studio’s filled with Uncut, Mojo and Classic Rock magazines. The latter has become my favourite lately. It’s not as bad wanking as Mojo is. Don’t get me wrong, I do like Mojo, but it’s refreshing to read an article about hair bands or Dio once in a while. I’m a huge Beatles fan, but I really don’t want to read yet another Beatles article that seems to be out every other month. Please!?!

Today’s a very mellow day: strumming my good ol’ acoustic guitar, banging that great out of tune piano, skidoo and eating. Jussi and I watch P.T. Anderson’s first feature film “Hard 8”. It’s great. I’ve seen it before but Jussi hasn’t. P.T. is a genius. “Boogie Nights” was his second film and “Magnolia” the third. Can wait to see his latest film “Punch Drunk Love”. Hasn’t been shown in Finland yet. He picks up great music for the films as well: Jon Brion, Aimee Mann, great 70’s funk etc. Maybe one day he’ll put our music on his films. I’d be a happy boy then. If you haven’t seen any of his films, it’s time for you to do something about it. Paul Thomas Anderson, The Man.

Jussi and I take a trip to the store to buy beer. Richard finishes the mix.

So what’s next?

Oh yes! Sauna, drinks, the studio scene from Boogie Nights, again (BTW it’s 1 hour 42 minutes from the beginning if the tape is rewound!) and we feed Richard some sausage -the Finnish way. I don’t eat it, but I like to see foreigners eat it. It’s just a fetish of mine.

I can’t sleep so I begin to watch Magnolia and fall asleep downstairs after about an hour.

15.1. WEDNESDAY (The boys are back in town)

Today Kelly and Antti are gonna come over. We don’t really know when, but I don’t think they do, either. Yet.

Richard has begun the work with “The Killer I”. He’s been advised to turn everything as loud as he can. Uncomplicated directions from uncomplicated men. I can’t wait to hear this song mixed. I haven’t really heard the strings properly before, they sound superb! This is the song that Ken Stringfellow appears on. Have I told you that he’s great, too? Oh shit, I’m going skidooskidooskidoo…

We call the boyz and ask them to bring booze for uz. Wine, Jallu and beer are being requested. Meanwhile, Jussi and I watch the film “Fucking Åmål”. I haven’t seen it before and this is a film that everyone’s been raving about since it came out in 1998. It’s a film by a great Swedish filmmaker Lukas Moodysson. He’s another genius. I’m glad someone is. His other film “Tilsammans” is also a masterpiece and everyone says his latest “Lilja 4-ever” is also a classic. Respect.

In the evening the boyz arrive and they’ve fulfilled our wishes on the drinks section. We all know where this leads us…some call it oblivion…

Richard still skips the sauna.

16.1. THURSDAY (Ripa’s here)

Today begins the work with “We’ll Be The Flowers On Our Grave”. Richard thinks this is going to be an easy one to nail, so maybe we can head to the local bar tonight.

Today’s a busy day for the people of Petrax. Ripa’s gonna come today and he’s bringing some friends of his along. They are going to design the net pages for Petrax studio. Also, a photographer for Image magazine is coming over to take some pictures of me for an article. We begin to watch the extended version of The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring. I haven’t seen the film before, so it’s very exiting for me to finally see it.

The photographer arrives and I have to quit half way through the film. We come up with an idea of me playing table hockey on the pic. I think this is alright as well – I don’t like to be photographed too much. All I really care is that I can go skidoo later tonight.

Well, well, well. Ripa arrives. It doesn’t take too long for us begin with the drinks. Today is the only evening that all of us are here. So basically we need to have the record’s (almost) finished –party today. That’s alright, I’ve been celebrating it all week anyway. I need to take it to another level anyway. It also seems that the mix is taking a bit longer to do, so we can’t hit the bar tonight. Of course, we begin to watch the Finnish heavy videos, again. Antti & Kelly haven’t seen them yet, either. Risto comes up with a great idea of imitating the game show “Record jury” (Levyraati). This is the show where four well chosen celebs of some sort watch videos and rate them on television. Quite entertaining. I wish we’d have a video camera with us, but maybe it was a blessing that we didn’t have one.

I make cardboard sings with points from 1 to 10 to everyone. Risto is the host and the rest of us are the jury. Let the Heavy Metal begin! It’s quite understandable that the first video of Iron Cross’ “Too Hot To Rock” gets a pretty good score. Anyway, this game of ours goes on for about three to four hours when Kelly finally says: “is it alright if I only give points?” It did get very heavy and we couldn’t do the whole tape, but if I remember correctly OZ’s “Money, Money, Money” and Rajuilma’s “Naidaan” share the highest score of 39 points. I think Stormwing could have gotten the full 40 points, but it was the 44th video on the collection. I think we only made til’ around 38. That’s Wild Force with the beautiful video directed by Renny Harlin for the beautiful song “I Want You To Stay”. It was too much for everyone and we couldn’t go on anymore. Richard came downstairs briefly after the days work. I think he was with us about 5 minutes and went to bed. I understand him completely.

And he didn’t want to go to sauna with us?!?!

17.1. FRIDAY

This is the last day of mixing. Richard finishes Flowers this morning and get’s it on with Ballerina. This is the most 60’s spirited pop song on the album and it reminds Richard of Jellyfish!!! What a coincidence, probably my favorite 90’s group along with the Posies. You don’t find too many hardcore Jellyfish fans around nowadays. If I ever had any doubts about Richard, this is the moment the last of them would disappear. Any people that appreciates Jellyfish’s music, can’t be bad. Love Jellyfish style!

It probably doesn’t surprise anyone that I’m really hung over as I wake up around two in the afternoon. Risto slept downstairs, he never made it to the bed. Somehow I still manage to clear my head for a skidoo run in the woods. Can’t miss any opportunity to do it cause it’ll be another year before I get to do it again. And finally we get Richard skidooing, too! He loves it, but of course he needs to get back to work. He’s such a straight guy. Well, at least we’re going to get him drunk tonight, that’s for sure. Let’s see what that Irish blood is made of. Ballerina seems to come down quite easy. Richard finishes early enough for us to hit the local bar...

And about the rest, well, I don’t think I can write it, because these pages are only rated R. The stuff we have is too close to X-rated, so let’s just leave it. The album is finished, everyone’s happy – even though they don’t remember much of it the next day. Peace.

THE END