We are going to Germany!!!

This piece of news is finally free to publish and it's very nice. As mentioned in the news, we signed a record deal with the German company Gun Records, owned by Sony BMG. The contract covers the whole Europe. For us the deal has been a reality since September 30, 2006, when the bosses of the company arrived at Helsinki to watch our gig at Club Ooppera. Let's go back to that day.

The day started in a very usual way when I woke up in Tampere. We were to leave for Helsinki already before noon. I was feeling a bit weak because of the previous day. In addition, we all were somewhat nervous in the morning, because for a long time we had known that very important people would come from Germany to see us live. Therefore, we now had the chance of our lifetime to either ruin it all or reach again a new level on our career.

In the morning, when I managed to drag myself to our bus, Christian a.k.a. Kike came to me and said that Marko is in the hospital. Marko is our front-of-house sound technician, who is responsible for how the band sounds to the audience. When working in that position, it is extremely important to know all the songs and the usual gig routines. When Kike told me that "Marko is in the hospital and probably can't come tonight", I panicked. I always feel stress because of everything possible. And this time, when it was about our most important gig this far and about our loyal technician not being able to make it, my heart started racing and I felt anxious and depressed.

Well, there's nothing you can do when someone keeps on fainting and isn't feeling too well. We couldn't do anything else but keep our fingers crossed wishing that the replacement sound technician would be able to do Marko's work. Marko had informed us that he would come in the evening, if possible but nothing was sure, yet.

With feelings of insecurity and fear, we started off towards Helsinki by our tour bus, "Urnos". As always, when going to Helsinki, we had our first break - to have some breakfast - in Toijala at "ABC" service station. A cup of coffee and a bread roll is a very good combination but if the previous night has been a long one, the unhealthy Finnish junk food tastes good. Despite of the delicious breakfast we felt quite tired and nervous for the rest of the journey.

When we reached Club Ooppera, the band started to prepare both mentally and physically for leaving the depths of Urnos. However, part of the band was still in the bus, when our hard-working crew had already transferred all of our backline and PA equipment from the bus to the club. We spent some moments outside the club greeting our fans, who had come there to see us and then our orchestra entered the club.

The club turned out to be a nicer place than we had assumed it to be and that cheered us up a bit. The "stage" seemed to be a difficult one because it was bordered in the front and in the back by sofas, which took away a great deal of the stage's depth. Because of this we made a somewhat extraordinary decision: Our Julian a.k.a. Juke and his drums were placed so that Juke had to sit on the sofa instead of the normal drum seat. The sofa was quite low so Juke was given an additional piece of foam plastic to sit on. It may sound tedious but fortunately it didn't seem to affect his playing.

After having seen the stage, we found our way to the backstage. It was comfortable in size and the refreshments were what we had asked for. I think that the restaurant manager is the guy, who won the reality show "Baari" on SubTV, and he seemed to be a genuinely nice guy. He took good care of us and thanks to him, we definitely started to feel a bit better.

At soundcheck we noticed that the PA equipment, which we had rented for this gig, was really worth its price. The sound was clearly better than what the slightly less expensive equipment, which we normally use, is able to produce. Because there were no problems at the soundcheck, we started to feel more optimistic. After finishing the delicious pizzas we went backstage to get ready for the night's show.

The excitement kept on growing, everybody was silent and the atmosphere wasn't at all relaxed. It was obvious - no matter whom you looked at - that tonight's show was something else than a standard gig. We tried to kill the time by eating, drinking and struggled to maintain the conversation but with no success: we were all too nervous. Fortunately we got some good news: our front-of-house sound technician Marko arrived. He wasn't feeling too well and had fainted again a few times during the day, which added to our nervousness. If he fainted during the gig, there would be some problems.

Before the gig began, Jakke Lindberg, the boss of our producing company came to meet us. He said that the German visitors had arrived and that they were going to come to the backstage after the gig to tell their opinion. I was sick of excitement. My hands were shaking and the heartbeat was out of control. It was about 20 minutes to the gig, when we started putting on the ear monitors and had the final, calming moments of inhaling before the gig.

When it was the time to leave the backstage, our nervousness was out of this world. Our monitor sound technician Mike came to accompany us from the backstage to the stage. We saw that there was a nice amount of audience and they seemed to be in a good mood. Still, the excitement was unbearable until the first song began. All the nervousness vanished immediately, when the first chords were played and we were really having fun. The gig went on nicely, the singing was good, the playing was good and our mood was definitely very good.

The only negative thing was the small size of the stage, and because of that we couldn't jump or run around as much as we would have wanted to do but anyways, it was great to play there. At some point of the gig playing became even more enjoyable, because I spotted the German bosses in the audience and they seemed to be fully enjoying the show. Then the gig was over and we played the safe and familiar Guardian Angel as an encore. The club was about to explode because of the great energy, which radiated between us and the audience. Huge thanks to the audience for making this gig so splendid. I think that it was probably one of our best gigs we had played by that day.

After the gig we hurried to the backstage to rest a little, to wipe off some of the sweat and to enjoy the refreshments. It didn't take long for the Germans to come to the backstage together with the CEOs of our Finnish record companies (EMI and Bullhead) and the export manager. When Wolfgang Funk, the president of GUN Records entered the room, he looked very serious and his first words were "You suck!" For a second everybody was very quiet - but when Wolfgang burst in laughter, we realized that he had only been joking. Then they nearly drowned us with superlatives, they praised us and we were just listening to them and each of us was smiling very widely indeed. The Germans told us how much they had enjoyed our gig, how much they enjoy our album and that they were ready to sign a major record deal with us.

Wolfgang shared his stories about seeing HIM eight years ago playing at Tavastia for hardly 25 people. But already then he was completely sure about the band and wanted to sign them. That's what happened and I believe that you know the rest of the story... Wolfgang said that he's maybe even more certain about us than what he was about HIM back then. He promised that one day our band will be at least as big a name as HIM is now and that he's willing to do everything possible (and impossible) so that we could be a big success. Those words are meant to be taken seriously because we know that this man was the one, who has made in addition to HIM also Bullet for my Valentine and Within Temptation "big names". We spent a couple of hours discussing how much they'd be willing to invest in us and how to kick off the things in the rest of Europe. He invited us to visit his villa in Ibiza and we will remember that invitation. I don't think that Mr. Funk completely understood what he did but everything will be clear, sooner or later.

One of the fine features of GUN Records is that they don't want to be an enormous label with far too many artists. GUN Records prefers to have a limited amount of artists on their list so that they can fully support each and every artist of theirs. They don't want to sign bands just for to have them. Instead, they want to have artists with enough potential to grow to be huge. That is why it is confusing, surprising and flattering that Wolfgang counts us in that group. Let's hope that Wolfgang's instinct is still in its prime and we'll see what is going to happen. The band feels ready for some serious action. After all, this is one of those big steps that have been in our minds and plans from the very beginning of the band.

We're now living really exciting times and it is thanks to you, our fans, who have brought us to this position, where we are now. Hopefully you will follow us on our journey. Lovex thanks. See you again.

Vivian Sin'amor