‘Dialog’ will
be released on September 11th on the Lion Music label, what kind of
expectations do you have for it?
MJK - It is our debut album and the songs on the
album were chosen to represent the diversity of Status Minor’s material. We
chose some easy songs as well as progressive ones for it. I hope that the
audience notices us in a good way. I hope that releasing through Lion Music will
add to our credibility, because Lion has a good reputation in this genre of
music. I hope we’ll attract some new listeners and perhaps Dialog will give us a
chance to do bigger gigs.
Jukka – I certainly hope to get a big bunch of
good reviews, do some more interviews and get some concerts. Hopefully it gets a
thought stuck into people’s minds along the lines of “Status Minor play really
good music; I wish they would have a gig in my city some day.”
If you had to chose one song you feel represents Status Minor,
which song would you choose and why? Personally I would pick ‘Dialog’, a song I
feel captures the essence of the band pretty well, even with its very strong
Dream Theater feel…
MJK – Oh, you like Dialog…well we spoke about
albums songs and we decided to write different kinds of songs for it. As you
have noticed there is progressive stuff like the title track and Out of these
Streets but there are also songs like Stand and Think and Masquerade, which are
more “easy listening” songs. We did our best to write a versatile album. I think
it made us realize that we should go more progressive. But we decided to use all
the songs we wrote for it. My favourites are Out of These Streets and Dialog.
Jukka – I would also pick Dialog as the one song
which represents us best. It’s a lengthy song with a great deal of musical
variation– heaviness, softness, fast playing, weird time signatures and also
very simple parts with almost cheesy vocal lines.
How did you come up with the title for the album and does that
song represents the essence of the album for you?
MJK – Well, I am the “old man” of the band and I
have seen a lot in my life. Maybe you can hear some reflections of that there. I
spoke with Karinen and Saarinen some years ago and said that “I don’t have
anything to say or I can’t save the world, so I will write something that I have
really seen and lived.” The basic themes of Dialog are mistakes, attitudes and
relationships. I am an uncomplicated man, so I made my lyrics so. Karinen did
his lyrics with his very own idea. But the title “walked” ahead of us and Sami
came up with that name after we spoke about it sometime last January.
Jukka – For me, most of the lyrics that Markku
and I wrote are either about two persons discussing something face to face or
with letters, or about internal discussion and reflection. Most of the stuff
that we wrote is about the simple problems of simple people on a very personal
level – so it’s more about having trouble with your wife/girlfriend or your boss
than global warming or the various wars going on in different places. I think
that the title Dialog fits those themes quite well.
Who has
produced and mixed the album? How does the final result compare to the idea you
had going into the studio?
MJK – We noticed a long time ago that we don’t
have enough money to record a full album in a pro studio, so I built my own home
studio (CatPissStudio). We got a chance to record the drums in a professional
studio and that was the start of the Dialog sessions in summer 2008. Our way of
producing songs is quite easy: Saarinen writes the music and makes a raw demo
version by himself (recording guitars, bass, keys and programming drums).
Usually after that I do my vocal melodies and that’s it. In every song every
member will do their own tricks and they fit their own ideas into them. Karinen
and Pilve always come up with slightly different ways of playing their
instruments than Saarinen originally envisioned. We recorded the guitars,
keyboards, bass and vocals in our home studios and that gave us time to do it
without any rush. The sounds on the album are not too complex, it’s all in all
pretty much like a live performance. We didn’t put any extra samples or weird
sounds in the background for this one but kept it pretty organic. Mixing is a
job that you should leave for professionals and thus we chose Nino Laurenne for
this job, and he did a great one. All in all, the sessions offered a great
possibility to learn about music production as we did a big part of that job
ourselves. The final versions of the songs are pretty identical to what we
initially had in mind. Saarinen has an unbelievable grasp of melody - he is the
mastermind of Status Minor with a capital M.
Jukka – Yeah, Sami is a guy with a strong vision
about what he wants to do. Of course once the first demos are ready, we chew it
a bit as a band and make some modifications, but at least the last time we had
already decided how we wanted the songs to end up when we started the recordings
for real. We did add some minor extra flavour here and there during the
recording process, but not that much. And that’s most likely how it should go if
you are producing your own album. You know what you want to do and then you do
it. If you want to do something different, then you have already decided it
before you finally start to record the material.
Tell us a bit
about artwork…
MJK – Actually our first idea was something
totally different, but when one design artist tried to visualize what we meant,
it really didn’t work. So we spoke about our problems with Matti Kuusniemi who
is a long time friend of Saarinen. Kuusniemi has been always very close to the
band and he realized what we wanted to see in the cover art. So he made only one
draft and that was it! Two stone faces against each others, silent and calm, sad
and thoughtful.
Status Minor –
any special story behind your name?
MJK – I’ll pass on this one. Status Minor was
already the name of the band before I joined it.
Sami – We were thinking about the name with Marko
Kolehmainen, who used to play the bass in Status Minor back in the day. We even
browsed a Latin dictionary in hopes of finding a good name, but that didn’t
help. The name Status Minor came from some combination of ideas for a name, and
I just can’t remember what those names were. Anyway, we were instantly happy
with the name as it felt unique in a way.
What plans lies ahead of Status Minor, any touring plans…?
MJK – Oh yeah, it would be very nice to do some
touring. I have tried to organize gigs and I can say that it’s really hard. I
think that when a band is trying to organize gigs by itself it is an almost
impossible mission. My goal is to get some cool gigs outside Finland. I think
there is a much bigger audience and interest for progressive music overseas.
Jukka – There is also the next studio album in
planning, and I’m happy to say that things are going rather well at the moment.
There’s a lot of really good demo material already written. As Dialog was
already mastered in April, there’s been enough time to first take our minds off
the music and then after a while start creating something new. But hey, I won’t
say anything more about this because as far as I know, this interview is
supposed to be about our first album, not the second one…
How healthy to you think the progressive metal scene is nowadays?
MJK – I have listened to a lot of music in my
life. The progressive metal scene is wide and you can see some main sub-genres
inside it. I very much like Symphony X’s style of rock oriented progressive
metal. Their live gigs are so charismatic and I think they are leading one
sub-genre of prog metal. One of the biggest bands in another sub-genre, or maybe
the main genre of prog metal, is Dream Theater, followed by a big number of
great bands that have Dream Theater as their main inspiration. Circus Maximus
have their own status in a sub-genre too. They are leading Scandinavian prog
metal. But there are many brilliant prog metal bands alongside those names like
DGM, Adagio, etc. etc. It is too hard to name all these good bands. Well… the
scene is in good health, and I hope that there will still be tons of passion in
prog metal too. Prog metal is music for people who really enjoy listening to
music. If you listen to a song only once, chances are that you will not get much
out of a prog song, but it opens up a lot after 10 – 20 listenings.
Jukka – I’d say that it’s healthy. Extremely
progressive music is still music for a rather small audience with refined taste
but there are also a number of bands that are using progressive elements in
quite mainstream sounding music to give it some extra flavour. I think that it’s
a good direction for things. If you want to make good rock music, you shouldn’t
restrict yourself to using only 4/4 if your song would really benefit from a
short part that goes to seven. And if you are labelled as a progressive band,
and limiting your expression to only weird time signatures, obscene scales and
all that, I think that you’re not doing yourself any favours either.
Name the five
musical pieces that you want to bring with you when we send you to hell or
heaven!
MJK – Queensryche – Operation Mindcrime, Badlands
– Voodoo Highway, Symphony X – Odyssey, Masterplan – Aeronautics, Deep Purple –
Burn.
Sami –
Symphony X – V, Dream Theatre – Scenes from a Memory, Nightmare before Christmas
soundtrack, Man with the Harmonica soundtrack, and all Malmsteen’s albums.
Thank you very
much for answering my questions. Do you have any last rants for our readers?
MJK – Stay
PROGRESSIVE and trust yourself!
