Negative, heavymetal.de, 7?/2006
Ilka went to sound Negative …
Negative
Music doesn’t only play in Helsinki…
NEGATIVE
Despite the strict daily schedule (the night before, Negative had to play a show in Finland, where it’s enviably cool outside…) a good-humoured Jonne Aaron, lead singer of Negative, welcomes me to our interview which is done within the scope of this year’s Amphi Festival.
Heavy-Metal.de: Last year you played your first concert in Germany at the festival Bochum Total. What has changed for you since you played there?
Jonne Aaron: So many great things have been happening in one year. We’ve been touring a lot. In Germany and Finland as well as in the rest of Europe. The tour with HIM and The Rasmus at the beginning of this year gave us the possibility to reach a new crowd. Our first headliner tour in autumn 2005 was also very successful. In the meantime, we recorded our third record, Anorectic, and it turned out to be damn great. We have grown as a band and the harmony within the band is better by now compared to one year ago. Bochum Total was the first show we ever played in Germany and we were positively surprised about how many people came to see us. Unfortunately we can only play 30 - 40 minutes tonight. If we could decide ourselves, we would like to play for a longer time.
H.M.de: So your third record is finished now. When is it going to be released in Germany?
J.A.: It’s going to be released everywhere at the same time (anticipated date is September 27th, 2006). Like this, it’s easier to enter the charts (laughs). And this time there’s only going to be one version for the videos. For “Frozen to lose it all” for example, we had two versions. The first version was thought to be only for the Finish market, but Viva and MTV did not want to play this version, so we had to do a second one for Germany. This time we’re prepared. We’re doing this promotional tour and it’s just a fun thing to do. It’s been a great year, and thinking about how much you can experience in 12 months, the last year was completely filled.
H.M.de: How did you proceed in making the new record?
J.A.: When we recorded our first LP, „War of Love“ (not available in Germany so far) we had a great time in the studio. We didn’t really know anything about working in a studio, though - we simply signed the contract and started recording - it was more like a big party than working. The following success really surprised us.
We did know a little more about how to approach the work in the studio when we recorded our second one. This time, for the third one, we already knew that we had really strong songs before we went to the studio. The record is really special, there’s almost something magic about it. When you listen to it you can actually grasp how much we enjoy playing. We put our whole heart and soul into that record.
When Jay recorded his drum-part, he did some of them almost naked because he wanted to put emphasis on aggression and roughness. Hiili, our producer gave us lots of good ideas and helped us to get better and better.
H.M.de: I once read that you said about „Anorectic“: „our third record is the ugly sister of the beautiful twins War of Love and Sweet&Deceitful“ - is that what you wanted to express?
J.A.: Well… ugly might be too harsh. You should rather say: if you mix up the first two records and add more professionalism to it, than it’s “Anorectic”. Of course there are the familiar elements such as my voice, but it’s rougher this time. When we wrote and played the songs we always asked ourselves if we could meet our own demands, if, for example, I can do more with my voice. - But it worked, and you can hear it.
H.M.de: Are you going to play new songs tonight?
J.A.: Yes, we’re going to play the new single „Planet of the Sun“. We’d like to play “Glory of the Shame”, the opener to our new record, because that one’s simply great live. “Glory of the Shame” reveals a wholly new side of NEGATIVE, something we’ve never done like this before - classic rock with really heavy guitars. Unfortunately, we don’t have enough time for that tonight.
H.M.de: The Amphi Festival is a Gothic-Festival in the first place. You say yourself that Negative is rather a rock band. Do you use this festival as a way to make yourself known to a bigger spectrum of people?
J.A.: Yes, we do like to present our music to new crowds. Negative are not a classical Gothic band but we do want to cross the lines. It doesn’t make any difference which group you belong to as long as the music is good and as long as it works. Music is a common language. I don’t want to be forced into a certain direction. It’s fun to look into the people’s faces when they think: ‘who the hell is that?’ - It’s a challenge for us.
H.M.de: You’ve been elected ‚newcomer of the year’ by the German magazine Orkus. You’ve been together as a band since 1997 and you’re very successful in Finland in Japan already - what is it like for you to be called a newcomer in Germany?
J.A.: Once you’ve tasted the blood, you want more of it. It has always been a big dream of mine to have success in Germany ever since HIM managed their breakthrough with “Join Me”. Before we signed our contract we dreamed of playing in Helsinki. I’m in the lucky position to do what I really want to do. I’m thankful to have met the others because I know that we share the same dreams. This is what ‘freedom’ means for me. Negative is not only a band, it’s more like a way of life. Many bands play to live, but we live to play.
H.M.: You’ve been playing Helldone last year. Are there any plans into that direction for this year?
J.A.: No, not so far. But it has been a big success. It was Ville’s (Ville Valo - HIM) idea and I haven’t talked to the guys after the tour, that’s why I can’t say anything about it yet. But we will see what happens. But I hope that our new record Anorectic is going to be so successful that we won’t even have enough time to play Helldone. But that’s only ‘Plan B’. (laughs)
original interview by: Ilka Drockner
translated from: http://www.heavy-metal.de/?id=7416#