Reckless Love
We have been sitting with Olli from Reckless Love in Cafe Europa and talked about different TV projects and many other things! Enjoy !
Text Verion in English:
Olli Herman / Reckless Love
Vince, Ääni Magazine: Here we sit in Cafe Europa with Olli from Reckless Love. Hi Olli.
Olli: Hello and cheers! Non-alcoholic beer and coffee.
V: Yeah, I have just coffee. This is a huge cup of coffee!
O: Yeah, for me coffee is more like food than just stimulant.
V: And especially here in Finland you get coffee from everywhere. Pretty often it is horrible, but needed.
O: Yes and probably as bad for you as beer if we’re thinking it from the singer’s point of view: your throat and stuff. Usually you just don’t drink coffee a whole pint.
V: Okay, but tell me, sometimes when the sound check is at 5 pm and you play the concert at 4 am, and you just can’t drink coffee all the time, what do you do all those hours?
O: Well, thanks for the technology I can do all kind of stuff. My e-mail is one hell of a jungle nowadays, reading e-mails takes hours. And we’re doing so much stuff each on our own with the Reckless Love boys as touring in Finland takes place mostly on weekends, so we just catch up and talk about what has happened during the week we haven’t seen each other. Or something like that. Creating new ideas.
V: I’ve noticed that some bands are more like singing band and others like whistling band. Are you more singing or whistling band?
O: I think we’re more whistling. Sometimes when I try to get the band to get interested in warming up together on backstage I’ve noticed it is so damn hard to get them sing! So I’m just whistling on my own. They sing only during the gigs.
V: Yeah well you have to save your voice!
O: After all if we’re touring more, at most we’ve done about 80 concerts in a row somewhere in Europe, and I’m singing 1,5 hours per night with my bad vocal technique my voice is getting pretty tired. Sometimes I just need to let my voice rest although some warming up is necessary, but that’s pretty much just mumbling.
V: Have you gotten any good tips from other singers?
O: During our first album’s tour I had much problems with my voice because to be traditional for the 80s heavy style that we’re sort of playing, guitars are fucking loud so mostly I was just competing against them. Eventually it got screaming and your mind is fixated to think if you don’t hear your own voice you’re probably singing too quietly. You just ended up screaming fucking loud. I went to two singing lessons a time back called “Complete Vocal Technique” and it’s taught for radio hosts, actors, singers… Vocal Technique includes everything: you find the best way for yourself to use your voice instead of just teaching some general vocal techniques from classical music. Plus that we had to get ear monitors for the band so we could hear ourselves singing and playing. That has been really helpful.
V: The ear monitors are more needed the bigger the stage is!
O: A couple of times on summer festival concerts the stage has been so big there has been some latency problems. If you move away from the center of the stage you get your own voice delayed to your own ear so you think you’re late.
V: You’re one of those guys who move as much as possible on stage, right?
O: Yes I do, sometimes even when there’s no possibility for that! It’s poor man’s way to make a show when you can’t afford bombs or other effects, so I’m just trying to create as much movement on the stage as just possible.
V: Yeah and there’s only four of you!
O: Yes, it gives us some more space. Today in YO-Talo the stage will be pretty crowded.
V: About every normal restaurant’s stage is quite small here in Finland.
O: After building up the drums there’s not much room left. Our drummer says all the time he’ll leave left bass drum behind, but still he always takes it on tour. But well, after all that’s part of the show to be showy. Sometimes you just think if you’re stupid to drag all the gear with you when you’re looking at the new artists with just a singer and a DJ on stage and they’re sounding great.
V: Well of course it is sounding great if it’s coming straight from CD.
O: Wouldn’t be my thing though. But when you think, you’re driving with there on a road with a band bus, expenses are ten times bigger and we have just four tour personnel and obviously we have to pay for them plus we have four in our band. Of course we could get smaller gear and that way, but we just want to hold on tight to our roost in Van Halen. They even recorded live on a studio. Nowadays it’s normal to use all the tricks you just can on the studio so on stage we want it to be as live as possible, we leave all the tricks out of that.
V: And if we are talking about money just do your way as long as it’s wise.
O: Well wise it has never been…
V: Yeah, maybe that is wrong word for there.
O: And it includes the whole music industry so just depends where you draw the line. I’ve been trying not to think too much of the business side.
V: But you’re not doing any “real” jobs, not working in a grocery or anything.
O: That’s true, I haven’t, but I’ve done some TV stuff. We’re joking with Jussi69 (from The 69 Eyes) that we’re both kind of jack of all trades’. Soon both of us are probably doing some hosting for Big Brother Extra or something. Or probably not. After all heart is in music and the need to make it bigger and louder.
V: Okay, but if we are talking about the TV stuff, you have been doing music stuff in there too. How music stuff on TV differs from doing “normal” music?
O: Well first of all everything has to be planned very perfectly. For example Tähdet, Tähdet –TV show where I attended last spring, it’s planned for every second. But of course it’s a live show so everything can happen, but everything is trained as perfect as just can.
V: Never had a feeling “but this is live, I could do anything I want”?
O: TV is very unforgiving place, especially playing music, because the sound you make comes so clear out of the TV, there’s no place for mistakes and if you do one it’s the singer’s fault.
V: And they get never forgotten like the guy, Pete Parkkonen, who sang Pitkä Kuuma Kesä (by Popeda). It is still on internet and people are watching it like “that guy cannot even sing” even though it happened only once and on very extraordinary situation.
O: Yeah and everyone makes mistakes, would be nice to remember even your own lyrics! Just to have one gig without forgetting lyrics would be pretty awesome. But yeah, I’m trying to make all the TV stuff well, at least this far. You really need to focus on them.
V: Is there some TV show you would like to attend to, but so far haven’t had a chance?
O: Not that I can think of. But I think I’m pretty blessed to have a band that can still be seen on media so every now and then I’m asked to all kind of things so I’ve done and seen pretty much.
V: Sad we don’t have Kokkisota TV show anymore in Finland, I would have liked to see you there.
O: I was in Sokkokokki, which is kind of alike except you just have to do everything by yourself. I was there with Marco Hietala (Tarot, Nightwish) and it was an interesting try-out.
V: In music industry it comes along that you just might find yourself in very extraordinary places and situations, doing projects you would have never imagined.
O: The coolest part in Tähdet, Tähdet was to noticed, that the more you jump into the unknown the cooler stuff they’ll be. And of course sometimes not. I was just in Luojan Kiitos! TV show trying some improvised acting and it was definitely not my thing. It went so bad but maybe it was pretty funny that way too.
V: Yeah, the fun will be taken out of it somehow. But you’ll be playing tonight in YO-Talo, even though this interview will be published a way later. With what kind of feelings you’re going to play in front of so called home city audience.
O: Pretty good feelings! Concerts in YO-Talo have always been fucking great for us, so let’s hope Tappara (ice hockey team from Tampere) will win tonight and people will come to YO-Talo to celebrate. I guess not too many of our fans are fans of Tappara, so they’ll come anyway.
V: Your fans are more like “music saved me from sports”.
O: Yeah, sure! In this weekend we have sort of two gigs at home towns because we’ll be going to Kuopio where we are originally from. We’ll play there on Saturday and on Sunday we’ll be in Oulu. We’ll get to sit in a bus for few hours during the weekend, but it’s okay, it’s a good bus.
V: And it is why you do this.
O: Exactly! The gig is moot point, main point is to get to the bus!
V: I always say that moving the gear is why we do this.
O: Talking about Kuopio, the legendary Tarot band is from there too and they are as far as is known the only band that has been practicing moving the gear.
