Hey guys now you can see and read the new 2 numbers of our magazine 
Yes 2 numbers because we thought to saw you earlier the number for December 
We hope you will like them and if you have some ideas or suggestions tell us !
The number 5 will be online in January so until then we wish you happy holidays and a happy New Year !!!
Check the new dates for 2010 at Shows !!!
I am sharing a hotel room with Riku, who is sitting at the other end of the room playing his guitar. Very nice actually. We have a couple of songs “almost” ready and we are trying to find solutions for the chorus ends and stuff. A little blog writing break might bring in some new ideas. It’s only three shows left of this road trip and I don’t know… It makes me feel kind of sad. Only three left and I could do a million more. Sure there are more shows this year, but the trip with the guys in the bus is always something extra special. I must admit the first Austrian shows were really really hard. Sami was very ill with high fever ( in Innsbruck & Linz) and you know the drummer is the back bone of the band. He did a really good job, but when you know someone on stage is really sick, you can’t have the gang feeling as good as on the days when everyone is fully up. And even though I love the small club feeling, we had problems fitting our stuff on stage. In Innsbruck I hit the drum over head microphones with the back of my guitar a hundred times and one of the mics fell. And so did my own microphone since I started worrying about moving too much Club-phobia Now that even Sami has been feeling better, the shows have been 100 % fun again. I guess we had one of the best evenings of the tour in Graz. Great audience! And the legendary Flex-club yesterday in Vienna was super cool too. I was very worried if the clubs would be empty because of the lottery system of the local Bank (Reifeisen Club), but no, the mood has been super great every night. We stayed outside the Flex club last night and sleeping was a bit hard. First because we had a Play Station Ice Hockey tournament FIN-SWE. And after that the asshole idiots who left the club in the morning had to bang our bus windows on their way home. A gang of these smart-ass window bangers almost got their asses kicked at 5AM by our crew guys when they almost broke the windows. But they managed to run away. Aki & Tuomas run half a kilometer after them. Pussies!!!!!!!!! I don’t mind, but our driver sleeps in his own little sleeping quarters and he has to wake up at 8 to drive us to the next city. Well… now we are safe in Salzburg and the hotel rooms can’t be entered. I have been here once before. It was Christmas 2007. We had performed at this TV thing in Zurich with the guys on the 22nd of December and instead of flying home, we took a flight to Vienna with Jukka (our former keyboardist and the guy who’s produced our both albums). It was really cool. We stayed the first two nights in Vienna and then we just drove all around Austria (once we even ended up in Munich because we were just talking and talking and didn’t realize the time and kilometers passing by). Anyway. It was here in Salzburg where we had our Christmas dinner with all the other lonely people who didn’t celebrate the family evening with their own ones. There is a special mood in the restaurants on a Christmas Eve. Almost everything is closed. And sure this is also the place where W.A. Mozart grew up. I will try to keep my songwriting ears open and my mind clear in case there are some good melody vibrations floating around in the air. So tomorrow we play here and then the last Austrian show in Dornbirn. I just hope there will be people in the clubs even though the towns are a bit smaller than Vienna and Graz. I heard a rumor that there might be a go-cart-race in Zurich on the day off so I must start getting ready Good night everyone, Samu PS: Now we will start watching Indiana Jones (The newest). I wanted to watch Rambo (The new one also) but Indiana won… John Rambo is da man!!!!!! PPS: As soon as I have reached 5.000 friends here (it’s the maximum and a problem because I have added everybody), I will delete everyone I don’t know for real. Life will go on
Will be published in Wilhelmshavener Zeitung on 3.12.2009
By TINA OLDEWURTEL
News & Sound: Half a year has passed since the publishing of “Popgasm”. Looking at the sales figures, you can see that the people like the album.
Sunrise Avenue: Do they? How much does it sold?
N & S: I guess, it was in the top ten, so I think, it reached gold.
SA: Okay, we haven’t gotten any awards. Maybe they given it in Switzerland after the last show. But that is great.
N & S: But how were the reactions of the always very critical music journalists?
SA: They were actually really good because for the first album, we got like even one star or two stars in the beginning. When we released it everywhere, then, when we were sold half a million copies, everybody gave us five stars, like “yeah, this is really good”, you know. That how it goes. But we took really big risks with “Popgasm” in a way. I mean ‘cause there was like the second album dilemma, which is always like when we have one album out, so you are not like Metallica or Green Day or Foo Fighters that you already have your own sound. There are two new guys on stage. There is Osmo with keyboards, we got a new guitar player which is Riku. So a lot of things changed, and of course we experienced a lot of things in our lives. And then, when you have 25 guys with black suits and ties in studio, okay, you have to write a hit. And I think the first single, you started with a drum loop and after that maybe something like “Fairytale”, since like fuck off, so you can’t do that. So, when we decided to leave everybody out, we just decided to have a lot of fun, as much as we can, do all the bit of a crazy stuff with the orchestras and stuff, you know. Enjoy the ride. And I was amazed. I remember, I was in Zurich and somebody called me from Cologne and said like, “The reporters really like the album.” And I was like, “What the fuck, the can’t love the album ‘cause it’s so obvious.” That’s like really crazy stuff, like really cheesy pop/rock songs. Like “The Whole Story”, for example, is nothing new. There are a million songs like that and “Not Again” also. And ballads everywhere like “Welcome To My Life” which we really feel is really deep and really, really good, but there is also like “Birds And Bees”, where there are these mommy and daddy tiger. It is a huge salad of everything. I was so sure, every journalist would say that will not gonna work … one star.
N & S: But you were pretty excited about the album if you look on youtube and things like that. It seemed like you were more excited about the second album than about first one.
SA: Well, you know, it is different also for us. We played for two years for the first album or three years. We were waiting for new songs already because like on the first album, thank God, we’ ve had 15 songs there ‘cause if you would have had an album with eleven songs, it would have been really boring. We would have like Bon Jovi songs or Foo Fighters songs live on stage, but we already started playing the new songs like more than a year before we released some of them and I guess, it’s the same thing when, you know, you do something for the first time, it’s like, you can’t enjoy the ride that much. Now we have the second album out, we knew a little bit what’s gonna happen. Like looking at the calendar, there’s The Dome, okay, we know what that is more or less. Then we know that there are some festivals, we know how those work and stuff. We’re just happy that people like it and radios play it and you know, if somebody buys it, it is brilliant and if they download it, then they download it.
N & S: But the real fans, they buy it.
SA: Yeah, which is really nice. And as long as there are people on our gigs, that’s a nice thing.
N & S: And they really love you. You can see that.
SA: We have to make them love us every night. That is our job. Not love us, but I mean, we have to give them something, so they feel good.
N & S: But I think, you know that the German fans love you very much, you said it on the Finnish music channel “The Voice”, I think. And lots of Finnish bands say, German fans are very special. Is it very different to Finnish fans to play maybe in Germany, Switzerland or Austria?
SA: I think the biggest difference is from Finnish fans to the other fans. ‘Cause in Finland we are just one of the Finnish bands who are playing music. And we sometimes even get pretty much hard times from the people, like “okay, you are so lucky, just have the one hit” and whatever. And we are not the hottest thing at the moment. Probably we will never be and that’s fine. Well honestly, I mean, looking at what we have gotten from our lives for the last three years, a lot of that is because we have some really, really loyal, fantastic people supporting us, especially in Germany. Of course those fantastic like, you know, really devoted people also in Poland, where we already have been three times, and Greece absolutely like that. But I mean, you know, the EMI Germany was the company who said “hey, there is something there in the band, let’s sign them”. They invested a lot of money, we found really good tour agents, like most fantastic people in the world, putting their asses on the line and then the journalist who just interviewed us. The young girl, I don’t know, she is just a freelancer and she was already in Leipzig in 2006 and doing the first interview ever at The Dome for us. But I mean anyway, Germany has a really, really big role in whatever we are doing at the moment, and we can never say how thankful we are for that.
N & S: I did an interview with you almost three years ago, and I think you are more popular now than at that time.
SA: It can be. We shouldn’t really think about these things. Of course, we get like, you know, the record companies are doing their jobs. Only they say that you should join the Emma awards or the Comet awards. You should be there. But you know, I mean, popularity that isn’t really nothing. That’s usually only a weight on our shoulders ‘cause when you go to the airport, there are people waiting for your and this, you know. Popularity that we really like is, when people put their hands up in the room. It doesn’t mind if it is 200 or 2.000. If we can choose, 2.000 of course ‘cause it is more fun. But I’m glad if it is like that ‘cause I know a lot of people put their jobs and stay with this album in Germany, in the UK, even in the states, you know, the big bosses say, “yes, we will do this and invest in Sunrise.” So that is good.
N & S: You took your time producing the new record, more precisely 14 month. Did you want to avoid the risk to end as a one-hit-wonder, which might have happened if you rushed yourselves into the recording of a second album only to take along the successful phase?
SA: We started recording already in 2007. They actually pushed us into the studio, the managers. They told us to go there. Well, we had a lot of problems inside the band then. There were big fights and stuff and I just remember, we were at this legendary Finnvox studios in Finland. I mean, probably the best one in a way to record drums especially. A really, really good place. So everything was theoretically to be fine, but I mean, when you can’t look each other in the eyes and you know, you’re still, I mean, there was just a tour coming up and everything. I think, it is a good thing that we put the handbrake and let’s not do anything yet. It was a big hassle in 2007. It was. Everything was so new to us. It came like in ten months and like suddenly you have to, I mean, we are not like, you know, The Scorpions, we are not like Pink. No, but I mean, you have to learn a lot of things. I mean, you don’t give your phone number to people anymore and you don’t, if you meet the girl in a bar, you don’t take her home. But there is nothing you can secure. I mean, a lot of bands in the world don’t have even one hit, so we are really glad. Bunch of guys having even this one really big radio sales hit already and you know, hopefully there is a new one some day. It feels funny when we were at Bremen 4, at the radio station. And the song they use for the contest is still “Fairytale Gone Bad” in a way. But I mean, I don’t think Bon Jovi will be any happier if you would have skipped writing “Runaway” and something ‘cause these are the songs that you will always have. Just right now there is a CD in the store where there is no “Fairytale Gone Bad” at, of course there is this CD also, but on the new CD, there are new songs and you know, I don’t know.
N & S: It’s like if you say, I go visiting Sunrise Avenue today or go to a concert, they say “Sunrise Avenue?” and you say “Fairytale Gone Bad”, they say “aah!”.
SA: It’s always like ‘cause we are from Finland, and we don’t have this big American marketing like machine behind us. You know, even Lily Allen, how many albums has she got out? Like four or something. Last album, you know, we put the first album out, you know, having meetings at EMI Germany and I was like, “who the fuck is that?”. She is really great. And this is really normal in a way. ‘Cause after one album, after half of a faces change in a poster, it is really normal that okay, some teenagers who followed or young people like 25 or whatever might know it, but you know, it’s like that. It’s great that they know the song. If they didn’t know the song, they didn’t know us.
N & S: But I guess, “Fairytale” will be a classic in a few years.
SA: Hey, it’s so amazing. I mean, even now, it’s so much fun to play it. And that’s what I was afraid of when it was like, it was in Finland, we were 21 weeks in a row number one with it in the radios and it’s like there was a moment, I mean, nobody wanted to hear that song. It became too much. If it came in the radio like everybody in Finland switched the channel because it was too much. But I just remember, we came back from the tour 2007, it came on the radio, I was going to the gas station to fill my tank, and I just thought at the bus, “This is actually a really good song”. And yeah, we have it. And even yesterday, they still played it and it feels good. It’s a thing that it’s a real song and not a like pop thing from the management or something. We really wrote it, and it is really our song, and then we can stand behind it.
N & S: In my opinion, „Popgasm” is more naughty and humorous than your first record. Did you therefore decide these special, but still fancy album title?
SA: This album title was just a mistake. I actually today thought about the next album and we are calling it “The Threesome”. But it’s not gonna be that. But it’s the third album thing ‘cause I don’t wanna call it “Album 3”. And you know, babies have baby names. My mom, when I was in her stomach, or my dad or whatever called my “Aapeli” because they wanted to have a name for the baby. So now it is “Threesome” and then we get a name for it later. But I hate album names that say nothing in a way. I mean, “On The Way To Wonderland” was perfect ‘cause Wonderland is the thing where we wanna go, the pop/rock or whatever thing. And the whole album in a way, the spirit in it, you know, dreaming about the “Rock am Ring” and one day getting there. That’s perfect. It fits there. But we heard some suggestions like the album could be “Welcome To Wonderland” or “Wonderland-Express”. I was driving with the producer, I was driving him home and that’s been bothering me and I think, we recorded some drums or something really late, you know. If they record drums, it is Sami and the producer and I just listen, “Yeah, this I can follow, cool” and I’ve been thinking about the name and I just said to the producer almost at his door that I really wanna have this one strong name for the album. This is like one “Escapology” or whatever. It doesn’t really mean anything. It has to contain pop, rock, energy, life, orgasm, popgasm. I was like, “Popgasm”, I was like, “Yes” and then we started slowly slowly feeling it to the record company. An evil plan, selling the name. And I think, it’s a real risky name in a way ‘cause it’s like a lot of people can find it really disgusting in a way ‘cause it’s popgasm and it’s really arrogant in a way that we call our music popgastic music. That you get popgasm from. But you know, the one who can’t take the humorous side, can’t take the humorous side. And it’s like if you play it safe, don’t play the game ‘cause then it’s happened. Even still, there are opinions about it. You can have it that way that it’s just a name for the album. Nobody cares what it is. And it describes the album pretty well ‘cause there are like typical pop/rock songs, there is also some different stuff like starting from the first track. It is really different then, it’s like even some, you know, Modern Talking sounds there or whatever which is good. It means that it’s an uncontrollable mass of songs which is always good.
N & S: After listening to Popgasm for the first time, I was a little bit surprised that you chose “The Whole Story” as your first single, because for me it is the most ordinary and Sunrise Avenue-typical song.
SA: Me too. I was not amazed that it has to be the first single.
N & S: Was it a kind of a safety single? And who decides which song will be published as a single?
SA: We would have gone with “Bad” and then we would have gone with “Welcome To My Life” and “Birds And Bees” and the real strength of the album. But the business people, they actually sent me to Sweden to write this with this professional song writing team. It’s a good song, I have nothing against it but especially with the artwork and the video for it. I think, it’s a, well, we are really happy to be supported by. But I think, it was too safe. I mean, it doesn’t awake anything in you. It’s okay, if it comes out. It’s a perfect radio track. Nobody really hates it ‘cause there is nothing there to hate. But there is nothing to love really unless you are a real fan of the band. And I think that it would be more important to make brave moves like, you know, the pop/rock bands like Pink. There’s like you and your hand and it’s, “Fuck you” and stuff like that. I think “6-0” or “Birds And Bees” would have been really great. Honestly that’s why we wanted to make an own video ‘cause the record company decided to make videos for “The Whole Story” which is fine and “Not again” which we hated, the video by the way. It is not even published in Scandinavia. So we decided actually, we haven’t been touring much, but we decided to put some money inside and we paid the “Birds And Bees” video. We had a lot of fun. It was the first, after “Fairytale Gone Bad”, good Sunrise Avenue video. Same thing happened with “Welcome To My Life” and it was a total mess up and we didn’t wanna go there. So we handled the whole project, the one you have hopefully seen already, which, I think, is really good for the song again. With really tiny budget, with really fast schedules. Next time I will not give it away. Well, it’s a kind of, you know, if you wanna have a big record company on your side, you have to let them make decisions for you and hey, we had a number one hit in Germany with it. It was the world champion title song, it was played everywhere. So probably it’s good that it reminded people of Sunrise Avenue. Now we just have to hope that “Popgasm” lasts, lives long enough to be able to show the people the other side of the album as well. I don’t know. But you know, for me, of course every artist thinks like this. But I mean, for me playing safe is always playing it fully. And the real strength of this album are “Welcome To My Life”, “Birds And Bees”, “6-0”, even “Something sweet” or some like that, “Bad” whatever. But hey, if somebody would have a crystal ball, everybody would make the right choice and you know. But if you have it, you could visit us every time. I remember, we had this studio session in Finland. We invited everybody from Sweden, London, Denmark, Germany these managers, record company people, publishers, label people offered them sushi and champagne at our studio and put them in the control room and played them the songs for the first time. And then we said, “Okay, here comes the first single “Birds And Bees.” and one of them started crying. I was so excited about the whole thing. It was just a stupid idea we started. “This is not Sunrise Avenue. They will gonna hate you. This is too dangerous.” Of course it is a bit dangerous but fuck that. I think it’s a good song and it is so much fun, you know. This is like probably a lot of people think, “What the fuck is this song about.” I don’t know how to do a rap. It’s so embarrassing. And then there’s this part where nobody plays anything but you can hear this tiger voice. But it’s fun. That are emotions.
N & S: The video is pretty cool and I guess, if you don’t know you as a band and see this first, they think, “These guys are crazy. They must come from Finland.”
SA: You can imagine how much fun it was doing it ‘cause it’s like we did “The Whole Story” video and we were filming and filming and filming and filming and then I had the license for 15 Minutes to use the whole crew, lights, everything and I put the guys and, you know, I was like the director. I just changed the shirts and put the Popgasm sign behind us. So cool. I liked doing the teachers stuff and like, you know, throwing up stuff. That was fun.
N & S: „Welcome To My Live“ will be your next single. You wrote in your blog that this is your most personal song ever. Like you said, you already did a video for that song, when you decided against that one and shoot a new one with your own ideas. Is it difficult to meet the requirements of a song, which means so much to you, with a video?
SA: No, only problem with the first was, it looked like shit. It looked like a joke from the 80ies. I looked like 67 years old, not 64 as I do it today. I mean, everything was wrong. I mean, if you look at the playing parts, Sami doesn’t have drum sticks. And it looked like, fuck, I don’t know. Bad quality, unsharp, everything was really, really bad. When I saw it, I was like, “Okay, the second video we’re not gonna use.” We had a video problem all the time ‘cause the problem is for the directors that we are not a pop band definite, we are a rock band on stage but on the album we are a bit more pop and we are like really normal guys and everybody has tried to find this edge to the videos like “The Whole Story”. They put the leather jackets out, I would never do that again honestly. I will wear this Puma shirt for the next video. I mean for “Birds And Bees” I had a three euro H & M shirt that fits. But it just was so bad, it didn’t work. And that song is far too good to be destroyed with a bad video. So we really like it. There was a really talented director in Finland who really is into the band and the whole thing how we see it and he is a cinematic guy. So he said that we can definitely like push it really low, do it really easy and make it look good. We made this script together with him and you know, I remember, I saw the first edit with all the mistakes still and stuff. But you know, nobody is perfect and it takes hard work sometimes. We also recorded 40 songs for the album. You know, versions and versions and new stuff and this stuff. Sometimes you have to do the double work to get to the result or to realise that the first one was actually the best. Billie Jean, the song, they mixed it 72 times and do you know which one they took? Number two. That’s the legendary thing. And you know, there was a reason. They really trusted that after that and then they give it a big budget and it became the world hit. One of the biggest ever.
N & S: I think that you have materially more innovative songs on “Popgasm” than on “On The Way To Wonderland”. Who had the ideas for example for this kind of rap at “Birds And Bees”, these kind of “Schlager” intro at “Kiss ‘N’ Run” or the strings at “6-0”? Do you work that out in collaboration with Jukka?
SA: That was at “Birds And Bees” the rap thing. It’s not a rap actually, it’s more of a talking. It was like Sami had played the drums in this weird set and the sound was already really big. And I was supposed to go to the vocal booth where you record the vocals and I went to the toilette and I was washing my hands and Jukka was just fixing something for the song. And I just said, “I’m looking at you…” and he was like, “Can you do that again?” and I was like, “Sure. Are you serious?” and he said, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, let’s do that.” So it was a mistake. And you know, that’s what EMI upset down. The violin part in “6-0” that was, I had the song completely composed but Jukka said, “Okay, we’re not gonna use the band for this.” The string thing was his idea and he actually composed it like let’s make room for it. “Kiss ‘N’ Run” production, that’s one of the songs that the record company forced us to do. But fuck that, name of the game. Not my idea definitely. It’s the first song we wrote with Riku and I’m a bit sad, it sounds like that on the album. Sorry producer, but that’s how I feel about it. But hey, it’s better to have it that way on the album then not to have it at all. It’s a good song. It would be a really good rock thing. I think, we are gonna use it next year for the something special we do. Maybe someday hopefully nobody will write about it.
Sunrise Avenue – Welcome to my life @Tonhalle/München
Sunrise Avenue – Choose to be me @Tonhalle/München
Sunrise Avenue – Not again @Tonhalle/München
Sunrise Avenue München 22.11.2009 Monk Bay
Sunrise Avenue München 22.11.2009 Sail away with my
Sunrise Avenue München 22.11.09 Bye Bye Beatboxen
Sunrise Avenue – The whole story @Tonhalle/München
Sunrise Ave – Forever Yours @ München
Sunrise Ave – Bad @ München.MPG
Sunrise Ave – Fairytale Gone Bad @ München.MPG
Sunrise Avenue in München – a capella performed by Samu and Osmo
Hey guys here are photos with Sunrise Avenue @ Munich
Sunrise Avenue Ludwigsburg 21.11.09 Samu
Sunrise Ave – Monk Bay @ Ludwigsburg.MPG
Sunrise Avenue – Forever Yours 21.11.09 Ludwigsburg Popgasm Tour
Sunrise Avenue – Rising Sun 21.11.09 Ludwigsburg Popgasm Tour
Sunrise Avenue “Fairytale gone bad” live in Ludwigsburg
Sunrise Avenue – Destiny and No Woman No Cry (21.11.09)
Sunrise Avenue 21.11.09 Ludwigsburg RikuSolo/Bad
Sunrise Ave – No Woman No Cry @ Ludwigsburg.MPG
Sunrise Avenue – Samu and Osmo rap Bye Bye and Osmo sings I Gotta Feeling (21.11.09)
Sunrise Avenue – Dream Like A Child 21.11.09 Ludwigsburg
Sunrise Ave – Destiny @ Ludwigsburg.MPG
Sunrise Ave – Nasty 1 @ Ludwigsburg
Sunrise Ave – Nasty 2 @ Ludwigsburg.MPG
Sunrise Avenue – Welcome to my life; live Ludwigsburg
Sunrise Ave – Sail Away With Me @ Ludwigsburg.MPG
Sunrise Avenue – The Whole Story live Ludwigsburg
Sunrise Avenue Konzert live in Ludwigsburg –Monk Bay–
Hey guys here are photos with Sunrise Avenue @ Ludwigsburg
Here is the video from Popstars
