When All Laughter Has Gone

(This interview is provided by LEGION magazine)

It's definitely good when a band has ambitions. It's much worse when there are no abmitions at all. Well, DOLORIAN obviously has them. And it's not that this young Finns want to become the most popular band in the world next year. And they are not going to sell 10 million copies of their debut album "When All Laughter Has Gone". The grim music, sickening atmosphere, gloomy visions of reality - are they really going to conquer the world with such a music? And still, the band is interesting, as well as our interview with the band, haha...

I would like to point out the fact that your band is quite young - you got together in summer of 1997...

Yeah, DOLORIAN was formed in 1997 as a two man project. We, A. Haapapuro and A.Kukkohovi, had both played together in a few bands and we thought that it would be interesting to do some music just together. Then we wrote some music and decided to do a promo-tape mainly for ourselves. We recorded our promo-tape also in 1997 in Tico-Tico studios. During that time we had a temporary keyboard player. We sent our promo-tape to three record companies and we made a record-deal with Wounded Love records. It was quite obvious that we needed a fulltime keyboard player to play on our debut album so we decided to ask our friend J. Ontero to join us. We recorded our debut album ‘When All The Laughter Has Gone’ in april 1998.

TEMPLES BEYOND was your first name. Why do you think DOLORIAN is better?

We just thought that the name DOLORIAN would describe our music much better than THE TEMPLES BEYOND. DOLORIAN originates from the word "Dolor" (Hey, I thought it derived from "dollar"! - Ed.). I think that when you listen our music the meanings of it will clearly open to you.

It is known that bands from Finland tend to sign contracts with the local label Mastervox. Why did you to sign to the Italian label? Lack of patriotism?

We sent our promo-tape in three records companies. First we thought that no one would be interested in our riffs, but it seems that we were wrong. One of those promo-tapes came back quite soon, because the address of the letter wasn't in use anymore, and the second record company wasn't interested in our kind of music. After a week we got letter from Wounded Love records because they wanted to sign us. We didn’t even try to get another offers, because the offer what Wounded Love suggested us was quite good in our opinion. Mainly we were just satisfied with Avantgarde Music Wounded Love records in general and thought that it would be quite good company for us.

As far as I know Avantgarde Music doesn’t do a lot of live shows for the bands under its assignment. Is it the same case with you? Do you tour?

We haven't had any live shows yet, but we think that after we release our second album there will be few if it's possible, and of course if there are enough people who are interested to see us on the stage. I think that there will always be this eagerness to play songs live, because there is always this quite "strange" emotion when you play songs live. Playing music live gives always this great opportunity to improvise, and then the music is quite much about the feelings what we feel at that very moment.

Is it difficult to organize a metal concert in Finland? Why don't you organize a concert for DOLORIAN yourself?

I don’t know nothing about organizing concerts and stuff like that and mainly I don’t care about things which concerns this matter. I don’t also know nothing about the sizes of audience in metal shows, because I haven’t saw any metal concerts in past few years.

You originate from Oulu, the city also known as the home town of IMPALED NAZARENE. I guess you might know those guys?

Well, I know some guys from IMPALED NAZARENE, but I can’t say that I consider them as friends of mine.

Bands from Finland are known as heavy drunkards. Is it justified?

I think that it’s quite justified to say that many bands in Finland use much alcohol. It’s in our veins. I don’t go to parties. I just like to spend my time at home and sometimes with a few other persons who I consider to be my friends. I just like to sit in the corner of my bedroom and listen music and think about everything. But when I drink alcohol I can say that I drink quite much, too much, indeed. I have been drinking lately quite much tequila-mixtures and this original Finnish booze "Koskenkorva".

A lot of metal musicians from Finland point out the special metal mentality of your bands: doom, grim, sorrow. Does northern weather really influence the creative process that much?

I think that there are too many bands who just like to do this "fashion" kind of music and they want to be "dark and evil" guys, have many listeners and have "evil and brutal" reputation in those mass music scenes. Personally I think that these people are nothing but weak creatures which will sooner or later perish. There are no inner-feelings behind their music and lyrics etc. In our case... The first thing is that we do our music and lyrics mainly for ourselves. Our music is real, it tells you quite much about ourselves. Our music descripes our lives and thoughts more than any other thing in the whole world. Personally I don’t even want that every one likes our music and lyrics. It doesn’t matter to me what some mass-, pseudo-idiot person thinks about our music. The inspirations for our lyrics and music comes from our daily lives. They are mainly feelings what we feel at that very moment. We don't do lyrics about Finlands weather or history. Our lyrics are more personal. Self-knowledge is quite important for us and through that we do the most of our lyrics. I quess that Finlands weather influences just a little bit for the final results. . .

A straightforward answer... One can see some runic inscriptions on the cover of your album. What is that?

The whole layout has been done by Avantgarde Music & Wounded Love records. We didn’t do nothing.

Hmm, at least it could be interesting to know what is written on the cover of your own album. The album’s title is “When all laughter has gone”. So, party's over - no more fun?

In my opinion our title shows quite well the inner-meaning of our music and the way how I understand  it, describes quite well my thoughts in those times when we recorded "When all the laughter has gone". In general it's up to you what you want our title to mean to you, because we all mainly understand and comprehend all words and things differently. I think that when you listen - and get into - our music, the meanings of our title and music in general will cleary open to you. Our music is not just the way we express our feelings, it's also a part of our life.

Journalists like to draw parallels between bands. That rather often pisses the musicians off, still journalists do it. I heard you were compared with KATATONIA and EMPYRIUM. What is your attitude towards that?

I haven’t yet heard that we are compared with KATATONIA and EMPYRIUM. Still I think that we have something new to offer to our listeners and we will stand out from the mass-music scenes and from the other bands. I don’t see us as a part of any of these black-, death-, gothic- etc. scenes. The way I would describe our music would be that it causes "spiritual cramps" for you. Our music is quite many-faced, and I think that we differ quite much from the most of the bands. There are lot's of things in our music which will not open to you until you have listened it over and over.

Do you like the present day's undergound in Finland?

I haven’t been following Finland's metal scene or underground for a long time. I just don’t care about it anymore. I think that there are too many bands that have nothing new to offer to their  listeners. What is the sense in buying a record when it has nothing new to offer to you?

Finland is the country with 20% rate of the unemployed. Is it difficult to be a musician in Finland? Do you have to work somewhere else part time?

It’s quite hard to be this kind of musician because there’s allways this lack of money. I've got to have a temporary job just to get some money for living, instruments etc. I have been working in a "freezer" and I think that I would have much more important things to do than just to freeze there.