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Interview w/ Jyrki69 of The 69 Eyes
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After a triumphant gig in New York the night before, the Finnish band The 69 Eyes are relaxing in of all places, MTV personality Bam Margera’s backyard at the moment. I could hear Margera at some point during the interview, talking about playing golf in the backyard (the scene will probably end up in something that was being taped at the time of the interview). The band and Bam go back a long ways, and were enjoying the afternoon festivities when lead singer Jyrki gave me a call. The band is out in support of the band’s tenth record, “Back In Blood”, which came out in September. During the conversation, Jykri and I discussed how he was inspired to form the band, as well as his initial meeting with Margera. Here is interview with Jyrki:
AM: How has the tour gone so far?
J69: To tour in the U.S. during Halloween is a fun time for us, we haven’t done it before and its been great since nobody celebrates Halloween in Finland. We played New York City last night and that is a special place for us. Even being a band from Finland, I see a lot of major inspiration through the bands of New York, such as the Ramones, New York Dolls and Kiss. Even though I am from Finland, I see that we were a lot of the characteristics of a band from a place like New York.
AM: What inspired you to form a band like the 69 Eyes?
J69: When I was about 17 or, I was what you would call a “rock tourist” in New York City. I would go to clubs there and people would come up to me and say “you look like a vampire”. They said it to me enough where I think a lot of the music and things that I write end up revolving around blood and vampires and such. We've always this nihilistic approach to the band, but we've always had the same guys in the band and never had a business plan towards the band. We are just out fulfilling our dream, and still have some dreams yet to fulfill.
AM: What was the mindset going in to record “Back In Blood”?
J69: When we started recording, I wrote a 5 song demo for the album. I didn’t really mean to write about things like vampires on this record, but it ended up coming out that way. I was considering writing new songs when I met with producer Matt Hyde for the first time before recording. I told him the things I wrote all had to do with vampires and blood, and he was the first one to say “that’s a great idea”. He mentioned something about the “Twilight” movie, which is really popular in the States. But seeing the phenomenon of that movie, vampires have been the big pop culture theme right now in America, so we kept with it.
AM: In writing music and songs for the band, what do you see as the biggest influence on you as a artist?
J69: For me, it all goes back to Elvis Presley. I remember seeing him on TV when I was younger in Finland, signing “Hound Dog” and I’m singing with a hair brush in the mirror. The legend of Elvis still goes on, and you can never go wrong with an Elvis song, he’s still cool to this day. Wherever you go and see in music, its generally influenced in some way by Elvis.
AM: What do you find to be the major differences between your success in Finland versus the success in the States?
J69: In Finland, we are a mainstream band. We’ve had gold and platinum records there and play much bigger venues there. In Finland, its pretty much all family entertainment (laughs). Here in the US, we are more of this mysterious cult band. In Finland at the shows, not too many people dress in all black. When we play shows in other countries, it looks like Halloween every day.
AM: How did the band meet Bam Margera?
J69: We were backstage at a H.I.M. concert in Finland, and there was this guy hanging out backstage. Come to find out, he’s the one guy not speaking Finnish. We ended up going out to a few bars in Helsinki and got to know each other. He directed a video for “Lost Boys” and its pretty natural for us to have him direct videos. Every time we hang out, its like a long lost Halloween weekend.
The 69 Eyes plays at I-Rock Nightclub this Friday, October 23rd. Tickets are $15 and are available at www.ticketmaster.com. Additional 69 Eyes dates and band info can be found at www.69eyes.com.
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