Jaakop
Ääni Magazine met new Finnish artist Jaakop and was the first one who got to interview the musician. We sat around the table with Jaakop and his guitar and started digging secrets out.
Sande, Ääni Magazine: You have started your news solo career in this year with a name Jaakop. Many people don’t know the name yet. Please tell us, who actually is Jaakop?
Jaakop: Well... Let’s say this Jaakop-thing is for me more like changing a lifestyle than just a character I’ve created. I had to renew to get some satisfaction of what I’m doing. A big part of Jaakop is coping with depression and that’s what all these three songs are about. And on the other hand, this far I’ve been playing in bands either drums or a guitar, and now I’m singing for the first time too! Or well, “singing”. It’s very different to be in responsible for everything, not just on your own riff. So if someone doesn’t like it’s my fault, and if someone does like it’s my “fault” too!
S: But you can’t keep everyone satisfied, don’t even have to.
J: That’s true. My musical self-esteem is pretty good because I have some musical history already. Jaakop feels very own and important. It’s not like I’d have to do this. I used to think that I have to make music for living and always when there was some kind of EP or single out I was waiting very eager like “let’s do this, let’s start my career” and when that hasn’t happened it has been pretty rough. For the first time I’ve put myself realistic goals: thousand views for the first video on Youtube, 2 thousand for the second one and three thousand for the third one.
S: In what kind of numbers they are going now?
J: Two first ones have reached their goals, the third video will be out soon.
S: Well, that is good! And how would you describe your music with only 3 words.
J: Well, ’punk’ is definitely one, or ’punkish’ at least. I wanted to do punkish as I’m doing music alone. In punk there can be failures still to be perfect. So at least punkish. And what could I say about the lyrics? Let’s say ’heart’ because Jaakop is a heart saving operation for me. Have to prove myself I’m a cool guy. And for the third one I’d say ‘new beginning’.
S: You released your second single ’Et voi luovuttaa’ in May, what the song is about? I guess not about a game with Finnish and Swedish?
J: No it wasn’t! In marketing I was trying to get touch with some topic on the headlines.
S: But the video is good!
J: Yeah it is! It was shot with a pretty fast timetable. But the song is written only for me. It’s written for those mornings when you feel down and wouldn’t want to get to work. It’s like a super fighting spirit song. ’Et voi luovuttaa’ was also the very first song I wrote for Jaakop and through it I understood that this is the thing I wanna do. Even though the songs are about dark times, there’s always light in the end of the tunnel. There has to be. And of course if I can give some fighting spirit for others it would be nice too.
S: It’s a lovely thought! You have a long history in music, but have always played in bands, but now you are a solo artist, why is that?
J: One thing is that because my whole life I’ve been playing many different instruments, the last eight years I’ve been thinking of doing something on my own. Before this I just didn’t have to courage to do this. And Jaakop is so personal thing, it can come only from me. It’s also just some sort of swing to the world without any huge expectations. Nice to see what happens.
S: You are talking a lot about how personal project Jaakop is for you, are you doing everything by yourself or is there someone helping?
J: Let’s say I have great friends who help me with this project. All the songs and instrumental performances are from my own hand and the demos were recorded by me too. With My Fate (Jaakop’s former band) we’ve done one album totally by ourselves, all the playing and recording but it’s so tough that I decided to separate these things a long time ago. It’s easier to be in a studio when you only have to either play or record. Lauri Heikkilä from Astral Studio recorded the drums for this EP. I collapsed to record my vocals on by myself because didn’t have the courage to be recorded by anyone else. The guitars and the basses I played in Headline Studio with Jari Latomaa and he also mixed these songs. And because this was so personal and groundbreaking for me it was important to get some help from outside. Many times my head got blank and faith was about to end, some sort of artists pressure I think. Kristian Kangasniemi has helped me a lot with shooting the videos and getting them together. He has also taken all the promo pictures. There’s about ten people helping me all the time so I can put stuff online. I’ve got some great people around me through the years.
S: Jaakop is a one-man-band, but is he ever going to do any gigs?
J: I don’t know yet. I like the idea but I don’t want to think for so far in future. Let’s see first if anyone’s interested in my music.
S: When you are writing a song, are you writing a story or an emotion?
J: Hmh, this is a good one. More an emotion I think. When I started to write these songs I had to break my writing block. I gave myself an hour per song so I had to write something. I had all the themes already so writing the lyrics was the real issue. First it was some sort of vomiting my feelings out and from that I tried to make a puzzle, get some solid lining. As a lyric writer I feel like a draft. Of course I’m very happy for what I made, but I can get better.
S: In the beginning we talked about your long history in music. What is the best advice you could give other musicians, beginners?
J: Well if we turn the question what’s the worst that has happened to me and what we can learn from that. Younger we had a lot of band practices. In Ikaalinen and Hämeenkyro there was a lot of eager youngsters to play music and with positive competition and good role models me and many others developed pretty good musicians. Then we reached the time when all those practicing years were rewarded and we got a lot of praise and a little city’s glory. In my case getting vain meant that I decided I was good enough to play my instruments and I stopped practicing. It took 5-6 years that I wasn’t interested in learning my instruments anymore, but then my world got widen and I realized there were guys who were so much better than me, I had no chances with them and I started training again. Now I’ve been training for ten years again, mostly my own things like song writing, but the main thing has come back. So I’m saying: never stop practicing.
S: That’s a pretty good advice! Was there a special moment that influenced you to make music? What happened?
J: I’ve always known I want to play. We have some old pictures where dad plays a guitar and I bang pans and buckets. I was probably 2 years old in those pictures. In primary school parents put me into a music school, which was very good thing, but I was just a very lazy student. But the most important moment was when we started our first band with Jarkko Järvinen and started making our own music. It was around 13-14 years. It was a a realization of creating something new and undone.
S: I know you have played some covers too, so which artist/band you would like to cover Jaakop’s music or some specific song?
J: *thinks a long time* From ’Et voi luovuttaa’ I made a folk version because I had to play in a school something. I think it would be perfect for Vesa Holmala!
S: Yeah, let’s say hi for Vesku!
J: Hi Vesku!
S: And the last, what is the last song you listened?
J: Aurinkokuningatar by Valovuosi.
S: Thank you for the interview, we made a history with both of our first interview!
J: Cool, this was pretty world widening. Thank you very much!
