It's almost the end of the year - time to make some conclusions. Also The 69 Eyes have released "very blessed" album. It means that it's time to make some conclusions about The 69 Eyes as well.

* Your last album Paris Kills was released 1.5 year ago. You've done some tours with the album. So, what can you say about Paris Kill now, when it's not a "new" album anymore?

Jussi: When it came out it sounded like exactly what we are after for. The sound of the album is really the sound we wanted to do like lots of keyboards and a pretty much softer kind of a sound which is like exactly what we wanted do at that time. But we… your mind changes and like you said it's 1.5 year since it came out so I don't think it would sound like that if we have done it today. But that's why we are going to make a next album which will be different. But with Paris Kills we felt totally satisfied. I'm still proud of the album. But anyway we are not stuck in whatever we are going to do. We move forward all the time and that want to do all the time. At that time we were categorized to this Finnish Goth metal scene but we didn't feel that we are a kind of metal band. There were quite many kinds of bands which copying us and doing all that shit, so we wanna something totally opposite now. Starting from the fucking pictures we did we took all those cliches away you know, like I even took my earrings off and all that shit for the photos 'cos we wanted to look clean and to make a poppy album and everyone was expecting a new Finnish Goth metal stuff. So let's see what the next one is gonna be like. It's gonna be more rocky.

* It's obvious that every band plans to record every new album better than the previous one, so if to compare Paris Kills with the earlier albums, what was done better on Paris Kills?

Jussi: Personally I consider "Blessed Be". It's better than "Paris Kills" like if you think of the whole concept from the start of the beginning. I think it's more well. The whole package is more tight. "Paris Kills" is not like it, it has quite different kinds of songs on it. But I still love the album. But it's not like that tight of a package if you know what I mean. And it's always a challenge 'cos you wanna make your next album even better. Maybe the best one is… well… it should be "Framed in Blood" 'cos the title says it all, it's the very blessed of, it should be the very fucking best album ever. So now we're more challenged to make a better album then this one with the best songs from what is the oldest one … I don't know from 1994 I guess on the album… Well whatever… But you know what I mean. I can't remember the oldest and I don't even care what year it was.

* Is there something you would like to change in Paris Kills now?

Jussi: No.

* Was Paris Kills the best you could do then?

Jussi: I think… I mean I don't think things like what I could change with some stuff I did years ago or recently. I've got a different way of looking at things. I'm thinking how I can do better things in the future and I'm not thinking… I mean… you learn from mistakes and I'm not telling that we've made mistakes with that album, but it's different to think of "Wrapped Your Troubles In Dreams" song has got bad snare drums sound we could change that. No. I don't think like that. We are gonna make better snare drums sound on the next album, so of course with every album you can think we must have more time to mix it and blablabla. But that's life and that's our past and like I said I'm proud of the album.

* Showbusiness is not only music and albums. Are you satisfied with your presence in press and mass-media?

Jussi: Erm… I think… erm…I guess I've got a different way to look at the whole thing. Like years I was really pissed off when somebody wrote crap about me, you know, me personally doing whatever somewhere I did not do. I got pissed off. But now I guess I got used to it, so I don't give a shit. If it?s a bad album, review okay … I don't really care. Of course it's nice to hear when someone writes nice stuff about you. I mean if I go to a record store and I wanna buy an album I don't give a shit what a journalist might have said about the album. I think I'm the only one who thinks about that. I'm not telling that the whole press is like a stupid thing we don't need 'cos of course like that's how you promote your stuff. Of course we need that. I mean I don't lose my sleep if there's bad stuff about us. There's that stupid TV in Finland like now I'm on television and I'm talking very bad stuff there. It's quite embarrassing, so maybe some people don't realise that you have to do that kind of stuff. When you release a new album you've to go everywhere, and every TV program can't be the coolest thing ever 'cos you've to do stupid things. But it's a part of the job and I'm not complaining about it. Some people take it too seriously and it's not serious after all.

* Do you think The 69 Eyes have everything that they deserved?

Jussi: Pfff… erm… what is there what I?ve deserved? Erm…

* What more do you want?

Jussi: I wanna go forward. It's not that I wanna have or sell millions of albums and have a big bank account. It would be nice, but that's not the point. I wanna see how far we are gonna take this whole thing and that's it. You read something and do that stuff, so you get used to whatever you are doing, so that's what we are doing for the last, God knows, how many years that's what we're still do. I don't think I mean I'm not like … thinking any bitter kind of a way like, man; we should deserve more respect, no way!

* Maybe some more attention?

Jussi: Erm… Noo, if you need attention or whatever, you've to work a lot, and that's what we do. When you work a lot or you feel okay what you're doing you get your attention.

* The 69 Eyes are well known in Germany and Italy too. There are many countries looking forward to see The 69 Eyes…

Jussi: Yeah, they're many countries! We want to work like in Japan or Spain or wherever, but we didn't have much time to do all that shit, but we're gonna do that.

* In the near future?

Jussi: Erm… next album is gonna be out somewhere after summer 2004, so not that near. I'm not thinking about it right now since we're touring and promoting the album "Framed In Blood" at the moment. This is where our thought are right now and at the same time we are writing new songs for the next album.

* Do you think that everything that happened to The 69 Eyes is logical, or it happened by accident and still comes as a surprise?

Jussi: I think 99% of what has happened is really kind of an accident. You can plan whatever things, but usually the best things come out by accident anyway. You can plan things like you ever do, but you can't plan like well in two years we're gonna do this and that. So yes, there are quite lots of accidents. Pretty good ones too!

* You've just released DVD. Is it ideal? It is completely like you wanted it to be?

Jussi: Erm… hard to say. If I would be the record company maybe I've put more stuff on it. Now I'm pretty honest.

* Yeah the interviews on DVD are pretty short.

Jussi: They aren't interviews but they're called interviews on the cover, we heard about that. "Hi! I'm Jussi and I play drums" *laughs*

* But now we all know how to pronounce Jyrki. *laughs*

Jussi: I think it's really funny. He got bored with that 'cos there are two millions of way to pronounce his name so bad. *laughs*

* We - Crimson Dawn - had seen "Mr. Pain" and "Call Me" before and we were surprised to know that you would publish the videos. How happened? :)

Jussi: We've heard that some people think that we're kind of embarrassed and try to keep things as a secret for from our bad past and like act that some things didn't happen, so we wanna show that we aren't embarrassed and we wanna open our closet doors and show the world, so there's nothing to blackmail us *huge laughs* anymore, so we showed that. I think it's really funny. Of course the "Mr. Pain" video is fucking bad but that's why we wanna do that. It's a friend of ours, a photographer, who shot this video with his personal video camera, so the budget for the video was like in Euro was probably 20 Euros.

* You also released "The Very Blessed" album *respect for the name!* %). Is it like a line between past and future? How were the songs chosen? Who made that choice? Are there songs you wanted to be presented on the CD?

Jussi: We all five guys as a band choose the songs and it was pretty easy, surprisingly easy 'cos they were only 2 or 4 songs to put on the album or not. I was surprised that we didn't fight about the songs or anything. We were like shall we put "Stolen Season" or "Sleeping with Lions" on the album or not, and than it happened that "Stolen Season" was there and "Sleeping with Lions" not. So many bands put B sides or really rare stuff on it, and we were also thinking about that. But then we thought that it was pretty boring 'cos so many friends of ours have done this and these albums are pretty boring, so maybe this comes in 2009 the B side collection. I personally feel we maybe put that not anywhere, but I don't know if it's interesting for everybody then. Anyway it's pretty easy.

* Some words about The 69 Eyes in future. They say you're working on a new album already.

Jussi: Yeah!

* What will it be? Can you tell us a name of it? :)

Jussi: No, I can't tell the name *laughs*. I'm not talking much about the time it comes out 'cos I'm not sure. We've planned right now that we hope to have a single out in stores before the summer and the album after the summer, but who knows. I mean we are just writing and recording demos. We haven't started recording the album, so it's too early to say the exact part.

* After Jyrki's journey to Africa, some magazines wrote that now The 69 Eyes will play kinda voodoo gothic. Is there a piece of truth in the joke?

Jussi: Yeah there's! It's the truth! Accidentally Jyrki got really into that scene and the whole voodoo thing and all that. All that he got friends with this kind of voodoo drum, I don't know if you can call it a band or a crew. He brought all those guys to Finland and it was like the first time they ever been anywhere else from their own small place in Africa. So we got them drunk and partied with the guys a couple of weeks in Helsinki, and we brought them to Ruisrock and they were checking us out. They've never seen a rock band in their life. And we've been recording with these guys, jamming with the guys, we were drinking their voodoo booze and they were jamming with us and played all these weird drums. We've stuff on playband and let's see how much stuff there will be on the album, but specially lyrics wise. I'm pretty sure it affected quite a lot. I don't mean it's gonna be like singing about Africa, but it's really affected what kind of ideas had Jyrki got, like he said in so many interviews every album has got influence by whatever place he has been. Like Wasting the Dawn album has got a lot about Italy, Rome on the album and Paris Kills is pretty obvious, so I'm sure it affected it about voodoo rock. It's sounds pretty cool. Sounds a good idea to do.

* What new we will hear on the new album?

Jussi: Better songs. *laughs*

* What will be never changed in The 69 Eyes?

Jussi: Erm… I hope the line up. Knock on wood here! *knock, knock on the table* :)

* Ok, music in general. What was interesting for you in music world this year?

Jussi: This year… erm… stuff I've been listening this year… I went to Hamburg to see Cramps, and I can't remember how many times I've seen Manson, and I'm flying to see Marilyn Manson next week too 'cos we've got 3 days off the tour and I'm gonna fly to Germany to see him. Been listening a lot to AFI, if you don't know that band you should check that out. Lots of Misfits just old stuff. Coolest gigs I've seen this year - Turbonegro 3 times, 4 times Foo Fighters, I mentioned Manson, erm… I've seen HIM around eight times this year I guess *laughs*. Let me think about some new cool albums erm… Listening to Distillers new album, a punk band with a girl as a lead singer, and they're pretty cool.

* What was the best band this year in your opinion?

Jussi: I'm not gonna say we're *laughs* All these bands I just mentioned.

* What is the best young band?

Jussi: All the bands I just mentioned are pretty old so I come back with this later…

* The most interesting song this year?

Jussi: Erm… whole new AFI album, you write it AFI no dots between which sorted from "A Fire Started Inside" and that last album came out this year. Check that out!! It's very dark gothic but kind of punk rock. It's rock punk and some pussy's complains how miserable they are and that they don't rock, but AFI rocks and I think we rock too that's we wanna be a bit different from this scene from this usual Goth stuff like just some keyboard and drum machine and a guy mumbling into the microphone. They should be some sweat and blood in their music.

* Music development in general. Are you satisfied with the music nowadays?

Jussi: Yeah! Otherwise I wouldn't be here today. I'm not a kind of guy who plays in a band when I don't like the stuff I'm doing. So I like the band and I'm the biggest fan of The 69 Eyes.

* What is better in the music now if to compare it with the music 10 years ago?

Jussi: In general erm… our stuff? That's is pretty hard! I love to check out new stuff what's coming right now from somewhere, but I don't think that 80's music is better than 70's music. No. I just love good music and I don't mind where it comes from. I mean I can listen to old Johnny Cash stuff and then something totally new.

* Please name some bands or albums, which are must be listened by everyone.

Jussi: Ramones, Misfits, this is old stuff for you. *laughs*

* Do you know the way music developsin next few years? What should happen?

Jussi: Erm… in general? What should happen is that I should get better.

* Which new bands can have a success in the future? Why do you think so?

Jussi: Erm… Murderdolls! Murderdolls and their album and their songs, what ever song on the album, and the coolest guy ever well everyone of them are so cool especially Joey, my dear friend. I love the guy. Check them out! Check Murderdolls out! And Joey's other band Slipknot are releasing their album this year and it's gonna be a killer! And this is the best young band by the way 'cos this is their first album.

*The manager came and told us our time was up but Jussi requested one more question*

* How did you come up with the name The 69 Eyes?

Jussi: There are so many stories, but the first thing was that we wanna have a band name which sounds like a some kind of a horror movie title which would look really cool on the posters and it could look like a 50's horror movie poster and now we've it, in sort. Jyrki and Bazie were in New York many many-many-many years ago and they came up with the name of a girl, a glamrock girl, CI Jupiter, who's like really heavenly on the glam rock scene making tattoos, fanzines all that stuff. She came up with the name with Jyrki. So that's the true story! I can make it half an hour long. So the band had a name before the band had members. I guess, those were Jyrki and Bazie, who had a band, before they had a bass player, guitar player or songs or anything, but they had a name for the band.

* Thank you for your time!

Jussi: No problem! My pleasure! CU soon.

idea - Melamory
interview taken by Pascalle