I decided to update this diary so that you'd know, what has happened lately and what we are thinking about it as there's been a lot going on.
The songs for the Eurovision Song Contest are ready and they'll soon be broadcasted for everyone to hear at Radio Suomi. The names of our songs are Anyone Anymore and Wild and Violent. I hope that you like them. Anyone Anymore is my personal favourite and it would be great to win the whole contest with that song. Still, we still have a long way to go and therefore we will need your help, dear fans, for a few times still.
In addition to finishing the contest songs we've been in Germany for a couple of times. The first trip was a three-day promotional visit during which we gave interviews for several magazines and had some photo sessions as well. The most exciting thing was to visit music channel VIVA's very popular talk show called "Live!", which was naturally sent out live. It was the first time when we had to try to speak English instead of our dear native Finnish in a live broadcast. Eventually it went quite nicely although at first it really felt tedious. The host only spoke German and we got a simultaneous translation - with some delay - from the interpreter into our ear monitors. Because of that delay, it always took us five seconds after the host has finished his question before we were able to answer. As you know, we only know a couple of words in German. As a whole, that trip went very nicely with no extraordinary incidents. I think that a more exact diary about that trip will be published in the next issue of Suosikki magazine, most probably with some photos.
The next trip was a five-day visit to The Principal Studios, located near Munster. That place is an enormous mansion in the middle of peaceful countryside. It was so cosy a place that we could easily think of recording a whole album there. This time we only recorded one song and it was an extremely soohting experience. The mansion was so nice that it might have become our new home. For example, there's a private movie theatre with a selection of 350 movies and the music archives contained tens of thousands of songs. Of course, it was possible for us to have a jam session whenever we felt like it. The living room was about 300 square meters and it was equipped with silver screen, pool table, computers and other nice things to keep us in good mood. The recording equipment was of top quality and the crew there was very friendly. Still, I must admit that I missed our regular producer-recorder Erno Laitinen and his moustache a bit.
During that trip we greatly enjoyed all kinds of German delicacies. They do have better sausages there. Also the cheese selection was delicious as well as greasy and German wine and beer were both very tasty and nicely priced so now I believe in those stories I've heard from other travelers. At the studio they had this great service that we got to write a shopping list each day. Then Tony, who did a bit of everything at the studio, went to the store to get our groceries and we never saw any invoices. For example, we had fresh bread rolls every morning for breakfast. We thought that it was a bit too much for us because we would have been quite happy with normal bread but well, we might have gotten used to it. Still, I missed rye bread and Finnish cheese snacks. I'm a big friend of cheese snacks and I don't understand, why the German manufacturers ruin the product by adding some kind of nut flavoring.
The recording and production went really smoothly and, in our opinion, the material is very good. It was great that the producer accepted almost all of our ideas and we were allowed to adjust the guitar sounds by ourselves - and nobody had any negative comments. It felt like there wouldn't have been any producer but that we had done all the producing by ourselves.
The scariest thing took place on Thursday January 18, which was our last day in the studio. On that day there was a powerful storm going over Germany and 30 people perished. Four of them were killed on the same region, where our studio was located. R.I.P. We didn't suffer from the storm, save for one electricity shortage but still, the storm was scary enough. During daytime some of us went to the yard to watch the storm and I have never seen a storm like that in Finland. According to the news the wind occasionally reached the speed of 50m/s. In continental Finland, even the worst of the storms are in general just half of that. Anyways, it wasn't safe to stand on the yard too long, because the storm got worse all the time. In the evening when we were watching a movie together we felt the whole house shaking and there was a horrible noise because the wind extracted tiles from the roof. Sometimes it felt like there'd been a thunder just above us. Through the window we saw how the cars in the parking lot were swaying and shaking like toy cars. Fortunately, the storm calmed down for the night and just before we had to hit the road.
The day of our return was quite hard. We finished working in the studio at 1 am German time. Then we packed our personal items and went to bed. The alarms were set for 3 am. After a quick shower and getting dressed we entered the minibus and drove 1½ hours to the Düsseldorf airport. Once there, we headed for the security control and that was where my journey was about to end.
There wasn't too much time left to the departure when it was my turn to pass the metal detector. All coats, bags etc. went through the x-ray machine. The metal detector gate started beeping when I passed through it. After that, a man wearing a military-looking uniform asked me to spread my arms and examined me from head to toe with a smaller metal detector gadget. When he reached my shoes he started talking to me in German and I informed him that I only spoke English. He then asked me to remove my shoes. So I did and they put my shoes through the x-ray machine and then started examining them, all guys together. There were like 10 guys wearing uniforms - and inspecting my shoes. At one point one of them came to ask me when my flight would depart. I told him that it would be in fifteen minutes and then became a bit worried because the guy answered "Hopefully you can make it".
They had to call their boss and he came, took my shoes and carried them away. A bit later one of them came to inform me: "Come and see". Well, I followed them to watch the monitor of x-ray machine and they explained that there's something in the shoes, which they can't recognize and that's the reason why they can't allow me to pass. I looked at the picture and saw those little morsels they were talking about. At that point I realized that the sole of the shoe must be cracked and there is pebble inside the sole. It took them painfully long to check the shoes. They asked for my passport and the boarding card again and started making phone calls, every now and then checking my passport. It was only five minutes before the scheduled departure time when they returned my shoes and said "Only stones, only stones". Nothing else but little stones. Then I had to run. I was pissed off but of course relieved. Even though Germany is a nice country it's still great to return home.
When we arrived at Helsinki, our own crew was there to welcome us. We jumped into our bus and drove to the Hartwall Arena, because we were to play a gig there at NRJ Radio Awards happening. It was a nice party at the Arena and our gig went very nicely. I and Theon presented an Award for the first time in our lives so it was something nice and new. It was also our first time to participate a very official and well-organized press conference. We were sitting there behind a table with microphones in our hands and the group of reporters asked questions, one by one, and we answered them. It was nice as well and definitely the correct way to organize meetings with the press. In the end of the evening, after we had enjoyed the refreshments offered by NRJ, it was time to get back tobus and start our journey to Tampere. And then, eventually we were home, tired but happy and with lots of new experiences.
Vivian Sin'amor
