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• Popgasm • Tour Diary 2007-2008 • Keikkapäiväkirja • Fairytale video shoot • Fairytalen video • Making of 1st album • Albumin teko |
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17.09.2008 — Samu Hi Guys & Girls So... The shows & festivals are over for 2008 and we will let the hair grow now and spend all available time in studio. It was one hell of a summer with a lot of sweat, rock & roll and there is no words to describe how great it was and how fantastic you were all the way. Last week we had the pleasure to receive our platinum awards for over 200.000 sold albums in Germany. As we don’t have the chance to hug you all for this success(200.000 hugs would be a world record so we do it next time just for the Guinness Book ;), we do it this way: thank you so much for being on our side during the last two years. We all had the best time of our lives and hope and believe that this will continue in 2009 with all of you. And 2010. And 2011. And and and.... Just a "tiny" detail for those who might be interested. Riku is now a full 101 % member of the gang, so give him a warm welcome. Actually I had the feeling that you already did this from the very first day he was on stage with us! He fits perfectly into our bunch of "extremely well behaving" guys from my country, so that’s maybe not a big surprise. He is so nice. I know that when I enter the rehearsal room tomorrow for our morning PopGasm rehearsals at 11:12 (12 minutes late...), he will have a warm cup of coffee there waiting for me. What more could you ask for....? So, back to the studio now (we have one hell of a popgastic challenge here;) – and see you all soon! Doctor Haber Added: 24.08.2008 — Samu Trip to Slovakia & Switzerland & Home I don´t know what the hell is wrong with me, but I slept really well last night. Usually before these trips I get a little stress the evening before, because my daily rhythm is what it is and the 6 or 7 o´clock wake-up is not one of my normal routines. And especially since life´s been pretty hectic the last weeks, there hasn´t really been a break between recording and being Jukka´s slut in studio and traveling all over to play shows. Still even though you might get tired sometimes, I think it´s great to have all these shows to get away from the studio every now and then to get some fresh air. Yesterday was supposed to be a day for production at the studio just like Monday and Tuesday. To ensure the great working conditions, I went out with Aki (our light designer / operator) the night before and we got really wasted. He had been home at 6.30 and I guess I had ended up to my place around the same time. So my head was hurting already as I dragged myself to the studio after midday. When I walked in, the guys told me that the monitors had broken down in the main recording room (where we were supposed to work that day with Jukka) and nobody knew why. So the first 4 hours we just tried to find the reason so I would know what I have to buy or order to replace the broken / damaged parts. It was also a shame the machines broke yesterday because we were supposed to start doing the recordings and production of the new Clark Kent songs in the second room. There´s only 2 songs fully done ready so far and we need some 10 more for their album to be released in January. The band is so amazing and the guys are very very great! I am thinking of having them support us in Europe as they get their album out first. Maybe next year… I´ve been looking at all the new artwork stuff for PopGasm and man it´s hard to chose ;) There seems to be a lot of talented and creative folks around Europe who have brilliant ideas… Let´s see. I must say I am very happy with how the things are working inside the band right now and also with the management and stuff. For the very first time everything is being done professionally and everybody is given the space and freedom to do their job. No matter if it´s playing the bass, producing the album or negotiating a deal. I really still don´t understand how we are able to work with the album without panic about sales figures or dead lines and without pressure of delivering hits. I am sure as the release date gets closer, I will shit in my pants a million times, but it´s great that all is so calm and relaxed now. It helps being open-minded with the Ideas. Actually even the producing process is pretty much left for Jukka. First we have selected the songs from all our Ideas and now I just mostly sit by him and enjoy the master´s work. He just might ask me what I think about this and that idea, usually he doesn´t ;) I must say he is just one fucking blond genius! I can´t wait to sing the final vocals to the songs as soon as we get the new German Neumann U47 microphone for me. Aku (Our Sonic Kitchen MD) had ordered it from somewhere, Munich I guess. It´s a very special mic built in Germany in the 1940´s and the sound is better than with anything else. For my throat at least. I will pay anything for it but I hope Aku is smart when buying it for me what comes to the prices. There have also been a lot of new toys for us and for our inspiration. The latest toy I got is the hand made acoustic baritone guitar built by Mr. Loef, the Finnish guitar builder pro who has sold us 8 of his master pieces already. The sound is almost as low as bass but it´s a guitar. Sounds deep baby! I can´t wait to see on which song we will use it for. We did our first trip to Albania last weekend. None of us had ever been there before. We also had a day off there before the show and since the temperature was +37 and the sun was shining, there were no problems arranging activities. We met this Finnish guy Timo who is building some kind of recycling facility / junkyard for the locals. Timo took us to the local hot spots and worked as our "extra security" guy (drinking all the booze ;) at the festival. The crowd was nice, not too big but nice. The live concert culture seems to be a bit different there than in Central Europe for example, I mean the stage had a grass floor and the crash barriers were replaced with local police forces. If someone got too close to the mic stand, the police removed him or her or just pushed them back. So there was a show for us too ;) And one thing I must say about the folks after the show. I have never seen anyone behaving that well towards the artists at a signing session. They have arranged a table next to the stage at the VIP area where we could sit and have a few drinks after the show. It was more than 30 degrees during our show so the cold beer sounded more than great. We were a bit worried how it would work with all the hundreds of people at the VIP, children and all. I mean if you´d do that in Finland, they would not leave you alone for one second. These folks were very polite, took their picture and / or autograph and walked away. I mean it´s very nice to meet fans and people after the shows, but mostly there are a few persons among them who want to have all the attention for them selves. Most are just great, actually fun. But in Albania they all behaved like programmed and we have never had a signing session as relaxed as that. The local bosses didn´t allow the local promotion girls (+ one guy) party with our crew and us and sure that made Aki & Karri upset. We gave them their favorite pizza to cheer them up. And the bus broke on the mountains from Tirana (capital) to Vlora. We had cold beer, no panic. Raul, Jukka, Karri, MP and the guys were fighting about these special microphone techniques (MS technique) for hours. The argument was whether the sound is real stereo or not. I filmed all the 3-hour philosophy with my DVD cam and I will release the greatest moments smart mouth battle someway someday. Nobody won. They are serving coffee now in the plane……(just a second, I will be right back) But anyhow….We are on our way to Slovakia now and we are performing at the Budzogan Festival in Zilina. I have never been to Slovakia and all I know about the country is some Ice Hockey players (Miroslav Satan above all!) and this one of the top 10 things about my "job" to get to see new places. They say the party after the show is great so we will have to have an extra eye on our crewmembers, especially Karri and Aki. If only they could behave as mature as us band members… Especially Jukka and myself. From Slovakia we fly to Zurich in the afternoon to have a day off there. Shopping, Shopping, Shopping! Or did we go directly to Gampel, don´t remember. I will so go jogging or to gym… If we don´t party too much today… We perform at the Gampel Open Air on Saturday. The only time I was SURE I would die was on stage in Switzerland. We had been in Spain for a week with Jukka, Aki, Karri, Mikko from the management and Aku from Sonic Kitchen. The trip was not a gym trip at all and I remember flying directly to the festival from our little Mediterranean swimming pool. I was so sick and the hang over was something so bad. Anyway, they had built the stage towards the sun and as our stage time was around 5 PM, the sun shone on stage with full power and I was barely able to stand on my feet. After the second song as Karri was bringing me a new guitar, I had to give him also my shirt. I usually don´t like to do that but there I had no choice. And after the third song I had to take the rest off. Was nice to play the full 60 minute set wearing only sneakers and underwear after drinking and partying for a week in Spain… It didn´t look pretty. Sorry for all the families who´s children still can´t make it without professional help. So I hope the stage is not as hot as back then, but now I have been sitting in studio and I even went to gym once this week so I should be fine. We will start planning our little movie project with Karri now before they start landing and tell us to put our MacBooks away…. On the way to Switzerland… The show was just great! They had built the stage inside this huge wooden house on the mountain. The sound was better than ever on stage and the only thing I was a bit worried about was when I jumped off the stage, I really couldn´t see how high the stage is. Didn´t get hurt…;) The crowd was very nice and lovely and after the show we finally got to meet both the local fan club and also the polish fan club teams. Wonder why they all bring us alcohol…;) Those little sweet girls ;) Even though we don´t drink that much… The party was hard so I must sleep now until the plane lands in Prague… I am dead. Jukka´s fault. Still writing….(At studio) There was really no time to post this before so I am sitting here at the studio with Jukka and one little nameless studio assistant and we have our hands on PopGasm. Jukka and me having our little hands on our little baby popgasm…;) Sounds hetero! Anyway. The show in Gampel SUI was just great. It´s very cool how the Swiss arrange their festivals. Everything always works like a Swiss clock and the artist can just relax before and after the show and do the best they can on stage. And they were loud again, just the way we like them ;) We all got ill on the way home. I actually felt it in my throat already on stage on Saturday, but now it really hit at least Jukka and myself a bit. The truth is, we haven´t had one single day off with him for the last month at least and I don´t know if it´s the way of the body to fight back. I really hope we are in good shape next weekend again in Germany. It´s one of the last festivals of the summer and you don´t wanna drive the stage 80 % power because being ill. I need to do my Destiny jumps! One thing that makes me feel a bit better with my running nose is the stuff coming out of the speakers…;) I can´t wait to get this stuff to all of you. I will go home and sleep 12 hours now. Maybe that helps. C U All Soon, von Doctor Added: 22.08.2008 — Samuel Latvia - London - Helsinki Monday, July 28 Whatta week! We just got home last night from Latvia I´m already flying to London. Busy guy ;=) We are in London until Thursday with Jukka and our stylist Tarja shopping clothes for the PopGasm album cover photo shoot and also we have a few meetings with our publisher and some other folks. Then on Wednesday we go see the Kylie Minogue show, we are both signed to EMI so we are invited by them. The only worry is that what if Kylie wants to get married with me immediately and move to Helsinki and make all the babies with me. I mean yes, she has the best ass on this planet but really, where do we fit all her shoes… I will just have to say no. (And Kylie if you´re reading this, I´m sorry about going through our relationship here in public...) We were in Latvia in Liepaja playing at the B-fest on Saturday. Whatta party!!!! Even though we had to start the show 50 minutes late because of the Russian band before us played way too long and there were some tech problems, the mood on stage was awesome. It´s always a bit uncomfortable to go to new countries because you never know if you will have an audience or not. Usually there is someone there. This time there definitely were enough folks. The stage was built on the beach and there was also a descent catwalk. I love catwalks. My friend Kimmo (the guy I wrote "The day you fail again" about) was there too with his 3 golf mates. It was the first time he saw our show outside Finland. They are on this Baltian golf trip but even they were smart enough to have Sunday free ;=) We didn´t sleep at all that night. And thanx for everyone who joined us at Kimmo´s suite after the show. I heard they could fix the Jacuzzi… So we´re landing soon and tonight there´s only the challenge of getting to the center and finding the hotel. I don´t know London THAT much, but Jukka´s been here a zillion times. I will let him guide me… Part II Thursday, July 31 We are somewhere above Amsterdam on our way back home. The trip was very great. Feels like I have been on holiday. The weather was just awesome and the locals say you don´t get that every time in London. And so where the shops. We all have the biggest Rimowa suitcases and they were half empty on the way there. This morning I had to sit on mine to get it closed. But if the stuff you push into your bags is from All Saints, Urban Outfitters, Top man and all the cool design stores, you should not complain. I think we went a bit over budget, but I will explain something at the record company. It took me 6 visits to London to start really liking the place. Of course it´s good to have music business contacts and Jukka´s ex there who take us to places so we don´t only walk around Oxford street. I remember in school when I was 16 or so, I never liked the girls who fell in love with London. I found them wanna-be trendy idiots, but now I understand. There is this something when you really dive into the beat of the streets. And the guys are just great looking. We were in the worst 5% with Jukka…;) And the area of Brick Lane is just awesome. A bit like the best and most mixed places in Barcelona. So 3 points for weather, 3 for shops 2 for great night sleeps and finally the last 2 points (total 10, on scale 1-10) come from the restaurants. Amazing dining. No matter if you got to Soho and just pick any Italian, or just stay near Bond Street, anywhere you eat, the food is just fantastic. I had the best Thai food ever yesterday and I nearly killed myself eating too much. So we´ll be home around 7 in the evening and tomorrow we fly to Hannover Germany in the morning. Great to sleep in my own bed for one night. There is some kind of a festival in Oydensee something and it´s great to get on stage after a week of shopping and doing business stuff. Next week will be only PopGasm. We will finalize 6 first songs with Jukka. Well, not finalize but make them ready and done enough so we can start thinking about the first single. The video project starts next month…;) Jeeeeeee ;) The album and the songs sound very good… so far… And there is a photo shoot on the 5th of August (next week!!) for the album cover. We have a great idea what comes to the graphics and stuff and all looks good. I slept so great in London. Actually that has happened for the last weeks. Maybe the stress level of giving birth to the album is lower and lower as we get further with the production. Tarja is sitting between us and she saw me looking at her chocolate cookie for 15 minutes clearly desiring it. She gave it to me if Jukka and I´d promise we wouldn´t make any stupid jokes on the rest of the flight. She´s had enough of Jukka & Samu for this week ;) Jukka is a bloody goat ass…. Muahahahaha ;) If you ever fly to Finland from the west and the weather is clear, just take a look down before you get on the main land. The archipelago around Åland (the little island between Finland and Sweden, belonging to us!!) is like nowhere else. It is breath taking. So, enjoy your summer days. I will visit my Mom, Sister, Her husband and their little daughter Kaisa. I bought a little pair of princess-style crocs for Kaisa and I hope they fit. She is the sweetest girl on the planet and she will have a sister or brother soon, this week I hope. My sister is getting way to big. I wrote one song about Kaisa for PopGasm. It´s called "Dream like a child" and it seems as if it will be one of the chosen tracks. Home sweet home… I am sitting on my balcony and it´s very warm and nice. Hyvä Suomi!! Added: 01.08.2008 — Samu Latvia - London - Helsinki Dear Diary Monday, July 28 Whatta week! We just got home last night from Latvia I´m already flying to London. Bysu guy ;=) We are in London until Thursday with Jukka and our stylist Tarja shopping clothes for the PopGasm album cover photo shoot and also we have a few meetings with our publisher and some other folks. Then on Wednesday we go see the Kylie Minogue show, we are both signed to EMI so we are invited by them. The only worry is that what if Kylie wants to get married with me immediately and move to Helsinki and make all the babies with me. I mean yes, she has the best ass on this planet but really, where do we fit all her shoes… I will just have to say no. (And Kylie if you´re reading this, I´m sorry about going through our relationship here in public...) We were in Latvia in Liepaja playing at the B-fest on Saturday. Whatta party!!!! Even though we had to start the show 50 minutes late because of the Russian band before us played way too long and there were some tech problems, the mood on stage was awesome. It´s always a bit uncomfortable to go to new countries because you never know if you will have an audience or not. Usually there is someone there. This time there definitely were enough folks. The stage was built on the beach and there was also a descent catwalk. I love catwalks. My friend Kimmo (the guy I wrote "The day you fail again" about) was there too with his 3 golf mates. It was the first time he saw our show outside Finland. They are on this Baltian golf trip but even they were smart enough to have Sunday free ;=) We didn´t sleep at all that night. And thanx for everyone who joined us at Kimmo´s suite after the show. I heard they could fix the Jacuzzi… So we´re landing soon and tonight there´s only the challenge of getting to the center and finding the hotel. I don´t know London THAT much, but Jukka´s been here a zillion times. I will let him guide me… Part II Thursday, July 31 We are somewhere above Amsterdam on our way back home. The trip was very great. Feels like I have been on holiday. The weather was just awesome and the locals say you don´t get that every time in London. And so where the shops. We all have the biggest Rimowa suitcases and they were half empty on the way there. This morning I had to sit on mine to get it closed. But if the stuff you push into your bags is from All Saints, Urban Outfitters, Top man and all the cool design stores, you should not complain. I think we went a bit over budget, but I will explain something at the record company. It took me 6 visits to London to start really liking the place. Of course it´s good to have music business contacts and Jukka´s ex there who take us to places so we don´t only walk around Oxford street. I remember in school when I was 16 or so, I never liked the girls who fell in love with London. I found them wanna-be trendy idiots, but now I understand. There is this something when you really dive into the beat of the streets. And the guys are just great looking. We were in the worst 5% with Jukka…;) And the area of Brick Lane is just awesome. A bit like the best and most mixed places in Barcelona. So 3 points for weather, 3 for shops 2 for great night sleeps and finally the last 2 points (total 10, on scale 1-10) come from the restaurants. Amazing dining. No matter if you got to Soho and just pick any Italian, or just stay near Bond Street, anywhere you eat, the food is just fantastic. I had the best Thai food ever yesterday and I nearly killed myself eating too much. So we´ll be home around 7 in the evening and tomorrow we fly to Hannover Germany in the morning. Great to sleep in my own bed for one night. There is some kind of a festival in Oydensee something and it´s great to get on stage after a week of shopping and doing business stuff. Next week will be only PopGasm. We will finalize 6 first songs with Jukka. Well, not finalize but make them ready and done enough so we can start thinking about the first single. The video project starts next month…;) Jeeeeeee ;) The album and the songs sound very good… so far… And there is a photo shoot on the 5th of August (next week!!) for the album cover. We have a great idea what comes to the graphics and stuff and all looks good. I slept so great in London. Actually that has happened for the last weeks. Maybe the stress level of giving birth to the album is lower and lower as we get further with the production. Tarja is sitting between us and she saw me looking at her chocolate cookie for 15 minutes clearly desiring it. She gave it to me if Jukka and I´d promise we wouldn´t make any stupid jokes on the rest of the flight. She´s had enough of Jukka & Samu for this week ;) Jukka is a bloody goat ass…. Muahahahaha ;) If you ever fly to Finland from the west and the weather is clear, just take a look down before you get on the main land. The archipelago around Åland (the little island between Finland and Sweden, belonging to us!!) is like nowhere else. It is breath taking. So, enjoy your summer days. I will visit my Mom, Sister, Her husband and their little daughter Kaisa. I bought a little pair of princess-style crocs for Kaisa and I hope they fit. She is the sweetest girl on the planet and she will have a sister or brother soon, this week I hope. My sister is getting way to big. I wrote one song about Kaisa for PopGasm. It´s called "Dream like a child" and it seems as if it will be one of the chosen tracks. Home sweet home… I am sitting on my balcony and it´s very warm and nice. Hyvä Suomi!! Added: 23.07.2008 — Samu Greetings from studio II I am sitting here at our studio on the big black leather sofa of the big control room. Sami is next to me. Today we are recording percussions and the man with the congas and stuff is Mr. Mamba. Sami knows the guy from his past. Mamba had asked Sami to replace him in a band called Giant Räbät for one show afew months ago. He has a van full of different drums and percussions and my Goooooooood it sounds great. Right now they´re playing shakers and congas to a song called "Something sweet. Mamba also had performed at the Pori Jazz festival last weekend. I was there with Sami, Jukka, Karri and some other well-behaving music folks enjoying the beats and the groove. We stayed at Jukka´s mother´s birthplace at "Mouhijärvi" for the weekend with the guys and some friends. That was relaxing. Swimming naked is obviously good for your mental health ;) We wrote "something sweet" with Jukka a few days ago and actually we even wrote the lyrics together. It´s about bedroom stuff, but in the nice way…;) There are more than 20 songs that we´re working with and I could name many of the 98 % sure songs of the album but this one is the first 100 % album track. I love it. It´s great how the tracks are finally taking steps towards the final production. I am losing my sleep every night with the lyrics. Of course Jukka helps me with them, but it´s my job at the end of the day. There have been days I have been really stressed out with the album. It´s more work than I remembered. But today it feels all great. Me and my twisted mind ;) I guess all these feelings of not being good enough to make it happen and feeling amateur etc is just a necessary part of giving birth to something great. I would not skip one second of all this… This is all for now. Home you are feeling great too. Added: 09.07.2008 — Samu Summer Touring and Studio Work We are flying from Bucharest (Romania) to Warsaw (Poland) for a day off. We started our trip this weekend by playing a show at the NRJ in the park festival in Berlin on Saturday. Everything seemed pretty ok that day. I actually had slept very well before the night before the take off in Helsinki and in Berlin the weather was just amazing. As the crew guys did the sound check and made things ready for the show at the venue, we were swimming and exercising at the gym / pool area of the very comfortable hotel. The stage in Berlin was built on water. Very cool with the 20 meter catwalk but the only down side was that the audience was on the beach and in the water and they could not get close to us. They were maybe some 20 meters away at the closest spot. You can´t really create a real contact with the crowd if you can´t see and feel them. But the stage was really cool. I guess there are still pictures in the web at NRJ Berlin website. They took us to the stage with a "bay watch" boat ;=) The show was very hard. When we started playing Chose to be me as the first song, I had to take off my earphones. The sound was so loud that I had almost tears coming from my eyes. Something just happened. Sami´s ears are still not ok (after 2 days) and we hope he will recover. He can´t really sleep because there is this high tone playing in his head. I had never seen Sami that angry before. Our monitor-guy missed his flight in the afternoon because the flight company had over booked the plane (so not his fault) so he was not there at the sound check. If the audience wouldn´t have been that good, I probably would have walked off stage after the second song. It was very painful. But we made all 6 songs and I hope it wasn´t too bad for the crowd. These things just happen every now and then, I guess, and there´s not much you can do about it when you´re already there with your guitar. The police had blocked the roads to Berlin after our show when the festival was over. They estimated we´d have to wait there at the beach for 2 hours before the cops would let us drive away. That sounded ok apart from the fact that our wakeup was at 05:45 to get the plane to Romania. Finally after waiting some 30 minutes the cops escorted us away. Cool. Yesterday was the very first visit to Romania for all of us. I must give 10 points to for the city of Bucharest and the BestFest festival. Everything was perfectly organized all the way from the airport. The airport manager / chief let us go through a diplomat route to avoid delays and the privacy and peace when driving, at hotels and back stage was fantastic. 20 minutes before the show, there were maybe a 100 viewers in front of the stage and I was a bit disappointed. Of course when you go to a new country for the first time this can happen and you must still give everything you got on stage. But sure it´s nicer to play for more folks. The area got packed full before we started and it was a very nice and enjoyable show for us. Hope for the listeners too. You all seemed happy. We will definitely get back to Romania soon. Everybody was nice, the weather was 10+ and at the festival things went as smoothly as on the big ones in Germany. The only thing that we missed was Mr. Dracula, but I am sure he also clapped his hands inside his scary castle on the mountains in Fairytale Gone Bad. I hope our sound guys played it loud enough for him. So…. Now we are flying to Warsaw and we will drive to Bydgoszcz (250 Kilometers) to play a show there tomorrow at the Junior athletics world championships at the Bydgoszcz stadium. Today we will have a day off and we´ll probably go shopping and I´d also like to go jogging or to gym after all the driving and flights. It´s a strange show tomorrow. We first play 2 songs and then they shoot some fireworks and stuff. After that we perform another half an hour for the stadium. Last time we were in Poland we drove around with a 12-meter Hummer limousine. Let´s see what´s our ride this time. Greetings from Studio Our "Sonic Kitchen Studio" is ready. There just some decoration stuff missing but it´s fully operational and we have started working with PopGasm with full speed now. There are so many moving parts and all the equipment and it´s just fantastic that there were no bad surprises. The recording rooms were built brilliant (that´s what the professionals say) and seems as if the sound recorded, produced and mixed there will be great. We have pretty much selected the songs for the album and it looks really good. It´ll be a lot of works for sure but I am very confident that the next baby "PopGasm" will be in stores in January 2009. It´s also great how the producing teamwork is still healthy between Jukka and myself even though we have been playing together now for a few years. I mean there could be a problem with authority, but no. He is the guy with the magic and I am very blessed having my songs produced and co-written by such great pro. Without him, I´d still be selling timeshare in Spain dreaming about being on these stages… So as soon as we get home on Wednesday, we´ll hit the "Rec" button again and get a few steps closer to our PopGasm again. I hope you all are enjoying your summer as much as we are. Added: 28.04.2008 — Samu Eska Awards Poland We´ve been a lot at home this year, witch has been actually very nice and there have been less than 20 trips outside Finland since New Year. Last Thursday we flew to Warsaw, Poland to join the Eska Radio awards in Lodz, 150 Kilometers Southwest from the capital. Last time we were in Poland, we had huge problems with transportation (you can read what happened in my earlier bloq) and this time the EMI folks had really arranged everything great for us. As we walked out the doors of Warsaw airport, there was a 12-meter Hummer limo waiting for us outside with all the champagne and stuff inside. Good start ;=) I had bought a DVD quality video camera before the trip and it was very cool filming the looks of Polish countryside people faces as we dove by with the loooong American miracle. On Thursday evening there was only a dinner and party for all the nominees and acts of the show next day and we hang out with Miss September and Mr.- Bass Hunter and their gangs. We drove around with another long H2 and took a closer look at the second biggest city of the country. We nearly were arrested too by the Polish Cops but that was all Riku´s fault ;=) No, we just crossed this huge street the wrong way and well.. I guess the behavior was not from my mom´s "ABC of life" The next day was also very relaxed and therefore it wasn´t too bad to be a bit tired after the busy night. The show was one of the most well organized events I have ever been to everything went on so smoothly. And especially after receiving the award of "Best international newcomer" we finally had forgotten al stuff and missing airplanes that hit us on the first trip. Thank you so much!! And the weather was so so nice. It was the first real day of summer / spring this year. So sure there was an after party on Friday night and we slept only a few hours before taking the ride to the airport. So I woke up at 9 PM on my sofa after sleeping the whole day and realized we were able to bring the spring along from Poland to Helsinki. It´s so nice now too. I had a nice meal in the center in a pretty new restaurant called "Cochon" (You must try it if you are in Helsinki, the number 1 on my list) with Mikko, the guy who sold his house for our 1st album and had a few glasses of wine. I just woke up and it´s 3 PM. I slept so great! I have two hours to get to our old studio to have a chat with this new band we might start working with. I will make it ;=) Thanx for everyhting Poland and especially the lovely folks at EMI music. See U soon Added: 17.04.2008 — Samu Dr. Haber calling planet Earth Hello all. It´s been a while. I am sitting on my comfortable sofa for the last night inside this apartment and I decided to celebrate our last moments together with the sofa by writing a new bloq. I am getting a new sofa tomorrow. I move this one to the new studio to the singing room so the divorce will be easy since I know we will have many moments together in the near future. It´s been very very nice the last few months. I felt kind of frustrated after the New Year when nothing really happened. Somehow I wanted to get things moving with the next album very fast after all the hassle last year but I think I should have learnt that I also need real time off before I try to jump high again. I guess I was somehow afraid of facing the feelings and all the possible pressure of the new music. As I looked at the calendars, I realized that the last real holiday / time off I had was almost 3 years ago before I took off to Africa with my mom and bro in Christmas. But anyway… Nothing really happened the last weeks. I mean of course a lot has happened, but finally I have had a lot of time for myself. Sure I have been involved in getting the studio ready (slowly & steadily) and also decorating my new flat. Last Sunday I just realized I hadn´t seen my grandmother for some time and I spent the whole afternoon with her. She is so cool and it´s so cool to talk to her about all the challenges of life. It´s amazing how a lady who worked all her life in a post office carrying envelopes and never really traveled and so, can understand the deepest challenges and highlights of a rock band. She is the coolest. She is 81 years old and again I had to sign some albums for her friends, sweet ;=) She even came to one of the shows last year. She liked it sure, but for her it was too loud and we still have a tiny issue with my tattoos ;=) Also my little brother has been building his own studio with his own gang (I wonder where the hell he gets these studio ideas from;) and I am so damn proud of him and his master plan to take over the world someday. That´s my boy! So actually it´s pretty good to stop for a moment and have some time for yourself to realize all the great people around you. I was in Germany last week with Jukka, Sami, Riku and Aku from our studio. We flew over to Cologne to see this concert of an American guitarist and his band. We had three days for shopping eating well and it was the coolest trip in a long time. I really love the Belgium part of Cologne (Belgische…whatever...) and we are going there next month again with Jukka to look at some apartments. It would be a great idea to have a secret hideout there in case the Helsinki scene gets too tight. And also there are many friends living in Köln mostly from the music industry too. Cologne is also very much closer to everything, like Northern Italy and stuff and you could easily drive there in a few hours. Let´s see. The prices are not that bad. And about the studio… Well. It has taken MUCH more time and much more money than we thought. That´s how this kind of projects usually go, I guess. There have been times when I felt it´s never gonna be ready, but actually this morning (0830 Am, krhhhmmm!!!) I made the final check of the construction work and there are only a few things missing form the guys doing the air-conditioning and electricity. Some parts of the kitchen are still waiting to be installed because of this stupid water pipe that is to long for the washing machine to fit into it´s place, but hopefully everything will be in place by the end of next week. I made a zillion phone calls again today to get all the workers do their part fast. This Saturday we have a huge cleaning day and on Sunday we try to have the last painting session. Then Aku (our studio "boss" ) and Jukka can start pushing the audio cables and stuff through the walls and get the piano and drums and stuff in. Patience….;=) Not the strongest part of my personality. While waiting for the studio to get ready for recording, we have been practicing all the new songs with Sami and Raul. Jukka actually has not heard most of the stuff yet and what happens next, we will play all the stuff for him next week and then we will go somewhere just him and me and we will write the necessary stuff and arrangements. That´s how we made the first album and that is how the second one will get its birth too. It´s pretty cool to rememorize all the nights at the studio dreaming about the world tours a few years ago, just him and me...;=) I found one of the closest persons in my life ever then. I am actually really happy that Raul and Sami give us the space & freedom to do the creative part. I mean of course they both have been much more creative with the new stuff than with the first album, but still, Jukka has the final word what comes to sound, riffs and production and we seem to work pretty great with him as a team. Everyone´s ideas can´t end up on the album and I am very happy how this time everyone only looks forward to getting a great album done for ourselves and the fans and not about who´s name is on the booklet. I am personally more than excited about the songs and I can´t wait to hear them through the BIIIIG studio speakers. Riku has been really great too. I must admit that after the tour and especially after what happened in the summer made me want to get the new member in the band fast to somehow overcome the whole unpleasant mess for the public. However, the studio work is the most important thing now and I also think it´s really great how Riku is being smart with the setup and not pushing himself into the picture any more than is needed. He is doing a really great job playing all the shows with us and doing a lot of promotion and I see no reason why he wouldn´t be with us in the future too. We have agreed that we record the album now and if there are some parts that Jukka wants him to play, he will join us at the studio too. Anyway, after the album "PopGasm" is done, we will have a chat about what all the guys want. I mean we have learnt that nothing is forever. You never know if Raul, for example, will join the belly dancing team of Finland and have a 3-year break from Sunrise. I hope that never happens (for many reasons ;) but let´s just keep our hearts open for any stuff. Right now it seems as if all guys are extremely happy with the roles they have and that gives me extremely much energy and I sleep my nights well. After a glass of red wine, of course. I have also been helping some new artists these months writing songs and getting deals and stuff for them and even though you might think that would bring stress to the months you´d really need the rest, it´s completely the opposite. We just mastered the Killer Aspect album (sounds fucking amazing) and that will be released first in Finland in the end of this month. The radios have taken the guys very well and all seems promising. Jukka and Aku and our new mixing guy Tony did a really good job with KA. There are also some very interesting new Sonic Kitchen projects & Bands we will tell you folks about in the very near future. The team is pretty good. Jukka and I write most of the music for all acts together with the bands / artists of course, Aku, Tony and Jukka do the producing and the fifth guy Tuomi is getting used to having a new baby at home and helping us as much as he can with everything. He is a very pro studio guitarist and he will play many of the tracks on our next one. He already did some stuff for the first album´s acoustic versions. So even though recording PopGasm will be the main thing for the next 6-9 months, there will be other stuff going on at the studio too. That is really good as long as the projects are loaded with positive energy. I love it. Actually working & planning the first album and the release of some other band helps you remember how damn lucky we are for all the sold albums and steps of success we already have taken so far. Not everybody gets even this far and it´s good to keep that in mind. We will play some shows in the spring-summer-autumn, but as I wrote before, the main focus will be in studio now. Our management and bookers are slowly confirming and announcing more shows all over Europe and also probably other parts of the world too and I guess there are already some out on the websites. Last year we played 169 shows, this year it will be less than a hundred. Maybe even less than 50. But in 2009 I wanna do 299 and sing all the ubrella-ella´s or what ever with you all many times ;=) So I hope you all have a great spring and summer what ever you do. See you at the shows very soon I hope. Added: 25.03.2008 — Samu Regenbogen – Grammy – Dome – Austria We received the Radio Regenbogen listeners’ award in Germany last week and partied ourselves to death ;=) It was one of the coolest award shows I’ve been to and the co performers were very cool too, Enrique Iglesias and all! For the first time we had these little head phones and we could listen to the whole show translated. I still didn’t get all the German jokes, especially the ones the celebrity chef made, but hey, there was so much great red wine on the table that it didn’t really bother us. The performance was somewhat difficult and even though our crew made a really good job, it did hurt in our ears. Hope it was ok for the guests. We had decided to get to the hotel pretty soon after the gala, but no… ;=) I don’t remember if it was Jukka or Riku (probably both) who’s idea it was to stay and party but the aftermath was us all sleeping for 45 minutes before the plane took off to Finland in the morning. Normally it wouldn’t be a problem, but the next day we were supposed to present a Grammy award for the best newcomer band at the Finnish awards in Helsinki and as I was fitting my black suit on and looked into the mirror, I wasn’t too proud of myself staying up all night. The Grammies went well and actually getting the special Export Grammy surprised us big time. The second Grammy we have for the studio decoration. You kind of forget how tired you are with all the interviews and spotlights and the times goes by so fast with the minute schedule for the TV show. After the award gala we had dinner with our own gang. Most of the crew, the record company and studio staff with their spouses joined us for a nice three hours in a very nice restaurant before we hit the dance floors of Studio 51, the after show place. Thinking about it now, I should have gone home. I still had only 1 hour sleep the night before and the alcohol does funny tricks to you at that shape. Anyway. The night was very nice and it was very cool to meet all the music industry colleagues from Finland. The night ended with me rile-sliding the stairs with my ass (with my black suit still on) and flying against the 1st floor wall. It still hurts everywhere. I have huge black marks on my body and my arm still hurts. I will never drink and party again. Until the next time… The Dome For the 5th time ladies and gentlemen! We played a private show for Sennheiser in Frankfurt and in the morning we drove to Friedrichshafen (Germany) for our 5ft performance at the dome. We actually had flights booked for the morning, but our manager cancelled them because of the storm and got a driver for us. For the ones who don’t know, The DOME is a huge TV show in Germany. Four times a year they gather all the most interesting and biggest acts on stage, all for one or two songs. We have performed Fairytale three times, forever yours once and now we did our latest single Choose to be me. The production crew had built these huge strobo-light boxes for all of us, just like we have in front of the stage on tour. It looked so cool. The dome was a bit smaller than usually, probably because of the town size. I guess it was some 6000 viewers but I’m sure it looked BIG on TV. Raul is usually the nice boy who goes first to sleep, but after the dome he really forced us all to join him to the after party. Especially Riku and me we were really tired and Raul had to use all his salesman skills to get us there. The after party was ok but way too loud, so we hung out there only for 2 hours and got back to the hotel for a "few more" at the lobby. I guess Riku was the last one up at 730 in the morning. A few, right… In the morning we drove to Austria to Haus im Ennstal for "the end of skiing season" outdoor festival. It was pretty cool performing in the dark night in between the huge mountains. And the crowd was very very cool. It made us all miss the summer festivals like hell. The only downside was that it was +1 degrees in the night and that kind of temperature can really get to your throat. I had to run to the backstage after the stage and try to get warm. After getting there, we realized there was no shower for us and NO toilet! It’s a bit annoying to get away from the festival area sweaty and stinking, but the missing toilet is another thing ;=) Nobody wet their pants, I swear! The folks arranging the festival didn’t let us sign any autographs or take any photos with the fans for some reason. Ok, we were really in a hurry because we only had a few hours to sleep before the ride to Saltzburg, but for example when I got out of the back door, the security guys pushed me into the van and told me the car would move in 10 seconds. ???? I sat there for 20 minutes with Jukka and Sami waiting. I felt quite bad for the people standing out there with autograph books and stuff. That never happened to us before and I must say I was a bit angry. Sorry for all you outside and thanx for the lovely presents you sent to us through our crewmembers. One more thing. The hotel was very cool. This castle in the mountains. A spa / golf paradise in the middle of all the piece in the world. Well, I had that for some hours only, because the ride to the airport started already at 6 in the morning. I slept for 2 hours. Riku, Karri and "Gorilla" Mikko stayed there for another few days. I hope the slopes are good for them. I slept 14 hours last night and went to gym today. I am a new man ;=) I also met a new band from Finland who asked for Jukka’s and my help with their music and stuff. Let’s see what we can do. After the meeting I drove by our studio construction just to see how things are proceeding. It’s all pretty much there. The roof of the main control room needs to be built and also some little parts of lounge walls. The Air-con-pro’s will do some stuff with their pipes this week. And the kitchen of course. The kitchen is there in the huge boxes but someone needs to put everything in place. I am hoping my dad could help me with it next weekend. Maximum 2 weeks and it’s all there. After it’s all done, our main job will be recording the album 2, The Popgasm. I have a very good feeling about it. Tomorrow is also the most important Ice Hockey game of the season. My HIFK play against the BLUES at our home arena. It’s the pay offs and we really need to win. I have rented a VIP box for 15 persons to bring more support to the arena. Wish us luck ;=) Aaaaaand. Yes. Our country man Kimi Räikkönen kind of lost the first race in Australia and got only one point. There’s many more this season. Heads up!!! PS: Karri’s (our guitar tech) hotel room destruction cost 1000 US Dollars. Bad bad crew boys… I am SOOOO innocent! Added: 27.02.2008 — Samu From Russia with Love & BB Visit I am SO DEAD! I have slept 5 hours the last too nights and now I am finally sitting on my sofa at home (the comfortable one) with a glass of wine. As soon as I have this thing written, I will dive into my bed under the huge blanket and never come out. But let´s get to the reasons of being tired…. We flew to St. Petersburg on Friday with the guys to play our very first shows in Russia ever. We had heard that the audiences there are really cool and that they treat the bands very well so the atmosphere was great from the take off. We also had a 2-month break with playing full shows and therefore we also had been waiting for these shows probably more than ever before. The flight left at 6 something in the morning and I just wasn´t able to sleep the whole night before. The same happened to Jukka and also to Karri (Guitar tech) and Aki (Light tech) and we must have looked very presentable as we landed in Russia. We knew there would be a huge customs mess with all the equipment we were traveling with but luckily the local promoter had arranged a warm bus for us for the hour or something we had to wait for our guitars and stuff to get their stamps to enter the country. After the check we went straight to bed for two hours before the interviews with Russian MTV and others and some meet and greet winners. You know when you only have a short nap, you´re kind of half sleep the whole evening. Still it´s amazing how the adrenaline wakes you up before the show and it was just as great as the other Finnish bands had told us. Very loud and they took part in singing the whole way. It was the first show there and we really didn´t know what to expect, but the club was full and the night was perfect for us. The next day the wakeup was at 3pm (!!!) so that helped a little for the off day. I went shopping with our record company guy Mikko and finally found the new lap top bag I have been looking for for ages. We also got the Sunrise Avenue CD and track number four, the first single was called FairyTABLE Gone Bad;=) Russian version. We flew to Moscow late in the evening just to get a good sleep before the next show day. The club B1 in Moscow was bigger and it was probably the coolest rock club I have ever been to. Very cool indeed. We had a pretty busy day with interviews and meet&greets but since there were 5 guys doing it together, it was fun. We learned how to say "I am a jumping Frog" in Russian but I can´t write it here since I don´t know the Russian alphabets. There had been false information in some of the tickets saying that the show time is 8 and in some tickets it said at 9. It was quite annoying to keep the crowd waiting but what can you do. Sorry for the delay & thanx for the patience, wasn´t our fault. We could have started much earlier. The show was just fantastic again. And Raul became the new leader of Volvo Russia fan club (Sorry, stupid insider). Ouh, and after the sound check we made a quick visit to the red square. You must do that if you are in Moscow. Actually I´m sure Moscow and also St. Petersburg are really nice in the summer. In winter it´s quite much like Helsinki, dirty snow and stuff everywhere, but I am so sure it´s very cool in the summer. We were supposed to go to sleep right after the show to be fresh in Germany the next day at the Big Brother house. Nope ;=) We had the after party of our lives at Karri´s room with the whole band and crew and even my little brother joined us. He was there at the show with my mom. Mom went to bed. Some of the crew guys and my brother (of course) went to the streets of Moscow in the night to buy Vodka and other drinks. They came back with bags full of stuff and the outcome was us guys wrestling and having half serious fights. It still hurts everywhere ;=) The walls of the room were mostly there in the morning when we left the hotel but I am sure some sort of an invoice will follow us later on. Tuomas (Monitor tech) crashed his head through the WALL when the battled with Aki. Boys… So… I slept for 2 hours at the hotel in Moscow. I didn´t really have a hangover but I was so tired. And I knew that millions of Germans would watch me on TV at the BB house. It made me sweat. Luckily we had time for a shower when we got to Köln, but then it was pretty hectic. We met some competition winners and media before the TV show and we did some photo sessions too. Then they took us to the roof next to the garden area of the BB house and we performed our Schlager "Choose to be me" for the BB guys. And then I finally entered the house….. I was carrying two baskets full of Finnish beer and a bag full of our CD´s and shirts. The entrance was dead dark before the "Big Brother" opened the door for me. The inhabitants didn´t know about my visit and all I could say to present myself was yelling "Merry Christmas" in German, of course. The time just stopped. The house was a lot bigger that it appears on TV and it was so bright and HOT. I know you need a lot of light for TV production but it was hotter than I had thought. That´s probably why they are wearing Bermuda shorts. ;=) It was all pretty unnatural in the beginning. I mean I was the first visitor since the start of the show and obviously the guys and girls had spent a lot of time not knowing what is happening in the world outside. I thought of telling them that the front man of the German pop band Modern Talking is in the cover of the latest GayMagazine, but I decided to leave mr. Dieter alone. Anyway. They took me all over the house and I was even allowed to enter the ladies (poor side) shitty toilet. There was no toilet seat. You just stand there on top of a hole and do your whatevers… It was so bright and so strange. I just can´t imagine living there or even staying there for more than that half an hour. Nice experience though… And the Night was long in Cologne too. Even though I was tired already… So now after doing band stuff for the whole day, I will finally get my four pillows and the big blanket. Tomorrow I will go back to our studio construction and get orders from Aku, our studio boss to "scratch this and paint that" for the rest of the week. I hope they have made some progress with the place. I can´t wait for the recordings of the next album to start… Good night everyone, where ever you are. Maybe I´ll have one more glass of wine…;=) Added: 19.02.2008 — Samu Echoes of the new studio and Moscow We were at the ECHO awards with Jukka on Friday. We were nominated for the best international Band (something) and the other bands fighting for the same trophy were Linkin Park (who won), Bon Jovi (!!!), The Eagles and 30 sec to Mars. We knew we would not win but still we decided to buy black suits and shows and stuff for that very event. Well, they never even presented the whole award at the gala and all we got was 3 hours of moderating and jokes in German, great German performances (Dj Ötzi and stuff) and we ended up eating on the floor a bit drunk with my blond band mate ;=) Well I have to say seeing Kylie live was very nice and also the Nightwish performance made the night worth living through. I am so fucking proud of the Nightwish guys how they managed to pull it through after all the bull shit with changing their singer. I think the change was a very good thing for them. The studio is slowly getting there piece by piece. There are real construction guys working every day and it´s so cool now that you can see the final walls already in many of the rooms. There will be a huge painting session at the end of this month and Jukka had bought the Kitchen today. My dad will come and help us install the stuff. It´s gonna be so great!!!! I wish I could invite everybody to the grand opening in march before we start recording the next SA album ;=) The next album has a project name. We call it "The Popgasm" After getting home from Berlin on Saturday, we sat down with Jukka looking at some new songs we both have written. I so hope it would already be March when we really get to hit the record button at put our new vintage equipment to work for us. There are a few songs I am dying to get done. Especially "Welcome to my life", a song I wrote some months ago. Patience patience, Doctor Haber… We will play our first Russian shows this week in Moscow and St.Petersburg. Funny but none of us has never been to Russia even though it´s our neighbor. They say the audiences there are really loud and cool, so well see. At least all the arrangements seem to be taken care of very well and professionally. After the Russian shows we will join the Big Brother gang in Germany. I really don´t know what they have planned for us, but I hope they don´t lock us into the house. You know, they have sex and all there. The Germans ;=) Actually they could keep Raul for a few weeks. He has been a bad boy.,. ;=) Keep rocking Added: 08.02.2008 — Samu Fail again & Carnival this and carnival that... Just so you all know, there is NO carnival of any kind in Finland at this time of the year. In my country we study and work hard and we really don´t give a damn about partying and especially drinking. It´s too childish for Finnish mentality, ha ;=) Honestly I´m just jealous but anyhow... ;=) S PS:If you feel like joining a CARNIVAL, try the Finnish VAPPU (Labor day April 30th) and everyone who survives that gets full respect from me for life. And here are the lyrics as so many of you requested. The day you fail again (©Haber & Backlund 2007) Hey man I can see you standing tall on your feet again There were those dark days but you´re far over them Say can you remember all the mess far behind you They were all so sure you´d never find your way through Feels like life for you today it´s only perfect Seems like sorrow shame never was really there These are the moments that you keep inside your heart to guide you then The day you fail again I am so sorry for the times I wasn´t by your side But now I found faith in you again with my own eyes Say can you see the fear in me you will fall again And you will be left alone although you´d really need them Feels like life for you today it´s only perfect Seems like sorrow shame never was really there These are the moments that you keep inside your heart to guide you then The day you fail again Added: 05.02.2008 — Samu New Video & EBBA Etc. Hey all! It´s been a while. I´ve been mostly having time off and recharging my batteries for the year 2008 and all the challenges ahead. I must say it was really strange waking up at home so many mornings (really early afternoons ;) in a row after all the traffic last year and it was somewhat challenging to find stuff to do. I was really restless and a bit depressed even for the first weeks of this year but now things have started to roll smooth again. 2007 was quite a year. We performed 169 shows, released the album in many many new countries and received 8 gold and platinum single and album awards and other trophies for the work we did together with you guys and girls. Four big tours and all the stuff in between. Also there were some negative issues we needed to deal with and of course those things are not nice, but still I wouldn´t change one second of all we went through. It´s life as it is. Thank you so much for all! Obviously many of you have heard that Janne has filed a court case against Jukka, Sami, Raul and myself. He wants our money and also the name Sunrise Avenue away from us. It´s so sad. Our lawyers say there is no need to worry, so I hope you could also have patience with it. We will keep on playing shows and recording albums no matter what happens. Even with a name "Sunrise Mental Hospital." I still hope all the fighting will not affect too much on the way we are able to work together. Of course it´s a challenge, but somehow all this has actually brought the rest of us even closer together. We will meet Janne and his lawyers soon and I hope we could come to some sort of a settlement and face all this as grown-ups. I guess it would be better for all sides. It´s the first time we are allowed to sit down together after the change. And you are absolutely right. This thing is band´s internal stuff and should not be spoken here, but the rumor had it that we took him to court. That´s not the way. No matter how much it hurts and how stupid all this is, I felt like correcting it. I am not proud of myself for writing these lines. We shot our fourth video (Choose to be me) in London last week. I must say I really like the story and how it looks. In the clip, I am this guy doing a magic trick because this girl makes me do the stuff. Things get really dangerous and actually something very bad might happen to me in the end. Maybe I wrote this already before the shootings. Maybe I didn´t survive ;=) You´ll see it soon; In Central Europe already this week and in Germany for example they play it on Wednesday right after the evening news at 08 PM on RTL II. A British actress Jenny Evans plays the leading female role and she does it just so amazingly well! I think we will have some things to do also with the German Big Brother show. CTBM is the theme song and I heard we might visit the show or even the house if all goes well. I think this video will be the last one from "On the way to wonderland" and actually we are just building a new studio in Helsinki to start recordings of the second album. I have played many new songs together with Sami and Raul and I must say they sound really cool. It´s funny. Everybody said as a songwriter I would have huge pressure writing the 2nd albums tracks after the successful 1st one, but all seems to be really relaxed. I must say Raul and especially Sami have brought a lot of great ideas to the new songs. The atmosphere seems so be right finally. There will be shows around Europe and some are already confirmed. I hope we could confirm all the dates they are negotiating right now but as soon as they let us know, we will update the info on our websites. The goal is to release the album this year, but let´s see. There are a few special tracks I´d love you folks to hear right away but lets be patient. We came back home from Cannes, France yesterday with Jukka, Riku, Sami and Raul the Nutcracker. Riku was there with us and as I wrote before, he will continue playing with us on live shows and let´s see with the future plans when the 2nd album is done. Anyway. The EBBA (European Boarder Breaker Award) award (presented for the most selling European artist outside their home country) we got was a very cool thing. The gala itself was technically a nightmare and performing two songs has never made us angrier. I hope they learn something from our feedback. But it was nice to hang out at the boulevards and of course avenues (; by the Mediterranean Sea when the sun was shining and the temperature rose higher than 20 C on the afternoons. I have started reading books. I don´t know what happened in Africa with my mom and my little brother but I suddenly realized enjoying the relaxing effect of a great book and now I´m going through different band / star biographies to understand my / our feelings a bit more in the entertainment world. Maybe I am pregnant or something… The one on the loop is Stings life story. Jesus, there´s cool stuff he did and survived from. I hope you all have a great spring and I hope you have enough strength to make it to the summer. It´ll come. Don´t forget to check out the new demo track we wrote with Jukka for my friend who got out of jail. The name is "fail again" and you can find it on the Choose to be me single among the versions and some cool remixes. May the force be with you & See U soon! Samu Added: 17.12.2007 — Samu Last words of Year 2007 Hey all, I'm sitting at home on my sofa; the most comfortable sofa on the planet and it's only three more days before I start my Christmas holidays. It's been pretty hard to relax after the tour, post stress I guess. Once restless - always restless. The year 2007 was one hell of a year for us. We played 169 shows, I had 105 flights and there were very high mountaintops and deep valleys on the way here. It's all part of the game. We reached many of our dreams, traveled to many new countries and experienced the coolest audiences ever all over Europe. I've cried tears of happiness and also tears of pain and to be honest, I wouldn't skip a drop or one second of it. In January we will get keys to our brand new studio in the Center of Helsinki with Jukka and his producing partner Aku. I'm very happy we will have a place where we can start recording our next album in January with all the time we need. If all goes well, the album will be released in 2008. It all depends on how much we need to travel to new continents. I have a good feeling about the whole thing and at least so far there's no pressure with song writing and stuff even though the first album did so well. Jukka will be responsible for producing the album and therefore he might not join us for all the shows and activities from January to July. It's up to him and the schedules. The album comes first now. We have decided together with him that he will stay as a full member of the band. In the summer he decided to leave the band after the European tour 2007, but since everything has been much better internally, he asked for a permission to stay. This might mean you folks have been too nice to him ;=) I am personally very happy he's in. The songs on CD or on stage would not sound near the same without his master skills. And his big blonde hair…;=) Mr. Riku "Räjähde" will also be performing with us next year too. Let's see if he will become a full member in the band too some day. We will have many long chats about his role in the future. We received very much positive feedback about him and we must admit we all like the guy very much, but there's no rush to make any fast decisions now. Let's make the album first and see where we are and what everybody feels when it's done. Thank you all for taking Riku so well and friendly on the tour. I was personally very very nervous. The situation was very difficult for all of us and for you listeners, fans and supporters too. I hope the way we have handled you has shown how much we value your support everywhere we go. The feeling in my heart is a mixture of love, thankfulness and also pride having the best and craziest people clapping their hands in the audience night after night and establishing the coolest support websites and stuff. I know the fact that I myself or Sunrise Avenue as a band wouldn't be anything like this without you and your efforts. So once again... It's been one hell of a year and there are no words to express how thankful we are for all of you. I hope you all have a great Christmas with your loved ones and let's keep on rocking in 2008 ;=) Jeeeeeeeeeeeee Thank you & Merry Christmas & Happy New year 2008! Added: 21.11.2007 — Samu Zurich – Home sofa I woke up this "morning" at 3 PM on my new sofa they had brought to my new flat while I was away. My head was still hurting after the party in Zurich we had after the last show in Central Europe. I had to drive to the record company to get some paper work done and as I started my car and drove out of the garage, I realized I must change my winter tires on. It's minus degrees and I couldn't live with crashing my car because of the slippery roads… So the tour is over for now. Well, we have 2 more shows here in my country but the 2-month trip and living together with the band and the production is behind now. The show in Zurich was just amazing. Super. And of course there was this extra charge in the batteries when every one on stage and behind it knew there would be a few weeks off after it. And my mom and my dear sister were there and they were in my thoughts most in a funny way even if I trid to avoid it ;=) Our promoter had booked this private club for us with all the food and drinks and to be honest, it was also one of the coolest parties ever. We actually didn't sleep at all before we had to leave the hotel to the airport. Sorry for everyone staying at our floor. There was a N.A.S.T.Y. after-after party at Riku's room. Hopefully there was nobody on a honeymoon at the hotel. The noise sure would have destroyed all peaceful love plans. The tour was the best 2 months in my life ever. When we started the whole trip in Stockholm, I was a bit nervous with all the folks traveling together and cold weather attacking my throat and all but it all went so well. I will miss our driver John and his two minded jokes and our humble German crew who made the stuff so great for us every night. Still the biggest thing that amazes me still is the audience we had every single night. I was wondering before the tour if there would be enough listeners performing in so many towns. The rooms were so full in every place and most of the shows were sold out. How great is that! They say you get depressed after a tour like that at home if all goes well on the road. And I must admit I miss it all already. Luckily I have so much to do that it's only in the darkness of the night when I have the time to think about it. We must finish the album of Killer Aspect together with the band and Jukka & Aku and all the other stuff from 2 months is undone in my studio room. I must say we are the luckiest guys on the planet getting to be a part of a tour like that. I can never thank everyone enough clapping their hands and singing our songs every night. I can never express how great it feels. We will have our brothers from Killer Aspect supporting us in the last shows in Finland and the tour finally ends in the 1st of December in Seinäjoki, Sami's hometown. And in Helsinki the new great sounding Finnish Pop/Rock band Giant Leap warm up the crowd before the KA guys. I heard that the tickets have sold very well and I guess we will have two wonderful nights to end the whole year 2007 and the 169 shows we have played this year. Thank you so much for the support, the very funny and amazing gifts and stuff and the moments together before and after the show. We will rock you soon again… ;=) Added: 17.11.2007 — Samu Graz – Solothurn show & Day off – Pratteln We just arrived from a signing session at the Media Markt record store with the guys and now we are having dinner at the catering area at Pratteln Z7 club backstage. Probably the best insalata caprese on this trip. I hate the fact that there will be only two shows more on the tour and then we go home. It helps a bit to know that there will be two shows also in my country the NOV 30th and Dec 1st but I must say the trip has topped all my dreams in many ways. I know my mom has cleaned my whole apartment ten times while I've been away to make it nice for me to come back home… And Mom, if you read this, it was not a suggestion ;=) My gym and jogging rhythm has gone very bad on the trip. That is probably the only downside there is. Like in Solothurn on the day off I was supposed to go working out in the morning of the show day and have a nice sleep the night before but Jukka said we needed to plan some recording stuff for the next album that we start working with in January. We were supposed to have the famous "one glass" of red wine in the lobby bar. After a BOTTLE of wine we decided to head downtown for one more "Glass." We found this really nice bar full of men and on the walls they had pictures of topless guys. It was a gay bar, of course. They folks were very funny and they treated us like any regulars. I even tipped the waiter putting 10 Euros inside his shirt. So much for the gym the next morning. As we finally found our way back to the hotel, the rest of the guys were trying to save Riku's MAC. I had bought an external hard drive to keep his important files during the new system installation, but of course I had forgotten to make it mac suitable. MP, Raul and Sami were all sitting on the hotel floor fighting with the missing files… Oooops. I was so sure I would die on stage in Solothurn because of the after shock of the gay bar drinking, but again, the show and the audience was very cool and enjoyable. It's so great how in every city the folks in the audience have taken us. Tomorrow is the last day off and then the last show… The highlight for me is that my little sister is coming over to the Zurich show. She's only seen a few shows in Finland and that was before the audiences got a bit bigger. Her being there gives me extra energy. She has been one of the biggest supporters for me going on with my music when the times have been hard. She's coming together with my mom and her most of you people already know. She is there all the time ;=) It's her third of the fourth show on this tour. Sweet! I will join our support act Christian Venus and the band on their sound check. Hope they don't mind. I wonder if they'll give me a guitar. Our song CHOSE TO BE ME got selected as the theme song for BIG BROTHER Germany next year. Pretty amazing. The album has been out for almost 18 months and there is nothing new in that way for anyone. I hope we get to visit the house in the spring ;=) I could never take part in a program like that. On the other hand we are living our own BB life inside the tour bus with the hairy tech crew. I have fallen off the stage or the raisers only once so far on this tour and I didn't hurt myself that bad. Our tech guys say I must cool it down a little. They sat they must close their eyes especially when we play DESTINY. Especially in the end when I jump around. I can't get it. I have full control of my long legs and it's so much fun ;=) Added: 13.11.2007 — Samu Gold in Austria We played one of the coolest shows of the tour yesterday in Vienna at the sold out Vienna Arena and the local EMI had arranged a very very very nice surprise for us after the show. The album had reached the gold limit in Austria (more than 15.000 sold units) and Fairytale gone bad is the most downloaded song of the year (more than 22.000 legal downloads). I have no words to thank you enough. Go Österreich!!! And rock you gain today. Thank you! Added: 12.11.2007 — Samu Munich (Night off) - Linz – Vienna I just woke up. The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes, was this room service woman in front of me with a look on her face saying, "Mr.Haber has over slept…." Sorry…. I had decided to complain about the internet connection failures and all at the reception, but since I was the one who was late and the girl at the desk smiled so nice, I decided to skip it. I stayed in Munich after the show and my God that was one party. My friends from Milan had planned the whole night for me. The rest of the band & Crew took the bus straight after the show and a few autographs to Linz Austria. I found myself in my hotel bed at 9 in the morning after experiencing all the high and low class clubs of the town. The best one was probably Pascha (can remember how it was written). I even lost my phone in a unofficial (Albanian or something) "taxi" in the morning but the nice guy driving it brought it back after I promised to pay the full value of the Nokia. The Milan guys were traveling by car and so they gave me a ride to Linz where I had a full day off. The city was very nice, although I wasn't in a condition to enjoy it with a full heart. Shopping at the local H&M and Peek & C-something felt a bit unpleasant without eating anything the hole day. I fell asleep before midnight. The show and the venue in Linz were just great! It was the first club show in Austria and we really didn't know what to expect. The only experience we had with the Austrian audience was the Novarock Summer festival in Nickelsdorf and that had been ranked as one of our best audiences ever. That brought the expectations a bit higher. But the night was perfect apart from my bleeding hand. I cut my finger in the morning at breakfast cutting the bread and the wound wasn't that bad before the show until I started to annoy the cut in my hand with the guitar strings. There was so much blood and the looks on the faces in the first rows were funny. I survived. Yesterday we had a day off in Vienna and the evening was filled with music. After an early dinner we went to the center to listen to some of the local "pop stars" composers. It was a quintet playing the masterpieces of Mozart and of course since we were in Vienna, the second half was stuff from Mr. Strauss. I must say some of my hair is still up towards the sky after the experience. There was also a female singer and two ballet dancers performing in some of the tracks. Very nice. I can recommend it to anyone visiting the Austrian capital. The classical journey was a gift from Jukka, our musical mastermind. After Strauss and Mozart we took a taxi to a different cultural event. We went to see the show of LOVEX, our Finnish pals in the center in a very small club. The guys are also on tour and actually in Munich the played just next door but we didn't have a chance to meet them then due to the interviews and all. Theon & gang even played Bon Jovi's Runaway for us Sunrise guys ;=) There can never be too much BJ played in any part of the world. I fell asleep at 12 in the night and I don't know why but I woke up at 4 in the night. First I tried to force my self back to sleep, but it didn't work. Finally I gave up, opened the mini bar and started writing lyrics for the new songs. My hotel room was on the top of the hotel in the Center of Vienna and I saw the whole city under me through my window. The snow we had here yesterday had melted and the wet city streets looked so lonely and peaceful. What could be more inspiring? Added: 08.11.2007 — Samu Giessen – Wurzburg – Stuttgart – Kempten – Munich I just woke up (2:30 PM) in my bed as Riku was watching Sheryl Crow live DVD in the front lounge. First I was a bit angry for the loud sound but then I couldn't help myself enjoying her great voice. Whatta great way to wake up. I told the guys last night I would arrange a trip downtown to gym for all who want it, but obviously it's too late now. I told them to wake me up at 12. Nobody did. Nobody dared to wake up the sleeping baby. Or then they were afraid of my reaction. I am not a morning person… It is the last show in Germany today. It's amazing how fast time goes by. When I looked at the list of shows in the beginning, I thought it would be a lot of work and a hard trip. It could be pretty tough performing three nights in a row but I must be honest it feels like holiday. Our live agent said this might be the last time we play in smaller cities in Germany. Next time it could be only the bigger towns, such as Hamburg, Berlin, Leipzig, Köln, etc, but I must say the atmosphere has been just super everywhere. And the clubs have been so full. Luv it ;=) I must mention one of the highlights of the tour in Wurzburg celebrating Riku's birthday. We splashed a Tiramisu cake onto his face after the last song on stage and some of the clothes still smell like Mediterranean dessert. I hope somebody got that on youtube or something. The club looks very nice today. Yesterday it was pretty cold, I mean they turned the air-conditioning very cool before the show and especially when there are these small breaks for me, I should have brought a huge towel or something to keep it warm. Luckily the audience was warm, again ;=) I have two Finnish friends visiting us today, One from Milano and one from Helsinki. They are the same guys who drank all the beers and other liquids at Rock am Ring back stage in the summer and I guess we'll have a tiny party tonight down town. I will stay in Munich with them for one night and we will drive to Linz tomorrow. The Italian guy came with his car. It took only a few hours from his home, that's how south we are now. The rest of the band and crew will drive to Austria tonight. The rest of the tour will be pretty easy. First we play in Linz, then day off. Then shows in Vienna and Graz and a day off again. Then shows in Solothurn and Pratteln and a day off before the final show in Continental Euroipe in Zurich. I guess there will be a "tiny" party after the Zurich show and actually we fly back home the next evening. We end the tour in Helsinki (Nov30th) and Seinäjoki, Sami's home town (Dec 1st). I still don't know for sure what will happen after that. There are so many plans going to new continents, recording new songs, finishing the new studio in Helsinki and all, but let's see after the show in Seinäjoki. We have had two support acts in Europe. German Cristian Venus (and his hilarious band;) and the Danish Grand Avenue (In 5 cities). The singer of GA is the brother of the guy who directed our latest video Heal Me. Grand Avenue sounds so much bigger that Sunrise Avenue… We might change the name to Sunrise Highway. In Helsinki we will be supported by Killer Aspect and Giant Leap, both from My Country, and the last show we play together with KA only. Killer Aspect is the band whose album Jukka is actually finishing right now and it's supposed to be ready until the end of the year if all plans go well with our new studio. You gotta check them out. Their drummer Teijo plays on our album tracks like Diamonds, Choose to be me, Heal me, etc and we are pretty close friends with the guys. Their singer Max has the coolest boat on the planet. I feel very lucky and happy with the shows and crowds we had I Germany. I will miss this part of the tour and all the folks working and rocking together. But I'm sure the Austrian and Swiss shows will be very cool too. They are the first real club shows we play there and I hope there seeing us. I heard that Zurich is sold out and that is a good sign. Vielen dank für alle Deutschland! See U soon again. And Austria and Switzerland, here we come ;=) Added: 03.11.2007 — Samu Saarbrucken - Nurnberg We had two relaxing days off in Nurnberg historical and beautiful city and everybody was supposed to have all the energy in the world to rock the stage again. Yesterday we had dinner together with our German crew in the center. The crew is doing such an amazing job and all the guys are really cool. It'll be a challenge to find guys like them when they leave us after the tour. Their next project is the Nightwish European Tour. Unfortunately some of us got this stomach flu from the food we had yesterday. I'm not going to say the name of the restaurant because the illness could be caused by something else too. Anyway. I was feeling a bit odd in the morning and I slept very bad. You know this kind of feeling that you're too weak to get out of bed (actually pretty normal for me in the morning ;) and you feel like throwing up all day. I was feeling bad all the way to the moment I saw the security guys open the club's doors for the audience today but then suddenly it got better. Jukka had been sleeping the whole day complaining about the same stuff. And also Tuomas, our monitor guy. And we all had the same food yesterday. Right before the show everyone seemed to be ok and usually even if someone has a flu or fever we are still able to make it through the show. The venue (Löwensaal) in Nurnberg was the hottest place I have ever played at and the amount of sweat was amazing. I saw sweat drops falling from my fingertips already on the second song and that means there's a lot more to come. The light control console broke because of the heat and the crew had to steal Sami's fan that keeps him cool during the show. They needed it more to cool down Aki's lightning desk and equipment. That's how hot it was. When Riku was playing his solo, Jukka said he couldn't make it until the end of the show. He has played for you guys and girls in very high fever just like all of us, but this time the look on his very pale face was more serious than ever. He promised to try to do Fight til dying and Fairytale but then he kind of fell down and had to go to the back stage to wait for medics. It was a bit strange playing the end of the set only with Sami, Riku and Raul and a keyboard standing alone in the dark. I felt a bit sorry for the people who missed a few songs and most of Jukka-Energy because one soldier was down but hey, what can U do? Now we are in the bus on our way to Giessen. I'm watching Collateral in the upper front lounge with Riku, Jukka is trying to sleep alone on the sofas in the back. The rest of the gang is either sleeping in their beds or playing play station Soccer downstairs. I hope Jukka gets better for the show tomorrow. I really don't want to skip it. The MTV EMA stuff went as it did. I don't feel sad or bad about it at all. The only thing I feel kind of sorry for, are all the wonderful people who were fighting so hard to get us there. The truth still is that we have already gotten so much in a very short time and nobody can have everything you see in the horizon. It would have been cool to get there, sure, but especially after I saw how the three finalists were together on stage waiting for the final results, I don't know if I really would have wanted to be there. Just like Miss Europe finalists. There were two losers and one winner. Thanks for all the votes and all the efforts. We will never forget how you fought for us. I will check Jukka's condition now and then start the next movie with Riku. It's funny how we end up on the same sofas in the front with him almost every night watching a movie, just the two of us. Everybody in the bus have their silly routines. Just like Sami arranging all his DVDs on the shelf above his bed. I bet they are in alphabetical order now too ;=) Our Driver John will give me only one glass of wine tonight. I had said on TV in Austria that that's how he treats us every night. He gives us one glass of wine and puts us to bed. He had been watching PRO7 TV channel in his hotel room and saw me saying that. He said it's only one glass for me this night since I said it on TV ;=) I will find the hidden bottles... I'll find them! When we left the venue after two hundred autographs tonight, John took us to the legendary Zeppelin Field in the Nurberg city where Mr. A Hitler used to do his speeches for the huge crowds. A really cool spot. That's also the place for Rock Im Park where we performed on the main stage this summer. He knew most of the SS buildings and stuff in that area and we got a free sightseeing tour and a free history lesson. I cross my fingers for Jukka's condition and for the show tomorrow.... PS. Jee, Now we are in wonderland where we want to stay together 4ever….. And counting! Added: 29.10.2007 — Samu Dortmund - Osnabruck – Köln I can't sleep… I'm in this very nice hotel room in Cologne and we had this tiny party today with Jukka, Raul and some EMI folks. The bus dropped us in front of the hotel at 12 in the day and I had to continue sleeping until 6 PM in my huge room. I just can't get it why I sleep so much and so well on this trip. We saw some Kummeli movies (Great Finnish humor) with Jukka all night in the bus and fell asleep at 5. Still laughing. Now it was only 2 shows and again a day off. I guess that is a great way to tour; a day off after every 2 shows. Especially when some of the boys are ill like now. The flu has left us alone and apart from some crew members everybody's feeling all right. We played for 2 amazing audiences again. The loudest audience so far was, no question in Dortmund. It was a sold out club with some 2000 listeners and I actually had to remove my ear monitor from my right ear a couple of times just to hear the real sound of the crowd. Osnabruck (never honestly heard of the place before) was also very nice but very hot too. My jeans were all wet from sweat after the show. The venue is in the middle of nowhere and as we arrived there in the night at 2 AM the club was still open. We went in with Jukka, Monitor Tuomas and Gorilla Mikko and we saw this guy (40+) dancing in a mini skirt. Nice. Seemed as if the party couldn't get better ;=) I tried to climb over a fence in Dortmund after the show to meet some folks that have been to the show and I hurt my arm pretty bad. I didn't see the spikes that were up there up on the iron fence to get rid of the birds and their shit and I hurt my hands pretty bad. Our driver John cleaned my hands with Absolute Vodka to avoid any bad infections. THAT HURT…… Amazingly the hands are ok now and we can go on…. It's amazing how much dirty clothes you get traveling like this. Today we visited some local EMI folks homes to clean our clothes with Jukka. They also fed us and gave us some red wine. They are an EMI couple working for us together and ULI, the guy actually is also recording with his own band and Jukka was able to give him some recording and mixing tip in return. It'll be so cool to play the Cologne Ewerk again tomorrow. That is where we shot the DVD that is out now. Feels like coming home. My mom and Mikko the guy who once sold his house in Helsinki to pay the studio costs are going to see the first show on this tour and that makes it even more exciting. The Ewerk is a big hall with a lot of air inside even when it's full of music listeners and I am really looking for that show. Köln is also my favorite town in Europe. Again today as we arrived here, I felt like I could really live here. Köln is a very open minded gay-city and the atmosphere is just awesome. And even though I really like girls, the open minded feeling makes you feel ok even though you come from my Country. So… I'll try to sleep a bit now. I have 8 hours in bed until the bus will pick us up in front of the hotel. I already missed the morning take off twice on this tour and have been following the bus with taxi after a few hours. Tomorrow I will be there in time and get to my booked gym at one in the center. Can you believe it's only 4 bands left ion the MTV voting. Well, no mater what happens, life will go on and even if we don't get to the top 3 to be able to perform at the gala, the fans have made a terrific job. But of course I have faith in our own gang. I will try to sleep now. The bed is huge and kind of inviting. Rock you soon. Added: 26.10.2007 — Samu Hannover – Braunschweig - Dortmund I just came back to the hotel from the center of Dortmund with Jukka. We all slept the whole day first and after the snoring we needed to do some shopping. It is just amazing but I have almost won my flu already even though it started just a few days ago. I must say the show in Hannover was really painful and I honestly had to focus on staying on my feet. My throat hurt like hell but amazing as it is, it was still a lot of fun. Mostly because of the great audience. I was so sure I was gonna be too sick to sing at all in Braunschweig but no. Sami's and our Driver John's miracle medicine helped. And of course the 12-hour sleep in the buss. John even gave me an extra pillow to make it comfortable. He is a real teddy bear! And probably the hot rum drinks had something to do with it too. Anyway, it's really nice to be back on my feet. I must say the thought of canceling a show or two because someone's sick doesn't feel nice at all, but of course that might happen in the future. This time we were tough enough. Jukka is also feeling far better. We saw the crew guys downstairs when we got back to the hotel with Jukka and they said they all feel a bit bad. Hope it's not their turn. The two shows, especially the way we do it sweating so much, is definitely not what the doctor told me to do to get better, but I must say it's amazing how much energy you get from a great crowd. Our back stage was really cool yesterday. It was this small club with a real bar and sound system and we had a huge party there after and before the show. Sami and Gorilla Mikko were the DJs and the musical menu was mostly Ramones and other credible rock. Well Jukka and I stood by the venue gates after the show with some folks who'd been to the show but some of the lovely girls from the crowd assisted us with getting some drinks outside while we took pictures together with the others. I could stand there for hours every night but sometimes it's just so cold and you must think about the shows the next days and you must get into the bus to stay warm. You don't want to risk the next few shows because of a few more autographs. So everybody felt a bit tired today after partying and especially after Riku's Bacardi Cola session in the bus on the way to Dortmund. I must say Riku has done a great job so far. The boots he stepped into are not easy to fill at all and even though our songs are not Mozart or Vivaldi level difficult, he has done a brilliant job. I also feel really happy how the fans, listeners and media have taken him more as a musician and the savior of the tour than a guy who's standing on someone else's spot. Personally I must say I have never been this happy traveling with anyone and even though many of us have been sick and some times tired too, the atmosphere is just awesome. I hate to think that there are only 18 shows and then we all must go home. I had a chat with our management today and I was told that the MTV European Music Awards thing is getting really tight. There are seven bands left and every day they drop one more. Only the top three get to join the MTV awards in Munich next week and of course I am hoping for the best. The message we got today is that we still have a chance but it is really a tough fight between the seven bands left. I believe in the folks who support us and no matter what happens, I know a lot of people have been clicking their fingers blue with this one. Would be cool to be able to thank them all every now and then. Angels. Of course it would be nice to get to perform for hundreds of millions at the awards, but I decided not to think about it from the very beginning that much. I'll go to bed now and try to get up early in the morning for a little gym session. Good night everyone, wherever you are…. Added: 23.10.2007 — Samu Dresden – Leipzig – Erfurt - Hannover I am having dinner with Sami, Gorilla Mikko, MP and Riku at Crown Plaza, Hannover. Mikko, MP and I have goat cheese with bacon for starters, Sami and Riku took a salad. How healthy are they! Main courses are fish recommended by the waitress. The red wine we have is made by the Fetzer Corporation in America. The best US wines in my opinion. Yesterday was the first real day off for Riku and me. The last day there was no show we had the trip to Vienna and even though it was really relaxing and well organized, I must admit the two morning flights messed my tour rhythm and I was really tired for a few days. Normally I like to stay awake after the others go to sleep at night and just write some lyrics, watch a movie or do something alone. Then I go to bed at 3AM and usually really wake up at 1 or 2 PM. You need to sleep a lot on tour and actually I have never slept this good in my whole life. I feel like shit today. The back stage at Dresden was pretty cold and we all felt something in our throats and noses after the show. It's annoying when someone gets sick in a gang like this; everybody gets it sooner or later. Jukka has felt really bad already for three days and yesterday he had a really high fever. Even if I told him not to rock & sweat that much on stage the last few shows, he just couldn't help it. Our little fighter ;=) I had 5 hot drinks with boiling water, rum, honey and lemon last night before going to bed and actually I was able to sleep for 12 hours. I feel a bit better now but I must take it a bit easier on stage today. The shows in Dresden, Leipzig and Erfurt were amazing. I was a bit worried if there would be enough listeners every night. The distance between the last three cities have been less than 150 Km but the rooms have been full and the folks have been so loud and fantastic. I will have some tea now with Sami's some kind of miracle medicine. I will skip the sound check and try to get some sleep. There are some fans outside the venue next to our bus and I hope they don't mind skipping the photos and autographs this time. Jukka said he's feeling better already so maybe I'll be fine soon too. The show must go on… Added: 18.10.2007 — Samu Haber Oslo-Hamburg-Magdeburg-Berlin-Vienna I'm in a plane on my way to Vienna, Austria. Flight 98 this year, still counting... It was supposed to be our first day off in Germany, but Riku and I will spend it promoting the album, DVD and the tour in Austria. The Austrian EMI girls are very cool and relaxed and it will feel like a day off. The last time it was just so much fun to see them park the car in the radio station garage. Took ages and finally I had to do it. We kind of owe the day for the Austrians. The last time we were supposed to do promotion there, we had to cancel everything because of the chemistry problems in the band and probably because of the fights and stress I got really sick and we had to cancel all the shows and everything for a couple of weeks. And of course we needed to find a new guy to play the guitar too. But we're fully back up now and it's a good way to give a little payback to the Austrian promotion team and of course the fans who missed the shows and stuff the last time. The tour has been just amazing. Really amazing. The set we play is kind of long but it goes by so fast. Soon you're playing Wonderland and the end is near. We have been really shocked with the amount of listeners in ever city. There are 18 shows in Germany alone and still there's enough people for every place. Being on stage has felt more and more relaxed after every show and probably it was good to start with a bit smaller crowds in Scandinavia and then hit the bigger Central European clubs. Yesterday the bigger production and our own big stage worked like clock. The local crew and of course our own boys Karri, Mikko, MP, Tuomas, Aki and Basty are doing a fantastic job. I was a bit worried having 11 guys inside the two-floor bus for such period. I mean we never really traveled this much together, not this tight. So it's the band and our own crew and Basty the tour manager who share the space. But somehow it feels as if the bus is half empty in the night when we drive to the next city and that's good. There's a huge lounge downstairs with DVD, Play station, kitchen, WC and stuff. The upper floor has 12 beds and two cool lounges in both ends with all audiovisual equipment. It's so cool to play the guitar in the front and see the cars go by. As stupid as it sounds, we all hated sleeping in a nice hotel on a day off in Hamburg. Everybody agreed with Sami who said at breakfast that he had missed the bus bed and the rest of us. I'm sure all this will change as we spend some more days together. We will get enough of each other. But all feels very cool so far. And one thing…. Every time we've played Fairytale Gone bad, there's been a lot of people raising some kind of signs for us. The first show in Hamburg is said "JEE, " in Magdeburg "NOW" and yesterday in Berlin "WE" and I must say yesterday I was already waiting for the words to appear. Somebody said it would go through the whole tour. NOOOOOOOOO!!!! ;=) I can't sleep until I know what the whole story is. Maybe "Jee, Now we can celebrate HIFK as the new ice hockey champion of Finland…" Could it be…? Anyway the trick is really cool and who ever are behind it have given us some odd but nice feelings on stage. I can't wait for the next show and the next word. Our driver Mr. John Dear told me there would be new clean sheets in my bed when I come back tomorrow. It's not that I drool much, just to keep it clean. He's a cool guy, somewhat scary when you first meet him, but inside he's a real teddy bear. I'm sure he will learn to love my car and the Finnish Kummeli Movies. So we're about to land now. I'm gonna wake Riku up and put his seat in the upright position. I hope Jukka, Sami and Raul are having fun in Berlin & Dresden while we have to work ;=) Jukkas producer partner Aku is also still in Berlin together with my singer colleague Max "Maximilian Largo" from the Band Killer Aspect. Could bet that they are snoring off their hangovers… Rok U Soon, PS: Remember to vote at the MTV thing! Added: 13.10.2007 — Samu Oslo at night after Sweden Here we are in Oslo Norway. It's actually the first time in my life in this country and I must say it's really nice. I woke up at 11 AM in the bus as we were still driving towards the capital and we sat in the upper front lounge with Raul "the Nutcracker" and it looked so beautiful. I don't know if it's the approaching winter or just the fact that Oslo is so close to the big sea, but the air here is so fresh. It's good for you they say. We slept the whole day at the hotel and Riku woke me up as Aku, Jukka's and my studio partner had woken him up to get a contact with me. I had to pay this invoice for a mixing console we had bought for our studio in Helsinki and I had totally forgotten the whole thing. After sending the money to Sweden we walked to the center with Riku and had a nice non-fat-free dinner at Fridays. Riku kept on inviting the locals to the show tomorrow as I focused on getting my stomach full… The three first shows in Sweden are behind now and tomorrow we play for the Norwegians. The first show in Stockholm was not probably the best we can do on stage but in Gothenburg and Malmö we were a lot more relaxed and things worked out better for the whole crew too. I guess it's kind of a "first game of the season" that also goes for the first show of the tour. All three shows were still very much fun and I must say the Swedish audience was really cool again, even though all the clubs weren't sold out at all. I was also a bit worried how they'd take Riku on guitar after the change in the band, but after we all saw how he took the audience in all the cities, the new guy on stage hasn't bothered us at all anymore. We had heard a lot of good about him before we got together and got on stage together, but when we really were up there with him I understood what the people had been talking about. He is awesome.! The setup is not easy for him either. He has to fill the bots of the former lead guitarist and even if it's only a handful of fans that have insisted Janne back in the band, I'm sure he kind of realizes the past of the group. I just hope Riku will get the peace to do his job and we could all remember that he has nothing to do with getting rid of one past band member. He is actually the one who is saving the tour. And all this really went well in Sweden – 10 points for that. Tack so mycket. Vår mamma sager att vi måste äta mycket mera grönsaker! The band has never been as good on stage as it is now. It amazing in a way because the challenge to find a new guy and all on stage + a new monitor mixing guy Tuomas after MP started working as the second back liner has kept our hands full. Actually we didn't have a chance to practice the set together before the Stockholm show but now we are back on track. We had a few glasses of wine at this jazz bar this evening and Sami and Raul said that they haven't been this happy for the whole time they have been playing together with me and I must share their emotions. The atmosphere is just awesome. The show must go on. I can't wait to get back on stage again…. Rock you all soon! Added: 10.10.2007 — Samu, Raul, Jukka, Sami, Riku and the (shaved Show must go on – Tour start Flight 97 in year 2007. I'm flying to Stockholm with Sami, Jukka, Raul, Riku and the management duet Mikko & Bob. Today is the tour start. This is the thing we have all been waiting for a long long time. We've been playing around Europe for a few years and finally now we step in the bus to spend a few months on the road. When you do the fly in – fly out shows and festivals, it can actually be a lot hared with all the flights and stuff. Usually you must fly in the day before to be there in time to do all the interviews and checks for the show and then you must wake up the next day to get the plane to the next city or home. Now I will have a shower after the show, have a glass of wine and eat my stomach full and fall asleep with a movie. The next morning (or afternoon…) I will wake up from my own bed in the tour bus not knowing where I am. And of course there's promotion and stuff to be made but during these weeks, the show for you guys and girlies comes first. The rest if there's time. The tech crew Karri & MP (Backline), Gorilla-Mikko (FOH), Aki (lights) and Tuomas (Monitors) are already in Stockholm putting the stage and stuff together with the local crew. Aki told me to bring this shaver to so I could shave his head ;) The journey starts from Stockholm, then to Gothenburg and Malmö. Then one day off and to Oslo. I guess we will spend the day off somewhere in Norway. I have never been there and we have this ski jumping thing we might do at Holmenkollen. On Monday we start the Continental European part of the shows. We feel really lucky being involved in something like this. I'm sure the trip will be hard and we will be tested big time, but it'll sure mostly be a lot of fun. I hope we will have some time and energy to write songs with Jukka on the way. I even brought my new (Olav Loef Hand made) "songwriting guitar" with me. Now it's definitely the time to erase all the past, especially the unnecessary shit, from our minds to give you the best on stage. Rock you soon! PS: Thanx for everybody for voting at the MTV thing. The fight goes on…;=) Added: 07.10.2007 — Frank Fruit acoustic & Wetten Dass in Basel Switzerland I'm sitting next to Jukka in a plane from Zurich to Helsinki. His surname is Backlund and I'm Haber and since his starts with B, he always gets the window seat. Daaaaamn! We flew to Frankfurt on Thursday to perform at this RTL II party for their clients, advertisers and folks. It was only four songs with the big acoustic setup and after that we were supposed to get back to the hotel and sleep well to be fresh at the Wetten dass rehearsals the next day. I don't know what happened, but as the catering guys kept on carrying extremely tasty tapas plates and drinks to our back stage area, we just kept on eating and drinking. Finally Riku and Karri went back on stage to get our guitars and we played and sang all night long together with the local RTL and other guys and girls. They finally threw us out at six in the morning and we went to the hotel to be picked up one hour later. I was an idiot and went to sleep (for an hour, what does that help???) but the other ones understood their best and stayed in the lobby bar. And dear fellow citizens, we don't want to apologize Jukka's behavior at Frankfurt airport in the morning… ;=) It was funny! We slept the whole Friday and got ourselves back together. They say Wetten Dass is the biggest TV show in Europe. It has more than 15.000.000 viewers. It was probably the strangest thing we've taken part in. The Germans are betting some stuff like "I bet you can't eat 20 eggs in a minute…" The lineup was cool; Avril Lavigne, Jamie Foxx & Jennifer Garner and us of course. Avril's backstage room was three times as big as ours. We were supposed to go to sleep early again last night, but somehow we ended up in this bar in the center of Basel. I wouldn't say it's a party town based on what we saw but we found a very cozy bar where they gave us discount for beers and Jägermeister because we play in a band… The tour starts on Tuesday in Stockholm. Everything is set and I'm so much waiting for the few months on the road. See you soon! -Samu Added: 23.09.2007 — Poland – Germany – Greece We made our second trip to Poland last week. We started the promotion trip from Warsaw where we performed at the brand new Hard Rock Café. It was the first acoustic show with Riku on guitar and therefore it was good to have 3 hours for sound check. And the check was fun. We played all the worst Finnish schlager songs as the waitresses were making everything ready for the evening. They thought we're crazy… After a TV morning show the next morning on a TV building rooftop we started driving to Zielona Góra for a huge TV show festival. The distance is 450 Km and it took more than 9 hours to get there, The driver was so lost all the time and I must be honest and tell you we were pretty close losing our temper. The roads were amazingly bad too. We missed the sound check (by 3 hours) and we had 11 minutes to prepare everything when we got to the venue late at night before the show. Karri, our backline tech, really saved the day and us in front of the 100.000 viewers + a lot of folks behind TV screens at home. And experience anyway. The show was cool and especially the dinner after it. In the morning we faced another traveling challenge when the plane we were supposed to take back to Warsaw had never arrived the airport. We had to take a Polish bus to the next city to get another one. Even though our trip was full of challenges, all the folks were really nice all the time and we will definitely give them another chance ;=) Yesterday we performed in Rastatt, Germany at the New Pop festival. The venue was the Mercedes Benz factory and actually the robots and engineers were at work and stopped only for the performances. They also made the car builder robots "dance" with the music. It was very cool apart from the fact that nobody told us we could have played one more song since we were the last ones on stage. Felt so bad walking off the stage after only three songs…. We could have done many more. Luckily today we play a 30 min set in Athens at the Taekwondo arena. I just spoke to Karri on phone asking if I should bring some acoustic guitar strings with me to the venue if the ones on my guitar aren't ok. I have some strings with me because I am staying 4 more days in Athens to write some songs and to relax. The weather is just perfect. Anyway, Karri told me that the venue is amazing. Something very very old and there is a great atmosphere. We'll see. I'll put my jeans on now and get to the lobby where the driver is waiting for us to take us to the back stage…. Added: 01.09.2007 — Hamburg Radio promotion and Stars for free in Berlin I’m sitting in my hotel room in Park Hyatt Hamburg and I just came from the gym. The day was pretty easy and relaxed. We just drove around Hamburg and Kiel with our local Radio promoter Toby and visited all the radio stations around here. A short stepper session and a long swim in the nice pool downstairs was the perfect thing for the evening before we have dinner with the German EMI folks. I heard that the Swedish pop miracle Darin might also join us. He sings so well. I’ll sleep like a baby as soon as I get my stomach full. I arrived already yesterday and I had the evening free. As I was having dinner alone in the hotel restaurant, my friend sent me a text message saying “Greetings from Hamburg…” I had no choice but to invite him and his two colleagues to have a glass of whine with me. I thought my friend still works for one of the biggest TV and radio networks in Scandinavia and I thanked them all for supporting our songs. The fact was he had changed his job in JANUARY and the gang was pretty surprised for me being grateful for the airplay support. They work with customer relations, nothing to do with pop music. Time flies, doesn’t it. Wines on me anyhow. It’s Thursday now and the rest of the guys will come to Germany on Saturday. We perform in Berlin at this Stars for free event. The only one who arrived already today from his Swedish trip is Riku, the guy who will play the guitar on stage with us for the rest of the year. Riku is a nice guy and actually he was the first guy in Sami’s and my mind after the change in the band. I met him for the first time in Helsinki after the New Year as I was having dinner with Jukka and his producer partner Aku. Riku joined us then telling that Hanna, the Finnish Eurovision winner 2007 had just kicked him out off the band. He had stolen the show from her, she had said. The last weeks have been pretty hard for us all and there is still a lot of work to do and wounds to heal. Still I must say I am happy how the fans, media and everybody around us have taken the challenge the band had to face. It’s not easy at all, sure for nobody involved, but life will go on. For everybody. I downloaded three albums from iTunes during the gym session to entertain me tonight. Three musts; Iron Maiden’s Fear of the dark (yes!), Metallica’s And Justice for all and Sheryl Crow’s The best of. I will listen to “If it makes you happy” before ordering a bottle of red wine tonight… Added: 21.08.2007 — Changes in Sunrise Avenue I established a band called Sunrise 15 years ago and later on changed the name to Sunrise Avenue. There have been hard times all the way but the hardest moment for me and for all of us was 2 weeks ago when we had to make a very hard decision. A band is a very complex thing. It’s like marriage between the members and it’s much more than what people see and hear on the outside. Sometimes bands spend whole moths together, day and night, and of course like all bands, we also have had our stupid meaningless fights and disagreements. Everybody is tired and stupid things are said. This case was not about who gets to sit next to the window in the car. It was something that had been going on from the first recorded track at the studio. The reason we were able to go on together for so long is all the success we have had with the support of our wonderful fans, but now even the gold awards weren’t enough to cover the pain and to keep us together. Why the change…. Nobody did a bad job and like in most of the relationships that end nobody was wrong or right. The cold fact is that we simply didn’t fit into the same tour bus anymore and it would have been impossible to go on and create new music together when the atmosphere is not healthy. Some of us have travelled to shows with our own cars for months already because travelling in the bus felt unpleasant. That is not healthy but we really tried. You can erase your thoughts for the 60 minutes on stage and show a happy face for the audience but you cannot escape the feelings you have for life and if nothing changes, there will be the day you will have to make a choice. You might ask why didn’t we try talking about it. Yes we did. And again, nobody was wrong or right, we just saw the things so different that we never got to the point. If there is something wrong between two or more people it’s impossible to clear the air if both / all sides can’t see or can’t accept the real problem. It’s ok for some time to find peace for two weeks after every conversation and fight, but in the long run it kills everybody to argue about the same things month after month. I understand it is really hard to see the points from the outside, but I bet you all understand nobody would be left out of the band without a reason. The cause has been there for a few years and the pain inside got tougher and tougher the further we went. Every single person in our Band, Management, Record Companies and Live Agents understand the reasons behind this arrangement and stand behind the situation fully. The band and myself asked for help in this matter from all of them already last year but there was nothing nobody could do. Digging this issue and reasons of it deeper now would only hurt both sides and especially Janne. We will not build a soap opera around the situation. Nobody will get anything from that. We don’t want to publish an open letter on our website about who did what and all. This is the bands internal thing and it shall stay like that. As Janne says in his letters, we also would have done anything to avoid this mess but this time there was no other way. We honestly wish all the best for Janne and his future from the bottoms of our hearts and of course we understand the anger and all he is feeling right now. We respect and value the work he did for the band and he has gotten and will get every credit for his efforts. And we understand the confusion everybody around us feels right now and we can’t blame anyone for feeling sympathy, sorrow or even hate. The last months and especially the last 2 weeks have been really hard for all the band members and the folks behind us and we really hope you could all give us the peace to recover and move on and Janne to build up his own future. Sunrise Avenue will keep on touring, promoting and travelling just the way we have done so far. For the next few weeks there will be a guy playing the guitar, not as a band member, only as a hired musician. We will let you know as soon as we have a new guy, a new member in the band. The shows in Gothenburg, Sweden yesterday and on Sunday were really great. We were really happy with everyone in the audience and back stage and how the unnecessary chewing of the topic was skipped and we were able to focus on our jobs. We really hope that would happen wherever we go. You should all know the arrangement puts us in a very tough place finding and training musicians for the future. Still even if it’s a huge workload with our partly broken hearts, the move we made was something that needed to be done. Otherwise there would have not been Sunrise Avenue at all. The decision is final and there is no coming back. Thank you for you patience and understanding, Samu and Guys Added: 17.07.2007 — Samu Summer driving & Flying through walls Lakeuret ja Järvisuomi I'm on my way to Copenhagen to shoot our next music video. I'm pretty tired – I didn't sleep that much last night because I drove through Finland with Sami (you can see some adult content at royalartistclub.con). We played 4 festival shows in 4 days in Lohja, Tampere, Vaasa and Iisalmi. We took my car with Sami instead of the buss to ride free. It's so cool to wake up at the hotel and just sit an hour at the breakfast table and start driving when you feel like it. With the buss you must to have a clear schedule, it's so many guys. The first show was at Lohja at Rantajamit (Isn't Finnish language funny ;). All was ok apart from the weather but fortunately the whole thing happened in a huge tent. The only thing I must say the Finnish festival organizers can't take care of is the privacy stuff. It's only in Finland where you get to your dressing room after the show and it's less than a minute when people are knocking the door to get autographs. Cultural thing. We drove home after the show to get deep sleep in our own beds. The rest of the week we just drove with Sami in my car and listened to some great music. Keith Urban's latest album was on for more than half of the time. It's soooo good! At Tammerfest I experienced a fan attacking me for the first time. It was this older drunk 'lady' who just walked to me as I was signing autographs after the show and she grabbed my balls. I didn't realize how hard I pushed her away. She really flew a few meters against the fence and the security fence went down. Primitive reaction. Fucking idiot! The faces of the younger girls were a bit shocked but you gotta draw the line somewhere. I felt a bit bad for 3 seconds. On the other hand, some folks don't meet their fans and since I and we do it, there's always a risk some one is a bit too excited. It's funny how we've only had problems with these drunk 40+ ladies. All else has been pretty ok. There was this one very drunk lady who forced herself into the backstage in Kuopio (Fin) and as I wasn't willing to kiss her, she decided to throw up on the backstage carpet. The third show in Vaasa was our first real touch with the summer rain on stage. We had been really lucky with the weather so far but there it all changed. In a way it was cool to get really in front of the stage in the parts I don't sing and just rock in the rain. Sami had a lot of interviews that day alone. He's from that area and he was the big star of the day! And he did a great job, I have a lot to learn from him. On the way to the fourth show in Iisalmi, we stopped at Sami's mom's in YLISTARO. It's where he's from and it's actually not the biggest city in my country ;=) Her mother cooked us some home made food and even the potatoes were from their own field!! So tasty! The weather in Iisalmi was pretty much the same as it was in Vaasa, but the audience was just amazing. I mean they stood there in the heavy rain and were really loud. Usually when it rains it sure eats some of the energy. 12 minutes after the show, we already sat in my car with Sami on our way home. This is definitely the way to travel. You get to your own bed for the night. My mother sent me a message yesterday that she had bought me new pillows for my name day (you celebrate that elsewhere, right?) Not bad mom – Can't wait to lay my head on them ;=) Copenhagen Denmark - Heal Me Video I've been in Copenhagen a few days shooting video for Heal Me. It's a very cool story with some more artistic shots than what we have had in the previous videos. I flew through stuff, was in the ocean, was glued and all... The TWENTYFOUR SEVEN production team lead by the director ANDERS WALTER (Who is the brother of the lead singer of Danish band Grand Avenue - Check it out!) was so relaxed and nice that even though my days were really tough and long, it was definitely enjoyable. The rest of the guys did their part on Monday morning and I got a later wake up. They only stayed for a few hours and I only saw them quickly. I had to do the acting - hope it looks goodâ€... The feeling about the whole thing is really good. We will get first drafts next week and the video will be released in the fall along with the single. I am actually on my way from Copenhagen to Helsinki to our studio to record vocals and guitars for the acoustic version of Heal Me. There will be many remixes and versions again, even a house remix, and that's so great that the record company invest in us and let us play with our songs like that. I didn't sleep that much in Denmark. Both of the days more than 10 days of work and I was already tired when I got there. I hope I don't look to dead on the video. Copenhagen was really nice. The feeling was pretty much the same as it was in Brussels. It's very continental European, but has the best pieces of London in it. Whatever that means... I'll have a nap now with Keith Urban... Added: 01.07.2007 — Samu My country – Athens – Catania - Gothenburg My country I really didn’t know what we’d get with the midsummer festivals in Finland. I actually had prepared myself not to expect a success or too well organized stuff around the weekend and I headed towards the shows with my own car. Especially on our Finnish tour in the spring, some of the club owners or local staff made me hate the whole live scene from time to time. So going with my car is a way to enjoy the sunlight in the night just driving to the next city if the mood at back stages is poor or something else sucks. It really happens. I mean the Sun doesn’t set at all in the midsummer in my country. You gotta see it once in your life. Surprise, surprise. The whole weekend was really cool. Be played both Bigger Mid summer festivals RMJ & Himos and I must say that all was really well organized and the crowd was extremely cool. Especially at RMJ. Miss Pamela Anderson and her giant hooters were the guests of honor at RMJ and the fuzz about her hosting the show was just ridiculous. She only appeared on stage for 2 minutes. With her dad!! If I ever start performing together with Mr. Haber senior, please tell me to quit, ok? The 1st festival RMJ was built on a beach in Rauma, on the western coast 250 Km from Helsinki. The weather was just perfect and everyone seemed happy on a nice sunny day. RMJ is the biggest midsummer festival and so it was kind of a test for us too. We are still a new band for even most of the Finns, even though we have had music control number 1 (the most played song in Finnish radio) for 22 weeks during the last year with Fairytale, Forever yours and Diamonds. Still most of the folks had never seen us play live and RMJ was a perfect chance for us to show them what we really are about. That was probably the most enjoyable show for me in Finland ever so far. I took my car after the show and drove to Tampere together with our Finnish label manager Mikko. It’s half way to Himos and we had booked hotels there to get some rest outside the festival mess. Mikko was really, well, in mid summer condition and I had my hands full saving him from the older Tampere ladies at the bar after arriving at our hotel. He’s a handsome guy, you know. Himos was also very well organized. We had this kind of a summer cabin to share with Miss Paula Koivuniemi, our Guitar tech’s Karris favorite singer and former employer. It was pretty warm when we got on stage and after the third song the sun went down and it got really cold. I nearly lost my voice. I drove home with Janne in the night and I was home already at 2 AM. That was a good choice not to go with the buss with the guys drinking and all. I went to gym at eleven. Athens, Greece – Mad TV awards We had never been to Greece before and I really didn’t know what to expect. The only thing I knew about the country is that they got great food, extremely great looking ladies and that they won the Eurovision song contest one year before our Lordi raped the system with his Hallelujah’s. And of course they are European football champions form two years ago. And well… most of the western philosophy and justice system comes from there. We were gonna stay at a hotel right next to the Acropolis hill. I hope Zeus and guys let us have some sun… And sun we got! It was 44 degrees in the day and the sun had no mercy for the Finnish skin. Already at the rehearsals the day was so hot that I was afraid I’d melt. The days were pretty nice though, we did many interviews at the hotel and had some other meetings by the swimming pool at the hotel rooftop terrace. We wore only swimwear and we had the possibility to jump into the cool water every now and then if the questions got too tough. From the rooftop we could see how huge Athens is. The show was just amazing and the way the audience reacted on us was awesome. We must get some shows booked in Greece soon! They also speak really good English, they have subtitles on TV, David Hasselhoff doesn’t speak Greek. The +12 and rain in Helsinki made me want to go back. We agreed with Jukka to book a holiday in Athens area asap. Catania, Italy – Festivabar It was nice to get a flight to Italy after nearly getting a cold in the rainy Helsinki. I really like my country and all, but mostly I could easily life somewhere else. Somewhere warm. Anyhow. We flew to Catania Sicily one day earlier with Sami and Raul since we had nothing to do at home. It’s very nice to have a full day off in a place where you’ve never been before, go to the beach, shopping and sure a nice dinner in the end. The weather was really nice, not too hot, and we spent the first day pretty much in the sun and swimming in the Mediterranean sea. There was this cool kind of a beach built on lava from the volcano Etna. And when you swim, you’re surrounded by lava stones. Don’t get that in my country ;=) Festivalbar is an event where they have many artists, local and international, performing for an audience and also TV. It all happens a few times a year every time in a different city and it’s said to be popular. We were the first band to perform and it was kind of funny to listen to the hosts talking about us in Italian before we entered the sage. The only part we understood for sure was “Beachboys from Finlandia….?” The crowd was really cool. The sound of my vocals was a bit funny in my ear monitors, but I guess I was just a bit nervous. It’s been a while. I’m human too… We had a nice diner with our local Product manager Valentina and everyone went to bed pretty early. Wakeup was at 4.45 AM to get the first flight of the day. There’s three of them today. On plane from Munich to Gothenburg, Sweden (we play there today) I sat next to this Swedish guy and after traveling 30 minutes, he asked me if I play in a band. I said the band’s name and he didn’t know us. Whaaaaat!!! He’s from Sweden and he must at least know Fairytale, our first single there too. So I gave him 5 seconds with my iPod and he knew the track immediately. He is Mr. Anders Bonander from the Swedish national pistol team. They had just been practicing in Zagreb to get ready for the European championships in Granada Spain in July. Good luck guys! We’re losing altitude slowly towards Gothenbugh airport. I’ll be fun today, the first summer festival in Sweden ever! Added: 18.06.2007 — Samu Austria Novarock & Tollwood Munich Nova Rock Austria I’ve been to Austria once officially before with Janne doing some interviews and stuff and I spent last Christmas there together with Jukka. We were supposed to go to all the classical concerts in the capital, but we rented a BMW instead and drove to Salzburg to enjoy the bars. And I also went skiing in Saalbach and Zell am See some years ago. Great slopes. The Nova Rock festival show was the first contact to the Austrian live audience and even though we had heard good stories about the festival, we really didn’t know what to expect. We only knew that our album has sold well so far and Fairytale has got great airplay on the local radio channels. We had the working week off before the flight to Vienna and it was nice to see all the guys after a “long” break at the airport. I spent the whole week in Southern Finland enjoying my days off. It was a mistake. It was so cold and it also rained pretty much in Helsinki. On Thursday afternoon it was 12 degrees…. In June! Poor Japanese tourists taking photos in front of the parliament building. To be honest, I was a bit worried how the audience would take us. I mean everywhere we go for the first time, the folks mostly expect something much more POP and teenage stuff than what it is in the very end. Sure we knew that the live audience couldn’t differ that much from the great and noisy Germans, but still. The first touch is always the first touch. They were just great! Even at Rock am Ring the folks sing our songs pretty much through the set, but here they sang really loud and they were really active. I’m so happy there will most obviously be some club shows in Austria too on our European tour starting in October. I hope they announce the dates soon. And I must mention that the girls were extremely pretty at this festival. Sure they came from all over Europe but still for a reason or another the opposite sex really pleased our eyes this time. Sure it’s nice to have them wearing the bikini only ;) on a hot summer day. On the way to Munich We’re stuck in a huge traffic jam on our way to Munich to play the Tollwood festival. These are the less unknown German festivals, but just like with the Hessentag & Hannover last week, I’m confident it will be so cool again. I could walk faster than the car moves, but probably it’s better just to enjoy the view and continue writing the lyrics for new songs. Home. Sofa. Tollwood was really nice. Somehow the “family festivals” are really relaxed and especially the back stage area & crew there was nice this time. We performed in this kind of a tent, a huge one, and the crowd was really cool. Not probably a typical Sunrise Avenue audience, but a really nice one anyway. I guess there were many many folks who had never heard more than Fairytale Gone Bad, but still they sang Nasty really loud in the end. And they shouted us back on stage two times ;) It’s 12 degrees and raining again in Helsinki. I could go back to Munich, it was 20 more and sunny. I’ll just do some interviews and stuff this week and hopefully there will be time for gym and stuff. We’re also planning the European Tour this week together with the crew. The first details are so cool. Can’t wait ;) Next weekend we play the famous Mid Summer festivals in Finland. I’ve been standing in the audience so many times dreaming about playing those stages and now it finally happens. After the second mid summer day we all fly to Athens, Greece for the first time. It’s this MAD TV show, obviously something fun and mad. And after Greece we go to Poland I guess and then to Belgium and Holland. 58 flights this year and counting… Counting my flights is one of the few hobbies I have left. Added: 09.06.2007 — Samu Rock Im Park & Rock Am Ring You play guitar all your life and you dream about things, such as released records, real tours of your own band and gold albums. And waking up next to Kylie, Jessica Alba and Adriana Lima the same morning, of course. Rock am Ring & Rock im Park have definitely been two of those wet dreams for me all these years and now I am sitting on a plane to play the main stage of both of them ;) At least the Ring is sold out for the first time ever and they released some more tickets. It’s going to be less than a 100.000 listeners, so no need to get nervous… The audiences in Germany are usually perfect. I’ve heard that these with festivals even the Germans can get cruel. Some of our colleagues have been thrown with eggs and stuff. I hope we don’t get to the grocery category. I first decided just to enjoy the trip and take no photos and write no diaries, but hey. If I get to enjoy this trip, then so should you. I slept pretty bad last night after going through some new songs. The melodies just kept on speeding around my thoughts. I tried to find the missing line for this one song so badly, but nope. We perform at this Radio show today in Cologne and tomorrow we take our tour buss towards the Festivals. Jeeeee ;) Surprise, surprise As we arrived in Cologne yesterday, the schedule said there would be an acoustic performance at the 1LIVE radio station. One of the biggest In Germany. Sami said next to the luggage belt at the airport that he smells something burning in the whole picture and he thinks there is actually gonna be a gold award surprise party, no acoustic radio show. It was all pretty unusual. The EMI folks told us last week that they would arrange all guitars and stuff and we don’t have to worry / bring our own… Usually we do. EMI had booked us right next to their head office. I remember feeling strange going through EMI garage to “Get the guitars” for the radio show. Julia guided us to the elevator and as we got the EMI lobby “to get the instruments,” the whole company was there cheering! So cool. That was one of the head skins I have been dreaming about for years. To get a gold award from a major market. And actually two awards. We got gold for Fairytale gone bad too. Julia had edited a video for us about the first year traveling in Germany and Europe and I must say I never had such confusing emotions. In a way I never felt that happy before. Just looking back all the amazing things we have been blessed to experience the first year makes you feel like you’re luckiest guy on the planet. The evening was made perfect with a nice dinner with many EMI folks who have been fighting very very hard for us. For us this whole thing is a dream come true. Fort them it’s just a job and it’s amazing how much they put their hearts and free time into our band. The buss took off at 01 AM towards Nürnberg, Rock Im Park… Tired but damn happy. Rock IM Park Yep ;) The first one done and my God it was cool. Rock im Park is a festival at the legendary Nürnberg historical spot. That was the biggest audience we ever played for. They said it was probably 50.000. Fifty thousand!!!!!!!! No eggs ;) There was a problem with some technical stuff before the show and we had a 10-minute delay. We had to skip 2 songs (All because of you and Wonderland). Everyone was coo, though. We just woke up inside the Nürburgring race track. The main stage and backstage are located inside the ring, where our Finnish ice man Räikkönen drives his formula car once a year. Te whole Saturday was off and we just did some interviews and a Diesel clothing photo shot together with Eva Padberg, the German model. She was….wow! I have had her wallpaper on my Mac for a year already. The second time this happens. Collien Fernandez was the first celebrity I met with a wallpaper history ;) On the road in Germany I didn’t have time before to finish this, so I am sitting on the front seat of a minivan speeding towards Hannover, Germany. We perform there today at this city festival. We are in the hands of Captain Dirk, our limo service driver and their new Mercedes minibus. But let’s reverse back to last Sunday to Rock am Ring. It was kind of annoying to look at the stage for two days and see all the big acts performing there. I mean two days is definitely enough time to get nervous ;) We stood at the area behind the stage where Karri (guitar tech) brings the bass and guitars. There was no signal from my Gibson. Probably because the stage is so huge and we were behind the stage on the left side. My amp is on the right side. After they announced us we walked on stage. I didn’t realize the TV crew and the screens cameras were zooming on me and I said “Vi Vittu” pretty clearly. It’s a Finnish expression you say when you’re either very angry or positively surprised. The audience was just awesome! And no eggs ;) I just went through the whole show with my laptop and apart from my little fault in Fairytale and Sami’s creative start for sunny day, all was perfect. And it looked soooo good. Walking down the staiers after the show was one of the best moments in my life. The evening after the show went partying like hell. We had two friends from Finland joining us the whole weekend so there was some extra strength in the party gang. Hessentag Yesterday was the first Hessentag experience for us. Hessen is this kind of a state in Germany and every year one Hessen area city or village gets to be the host of the party. This year the glory and pride went to the village of Butzbach. The festival runs for one week with all bands and amusement parks and stuff and there are eve pretty big names performing, such as Aerosmith this year. A local radio station there presented us and even though we played a 90-minute show, the audience was just great and jumping and claping their hands like crazy. I mean usually 90 minutes for an audience who might now know the songs could be too much. Today there’s another show in Hanover and tomorrow we perform in my country again. It’s a huge city festival in the centre of Helsinki with some 70.000-80.000 listeners + live TV. We got the new Bon Jovi album (released yesterday in Germany) form a lovely fan yesterday. There is a great ballad they sing together with Leann Rimes. I need to close my eyes when listening to that on iPod. I’m still really tired after last weeks interview circus. 31 degrees Celsius, blue sky… Life could be worse. Added: 29.05.2007 — Samu Here and there - right before summer starts We took off from Helsinki to Düsseldorf on the 11th of May. We had this cool event in Bochum Germany operated by Nokia. They had given us new N95 mobile phones some weeks ago to get some footage on the screens when we perform. We had shot a lot of stuff, hours to be exact, from DTM, stages and stuff. All was organized pretty well apart from the technical stuff. Our crew had to work an extra day to get everything in order, but I guess it was mostly because the folks behind the evening were doing it for the very first time and the whole setup was kind of a special thing. There had been contests all around Germany where people had been capturing themselves singing Fairytale gone bad and out of these hundreds of contestants, we were glad to chose one guy to join us on stage to do the song with us. The winner, Mr. André took the stage as any pro. We slept for one hour (Crew + myself we didn’t sleep at all because Aki, our head of lights serve us red wine) and flew all to Barcelona to see the Formula 1 race and to relax for a few days. We invited the whole crew. They have definitely earned a few nice days off too. Barcelona is one of the coolest spots on the planet. I can’t say why, but somehow the smell of “shit” makes me feel good every time I walk the main street La Rambla. Not shit really but the smell of life. Everything is not that sterile over there. The weather was pretty much perfect. We spent the days on the beach and went shopping and out in the evening & night. We were also joined by some of the guys’ girlfriends and kids, plus the Finnish label manager Mikko. Well, Bob was there too but he flew away right after the F1 race. I bet he didn’t want to see our crew hit the night clubs ;) Perfect gang anyway. I had rented four apartments for the travel party from the very center of the city. It’s much nicer to stay in an apartment than in a hotel, I think. The F1 trip was cool and all, but our hero Kimi Räikkönen broke his Ferrari engine on the 5th lap. As Finland also lost the Ice Hockey WC final against Canada the same day, we decided to focus on enjoying the city. It was quite a challenge finding an Ice Hockey bar in Barcelona. But our FOH Mikko did. The last night in Barcelona we had dinner with Jukka and Bonnier Mikko ( It’s amazing how many Mikko’s you need to carry out this kind of a project) and later Karri and Aki joined us with Sami and MP. Karri and Aki made clear to us all what “manhood” really means on the streets of Barcelona. I am so happy for both of you guys and you know I love you and that I admire you certain kind of skills and attitude! 16th-19th we had 4 shows is Switzerland. Three shows supporting the local Hard rock giant Gotthard and one show case for EMI world wide MDs. I didn’t really know about the Gotthard guys before our tour agency proposed the support stuff. Their music is kind of hard rockish traditional rock and I’m not usually a huge fan of that kind of music. This time I must say that the Gotthard guys, their crew and especially their audiences rocked their way deep into my heart. I really hope we get to do stuff with these great guys in the future. Probably the best thing about the band itself is that the guys are extremely great with their instruments and you can definitely tell that they’ve done the stuff on stage for a zillion times, but still even if they’re pro and all, you can sense the enjoyment miles away. Whatta mixture. I wish I had the same when I’m pro ;) I fell in love with Luzern, the last city in Switzerland. It’s this kind of a middle size city in the middle of the mountains by a beautiful lake. Bob, our manager, rented a boat and took some of the guys to the lake with it and I went swimming with FOH Mikko, Tech Karri and Light Aki. I wasn’t actually supposed to swim at all, but there were some girls near us as the other guys dived into the water and I didn’t want to look like a pussy… After the Luzern show we drove to Milan, Italy. Temperature just got warmer and warmer. We had the first day off and I had rented a car for myself for four days and Jukka got one for himself too, so we drove to Lake Garda together with Basty (Tour manager), Mikko’s, Aki and Karri. A day off at one of the most beautiful spots in Europe. We took silly Baywatch pictures in the water and just relaxed. Really stupid pictures. David Hasselhoff would get jealous if he saw them: http://irc-galleria.net/archive.php?nick=^^Singeri^^&album_id=1549715 The show day started with a typical media circus for Janne and I. We did several interviews and finally the rest of the guys joines us for the photo sessions in the afternoon. Probably above all again beautiful Valeria and her funny partner Luca at All Music TV. We knew the venue would not be full. It’s always like that with the first show no matter where we play. Fortunately our local Fan club had been promoting the event for us and we got the club half full. After tasting the energy of an Italian audience, we all agreed we need to get more of it. We need to get back there ASAP! The band, Crew and staff drove to Zurich in the night to get planes home. I drove to my friend’s and his wife’s little house by the lake Maggiore in the north. Jesus. The lake was just less than 10 meters from my bedroom window and the place was so peaceful. I finally had a few days off after 4 months. We just drove around the lakes of Northern Italy and enjoyed the sun. And I got burned a bit too of course. I never learn to protect myself with sun lotion enough. Well, there was a football game the second day and nobody remembered my red skin as AC Milan won Liverpool in Athens. I flew to Hannover Germany on Thursday to go though some stuff for the DOME TV show. I also had a long and nice chat & dinner with our manager Bob and Julia from EMI. The guys were going to land the next day and there were a lot of things to be done before they come for the show on Friday etc. The DOME was again as cool as can be. Pyros and stuff. This time even the red carpet felt better than ever. Probably because we didn’t expect anything special and probably because we are getting to the point that we can say there’s been some success already in Germany. And of course the after party as late as possible again. The coolest thing was to meet the local singer Idol NEVIO, who I think has the coolest voice on the planet. He’ll have a long courier. And it was very late again as we got to our hotel beds. The wakeup to get to the airport was early again. We had to be back in Finland pretty early to headline a summer festival near Helsinki. All went well and we got to our destination, but our guitars, headphones and stuff never got to the plane for a reason or another. My little brother and our former Lighting guy kindly borrowed their gear. It was so cool to play the first open air real summer festival by a nice lake out side. It was a nice start and we’ll get a lot of it in the next few months. On Wednesday we’ll play one more show inside at the Helsinki ICE Arena and after that everything is outdoors. And rock am ring & Rock im Park next weekend. Can’t wait. One of the dreams come true… Again. I feel so god. I wish I could share the rising sun of Scandinavia with all you folks. You just gotta see it ones in your life, it’s like nothing else. It’s 03:07 and the light is already climbing from behind the buildings creating a new cool day for all of us. These are the moments that you keep inside your heart to guide you then - The day you fail again (From “The day you fail again” – Hopefully one of next album’s songs) Added: 10.04.2007 — Samu Tour & kidnapped little brother When you seriously start aiming towards something with your band, you have this vision in your head. This huge stage and this wild audience. It’s this kind of a wonderland, you really don’t know what it is, but you’ve seen the big acts performing for thousands of screaming listeners and you know it’s gotta be something nice….. The Italian EMI had booked us to do the MTV TRL TV show the day before the tour in Germany would start. In a way I was stressed out because of the extra stuff right before the four shows in four nights period. It’s the throat thing and this time we’re also going to record a live DVD for commercial use in Cologne on the 3rd tour day. But the Italian EMI office staff is so sweet and cool and everything is always so well organized in Italy, so the trip was more of a holiday. It’s was only Janne and I and we did pretty many interviews for newspapers, magazines and TV and we also met the very first fan club members. They were all so sweet and they talked so fast ;) We took a plane from Milan to Dresden 0n 22nd of March just to sleep on night and rest before the tour starts. The rest of the guys and the crew would pick us up the next day. We stayed at NH hotel and the funniest thing was that at the sauna/gym area the Germans walked around naked… Woooo? In Finland we’re pretty used to naked folks in sauna, but at gym…;) One step forward As we arrived to Chemnitz Club, I realized we’d taken one step forward what comes to the clubs and stuff. The venue was the smallest one on this tour, but bigger than any of the February ones. Probably 1000 capacity. Our diamond crew had set everything up all the way to the wireless internet connection and it was time to adjust the brain on tour mood. A typical day on tour is something like this. We wake up somewhere either in a hotel or in the buss. You don’t know where you really are and usually the first thing is to explore the neighborhood a bit. If there’s not too many folks waiting for you by the entrance already. And the wakeup is (at least for me) usually something between 11 AM and 1 PM. The later the better. You know the show ends at 11 or something and I really can’t sleep until 2-3 at night. The blood runs through your veins too fast after the show. Afternoons are typically filled with interviews, photo sessions or some record company stuff. Our lovely tech guys do al the sound checks and stuff for us, we might only do a double-check if it’s an important day, DVD stuff or something. Then we just sleep and well… try to go jogging or move a bit. And sure we eat a lot. The 90 minute show eats a lot of energy and the worst thing is to get up on stage with an empty stomach. I can easily run 10 kilometers on a running mat at the gym, and after the shows the feeling is pretty similar. We just play the guitar… After the show I try to get warm, not the get ill, and eat a lot again and drink lots of water. Then the tech boys clear the stage and pack the stuff in the buss and trucks and off we go. To do the same thing again the next day. The second show was in Berlin, Universal Music Hall. Really cool place. We had the famous photographer Olaf Heine (shot guys like Bon Jovi, REM, Sting, Ricky martin, etc) shooting us all day first at his studio in Berlin and later at the backstage and sure also during the show. We took a Limo service minivan to Cologne with Jukka right after the show. I really wanted to go to sleep to be well during the DVD shootings the next day. Just the idea that some crewmember would become friends with the jack Daniels bottle and sing all night and destroy my sleep, sounded bad. Our friend Jörn was the driver and we were in Cologne in no time. One of our lovely EMI employees gave us their apartment to get the good night sleep, how cool is that! They were out of town. I hope we remembered to clean the place ;) The shows can be pretty tough for the throat sometimes, last time it was really bad on the 4th and 5th show. Well I was sick then but anyhow. I was a bit worried how it would be. I felt like a bird in the morning, I felt like Pavarotti (only a bit skinnier and no ass) after sleeping next to Jukka for some many hours. Julia took us to the Cologne E-werk venue. That was big. The capacity was more than 2000 and it had been sold out for weeks. Lot of fans were already behind the gates as we arrived at 1 PM, 8 and a half hours before the show. In Cologne we had a proper sound check especially for the DVD sound and we also had to go through all the special camera things and pyro stuff. The whole 35-person crew seemed to know what they were doing. Looking at the venue and the amount off staff working for the production to make our songs sound and performance look cool, gave me Goosebumps. This is what I meant with the first few lines. The thing you’ve been fighting for all the time, to have this kind of thing around you and the band. Knock knock knocking on wonderlands gates… Well not yet, but one step closer. The show was just amazing. Just like the three others. Even though we all knew there’s the DVD stuff going on, we all were relaxed and we all enjoyed the night so much. I am usually able to stay cool behind the microphone, but that night I really had to bite my lip hard to stop the tears coming out of my eyes a few times. I nearly broke in the first two minutes of wonderland. The atmosphere was so amazing. It’s always a great thing that happens at the back stage after a great show. All the shows on this tour have been just fantastic and the audiences were just amazing. But this time, probably because of the DVD and the size of the venue, there was some extra emotion in all us. After hugging the guys, management, Agents, EMI guys, the Crew and all, I really had to find a silent spot where I could sit alone to get back on the planet. That was the happiest moment of my life. I have felt love and I have shot goals in football and I have seen audiences before. But this was all that together times 1000. Times all orgasms in the world. If I had died right there, I probably would have gone with a smile on… After having the DVD monkey off our back, the Hamburg day felt like a holiday. We walked around Reberbahn, with Janne and Sami and avoided all the strip caves. It’s amazing that they start their day at eleven. I mean I thought strippers work mostly at night. That’s what I’ve heard from the big boys, but there they probably go to work the same time as everyone. 2 hours before the singers wake up. The venue Grosse Freiheit 36 was a really cool traditional rock club and you could feel all the hundreds of acts who’d played there during the years. The show was probably the best performance musically ever from Sunrise Avenue, even better than the three other shows that tour. We were so relaxed. I didn’t have to worry about my throat that much, we’d also have ONE full day off after this, and there’s no TV cameras. And the audience was just great! Again. I really like Hamburg a lot. Reminds me of Helsinki somehow and every time I drive through the city I get the feeling I could really live there. Archkrokodil kidnapped my brother and Karri stole our show After the show there was the necessary after party. I usually don’t wan to get wasted, but especially the crew seems to celebrate the “great success” after each tour. They got all so drunk, especially our guitar Tech Karri, who sang himself into all the hearts on Remerbahn by performing “still loving you” in a karaoke bar for hundreds of fans. The after party was in a small karaoke bar next to all the strip bars. Nothing VIP, it’s cooler to hang out with the fans and stuff. My little brother had come over from Finland to see the show. Everything went well and this 18-year-old baby promised to take a taxi to his hotel right after we took off with our buss at three in the night. People had seen some Team Arschkrokodil members partying all night with the cuter brother and he wasn’t able to “escape” until 9 in the morning. Must have been nice to sit next to our mother in the plane with no sleep after being forced to drink all the booze there is in Hamburg. Good boy! We had a really cool buss and a really nice buss driver. I’m sure he was a bit surprised how well we behaved. No drugs or throwing TV’s out or nothing. But luckily Karri (guitar tech) and Aki (lights) fixed the image during the last 300 kilometers before arriving at the airport. Mikko (FOH) was able to capture some footage of these guys climbing above the driver naked and waving the male parts over the poor driver’s head. They obviously drank all the stuff from the buss and in the morning we all woke up to this awful smell. The floor was full of throw up and all shit. The buss wasn’t the same as it was before and the driver did a good job keeping his face cool as we walked out the last time at the airport. Karri also woke me up in the middle of the night and wanted to fight me – half seriously. We went out to fight. He looked so stupid attacking me wearing these “grandfather” kind of indoor shoes. I don’t really know what they drank, but I was a bit worried. And as I half seriously asked the crew to calm him down, they were all too drunk to operate even them selves. It was sort of fun. He didn’t remember a thing in the morning. I’m so happy there is a video cam in most of the phones. We experienced the whole naked stuff and our fight club at the airport. We’re all friends again…;) It’s two weeks from the tour now and we’re flying back home from Hamburg again from Radio Hamburg’s city festival. We also got the first rough cut of the DVD… Makes me smile. It will be out after the summer with some special backstage stuff. Thank you so much for the wonderful 4 shows again! My words can never express how much we appreciate you being there and singing our songs with us. We are the luckiest guys in the world. And thank you for the wonderful birthday and other presents. I really wish I had time and a chance to thank everyone personally. And it’s just amazing that the album went gold. The record company EMI has done a terrific job together with our management, but nothing would have happened without you doing the most important ground level work. I slept for 3 hours last night but I don’t mind. I am the happiest guy on the planet – again ;) And that’s all because of you. Thank you! Added: 23.02.2007 — Samu 2 days - Milan, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Tallinn, Copenhagen, B A restful weekend in Helsinki is behind and I got all the sleep I needed. I was already about to go to sleep on Friday at home as our German tour agent Enrico called me that we’re supposed to meet in Tavastia Club in Helsinki to see this possible support act for the German tour. I had totally forgotten. Jeans on and into the night… For a reason or another I slept extremely bad on Sunday night and I felt really tired on Monday early wake up at 6. And when you’re tired, everything goes straight to hell. I woke up a bit later than I was supposed to and of course when you’re in a hurry, the taxi call girl says “well, it’s pretty busy right now, so if there’s no car in 20-30 minutes, call again.” The hell I will call again. My plane starts boarding then. I was an asshole and called two taxies from two different companies. I hope the second one never got there. I needed to catch my plain. Damn… Fist flight was to Stockholm and Jukka had to buy a new pair of Sunglasses (Versace investment again of course) because he was so tired and the day was too bright for him. From Stockholm the plane flew to Milano and I slept the whole way even though it was cold as hell in the plane. The older kind of MD aircrafts should definitely be replaced. As we landed I realized again how nice the winter could be in the Mediterranean area. +15 Celsius. It was minus 10 back home. Valentina Lamparelli (Whatta cool name!) from EMI Italy was waiting for us at the airport and her driver drove us directly to MTV TRL show. We performed Fairytale Gone Bad in the very beginning of the program and all was organized pretty well. TRL. Nice start for Italy. We also met our first Italian fans, or anyway girls who got our autographs as we walked back to the car. Damn the brown eyes... I could sink into them. Jukka, Sami and Raul were taken back to the airport pretty soon and they flew back home the same evening. That was a quick drop by in Italy. We stayed until Wednesday with Janne and did tens of magazine, website, radio and TV interviews. I learned to say Arschkrokodil in Italian. It’s “Cocodrilo di culo” and actually I was able to launch the famous green fellow in a live TV show. Jeee ;) Klaus Das arschkrokodil got an Italian colleague. Together they will rule the world. Especially our TV / Radio promoter Pablo “Carlo Gambretti” seemed to love the crocodile stuff. On Tuesday evening we had dinner with my friend Juhku and his better half that live in Northern Italy working for the EU. Well, Juha only plays golf and drives their brand new ML 320 because he hasn’t found a descent job so far. Bad life… Since we were in Milan, we sure had to go shopping. It was some kind of a fashion week and I stopped counting the beautiful tall models the first afternoon. But anyhow. Everything was available from high-end fashion to regular H&M & Bershka stuff. I ended up buying only a pair of Converse All Stars (my 22nd pair ;) and a spring jacket. We had a walk in the centre and found the five-floor Ferrari store with real Ferrari formula 1 inside and also a Kappa store with full size pictures of my favorite Ice Hockey team (Helsinki IFK) players Jere Karalahti and co. In Milano (???). The Italians have great taste in food, clothing, weather and stuff, but obviously they also support the best hockey team in the world. We were walking down the road and I was on phone as Janne suddenly started repeating IFK, IFK… I thought he became totally mad (not saying he hasn’t been on the way all the time) or that he finally realized what is THE team to support in Finnish league. But no. He didn’t become any madder and he still sticks to the Espoo Blues team. Now we are on our way back home up in the air. We should have traveled to Helsinki via Copenhagen, but there’s a huge snowstorm above Denmark and our flight to Helsinki is cancelled and the one from Milan took off 2 hours late. We’ll have to be in a boat to Estonia at around five in the afternoon to play a show for boatful of students. So I guess Scandinavian Airlines will assist us with hotels and stuff in Copenhagen and I hope we get home early enough tomorrow. Usually these things turn out fine but I must get my other suitcase from home for the week in Germany. So tomorrow we go to Estonia and from there we fly directly to Germany to do these acoustic shows and for some signing sessions. We will end our week in Germany by performing LIVE at the dome in Mannheim. They will organize a big black grand piano for Jukka and all acoustic stuff for us and it will be so damn cool again. It’s the third and obviously the last dome for us with Fairytale Gone Bad. Some 8.000 viewers and millions at home behind the TV screens. I already miss the weather in Milan and the lovely EMI folks. And one more thing. There’s this really famous song in Finland called “Tarantella Joe” and I was sure it’s from Italy and a famous song there. You know they have this Tarantella kind of music, this kind of restless but happy stuff. I tried to sing Tarantella Joe to EMI‘s Valentina and Pablo and they had never heard about it. I must send them the song. Arrivederci Italia e Cocodrilo di Culo! Until next time, hopefully soon… Everything was a huge mess in Copenhagen. We have just spent our night on the really cold airport floor. There were hundreds of folks hunting for connecting flights and hotel rooms and by the time we got to the airport, all the hotel rooms were gone, even the Hilton was full. Taxi cue to the centre was 4 hours and there was no other way to the city and to any hotel. We bought flights online for to the first SAS plane to Helsinki just to be sure we get home in the morningand to be sure we catch the boat and get to play our show. As we were ready to jump in the plane in the morning, we realized the plane would be at least 4 hours late. Would be to late for us. So we had to buy the third flights home, this time with Finnair. And now I’m actually sitting high above the Baltic Sea on our way home. Seems as if we’ll have time to get home to get some clean clothes and have a quick shower. There was this very pretty girl at Copenhagen airport asking for my autograph right after I woke up. For the first time in my life I thought of saying no. I must smell bad; I didn’t even have a toothbrush that time. But sure I couldn’t say no. ;) They’re so sweet and they are the reason we get to travel and play our songs with my boyz. So, the trip ends well. I hope our bags travel below us. If not, we’ll have a good excuse to update the whole wardrobe ;) Copenhagen again. I’m getting pretty familiar with this airport. It’s actually quite nice, but it would be cool to get to our destination, Berlin. The show was just great yesterday and we felt like we’ll have a cool signing session week I Germany, but no. The connecting flight from Copenhagen was cancelled and we had to cancel the autograph sessions & the acoustic performances in Leipzig and Berlin. Vittu! There will be another in Berlin tomorrow though. The new flight they booked us on is already 2 hours late and we’ll see if we ever get to Berlin. Julia has been waiting for us at the Berlin Tegel airport for 5 hours already with my new perfect Gibson acoustic guitar. Finally I get it 3 months after ordering it. Our bags disappeared somehow two days ago and they still haven’t found them. So Janne and I we have our spare clothes in other suitcases and I really hope these will end up in Berlin today on my 22nd flight this year. Otherwise I have no clothes left. Sorry all you guys who were on your way to the sessions today ;( We’ll make it another time. What can you do..? Added: 18.02.2007 — Samu Promotion Switzerland & Austria I’m sitting here in Berlin 840 AM having a coffee in a restaurant where you can see the Tegel runway and the planes taking off. We flew here from Vienna pretty early this morning to take the second flight home in about an hour. We did a two-day promotion trip to Zurich and Vienna promoting our album and single. It’s going really well there, thanks to EMI. Before the Wednesday in Zurich we had a day off in Helsinki. Well, I had one radio, two magazine and one TV interview on my “day off” but it was pretty relaxing anyhow. We were back from Germany & Sweden the day before and at least I really felt good sleeping 13 hours in my own bed. And I also had a haircut on Tuesday so actually the day was pretty tough and challenging…. Our local promoter Sandra was waiting for us at the Zurich airport. Every time I land into Zurich, I get the feeling “Everything’s a bit better here.” I don’t know why, but all the folks in Switzerland seem to be happy and ok with all their stuff. Anyhow. We did phoners (meaning the reporter calls Sandra’s phone and she hands it to me) & went to local radio stations to play our Fairytale acoustic. We also had our first experience with the (Finland based) Habbo online chat thing. Was actually pretty cool. After the lunch in a really nice restaurant Sandra had booked we went to EMI Zurich office to do some stuff for TV and web. In the evening we were taken to the Swiss premier of Hugh Grant’s and Drew Barrymore’s new movie “Music & Lyrics” in a really nice theatre. Since the theme was music and songwriting, they presented us in front of the premiere audience and press and they asked some questions about songwriting and stuff. The movie was really good; at least we liked it a lot. Two beers with Sandra and Janne in the hotel bar and the idea of diving into the bed sounded pretty good. You know, the electricity plugs are different in Switzerland and there were no adapters left in the hotel for the “normal” European kind. I didn’t get any power to my MacBook and couldn’t read my mails and couldn’t log into myspace. Whatta hard life… Wake up at six and after a quick coffee Sandra took us to the airport. I slept the whole way to Vienna. I love to sleep in the plane. It moves a bit like a cradle and there’s this relaxing sound of the engines. I love to fly. I remember them going through the security stuff before hitting the runway and the next time I opened my eyes was when the plane stopped to let us all out in Vienna. Our local “baby” promoter Katharina was waiting for us at the airport. The first thing we wanted was some power to our laptops, how rock credible ;) We drove to the centre and as she put the radio on, Fairytale gone bad was the first song on the biggest radio channel Ö3. I guess she had called them to play it as soon as we had landed. Just kidding. Just like all EMI countries & areas so far, the Austrian EMI team is doing a terrific job with our music and it’s going really well. We are in top 10 with the album and with the single and we have the same situation in Switzerland. Choosing EMI as the European partner wasn’t a bad idea at all. We drove to a really nice hotel; the one where also Sting and Whitney Houston stay on their trips to Vienna and the press day was organized damn well. They had arranged this conference room at the hotel with drinks and Sunrise Avenue posters and stuff all over the place and the reporters came in one after another. We spoke to all the biggest news & daily papers, radio and stuff. We also drove to the Ö3 radio station to play some acoustic stuff for their programs. The day started at 8 and as the last interview was done at 830PM we felt like we had earned a beer. Almost all of them asked how we feel about being such stars and being so successful. For me it’s pretty hard to get. I don’t feel like a star at all. I still don’t mind carrying my own guitar, but probably as Janne said, we haven’t had any time to realize the great stuff that has happened in the last months. I might have to learns how to demand fresh strawberries after every question… Would I be a start then? I don’t know. It’s just so cool to be this normal guy from Helsinki even though we play our songs for pretty big audiences every now and then. I love normal & simple life and I hope I never lose it no matter what happens. We had a really nice dinner in the evening together with the EMI folks including some local red wine and dessert wine and even some hot chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream in the very end. I hope we didn’t eat our entire marketing budget. Wake up was at 5:45, yes too damn early but we made it. Janne has a bad stomach and he’s trying to get some rest with all this noise at the airport. We have a weekend off until Monday morning when we go to Italy, Jeeeee ;) We’ll be there for three days and fly to Helsinki on Thursday evening only to take a boat right away to Estonia to play a show there. Then we will fly directly to Germany for more than a week to perform at the DOME and to do some acoustic shows all over the country. This means the next time I’ll be at home is more than two weeks away again. Luckily this weekend is off and I get to sleep a lot and go to gym. Only two interviews and that’s all. I’m going to see if I could write some lyrics for a new song I wrote a few days ago. It’s called “Welcome to my life” and I think it’s going to be on the future albums. I have a good feeling about the song... Added: 11.02.2007 — Samu One evening alone after German tour in Stockholm I’m sitting here in Stockholm in my hotel restaurant alone. Well, the other tables are crowded and sure I have my new black Apple MacBook with me. But yes, I’m alone for the first time in weeks. It’s amazing when the band, crew, promoters, media and fans have surrounded you for weeks, it’s hard to be suddenly alone. I’ll probably start talking to the wine bottle soon. We’re here in Stockholm together with Janne doing some TV, radio and press promotion for our album that was released last Wednesday. And we already got gold singles for Fairytale Gone bad from Sweden at the release party, thank you! The start in Sweden couldn’t have been better. Janne is having dinner with his Wife and two wonderful kids down town. They arrived yesterday from Helsinki as we were doing this TV show “Bobster” (our manager BOB will hear about this;) with the most wonderful hostess Malin & her crew in Malmö, southern Sweden. Janne got a family room. I’m still staying jealously in my single room with all my guitars and stuff. Well, I guess the 4 persons and all the children’s stuff would fill even a triple room. Last weeks Friday on the 2nd of February we started our first tour in Germany. It was all sold out and those five shows was the coolest thing I’ve ever experienced. I mean we’ve played for big audiences in Finland sure, but to have clubs sold out in a foreign country and especially for such wonderful audiences is just amazing. The tour was tough. My throat wasn’t that good from the very start and especially in Hamburg and Cologne I was almost sure we’d have to cancel the show because there was no sound coming out of me. Thanx to ten liters of honey, Rum, Whiskey and hot water I was able to take care of my job as a singer with ok grades. The shows were just awesome. In every city we went to the staff working with us was so kind and professional. And for the first time we really worked with our European tour agent Enrico and his right hand Basty, who we all fell in love with deeply. Basty will take a bigger role in taking care of us and our needs from now on and we all feel really good with that. And I must mention our wonderful inside crew FOH Mikko (he makes the sound for you guys), MP the monitor guy, Mikko our light guy, Karri the tech genius, our driver & security chief Mättö and not to forget mr. Legolas (Really Antti, but he looks like a knight from the lord of the rings) selling the T-shirts and stuff. I realized on tour that to get the girls, you shouldn’t be the singer who has to be behind curtains most of the time. You should be the guy who’s selling the merchandise. Leeeegoolasss ;) And of course there was Bob in the buss too. Bob is our manager, (a former antique sales man from London. That we found out in Stockholm), who finally got our signatures on the management contract in the buss after the Dresden show. We just haven’t had any time before. Bob’s our man. I was a bit worried to jump into the buss with these guys and thought there might be moments when we can’t take each other snoring and walking around with nothing but underwear. They were all so cool. I remember these moments when Karri carried whiskey for me before Forever Yours on stage to clear my sick throat. Bartender ;) I felt so proud when I looked at these guys walking around and doing their work in Sunrise Avenue Crew Hoodies or T-shirts before and after every show. And our fans... I don’t know what has happened but even though we sell out the shows and they are really fanatic (even establishing fan clubs and Arschkrokodil teams ;), even the most hard core fans are extremely nice and leave us alone when we need time for ourselves to rest and stuff. And when the music starts, they scream so loud that it can be heard in the moon. That’s so cool. I’ve never heard any audience sing that much with the band. The crowd should get some of my salary in all five cities. I still can’t get the stuff some folks say about the Munich folks in general about them being cold and stuff. We only have extremely positive experiences. Like everywhere in Germany. I’ve been thinking about having a house in Germany, probably in Hamburg, and this trip definitely made my feelings even stronger for my second homeland. And we met some band members of the legendary future girl-band Rosino Cayale in Berlin… We’ve seen it all now. Especially their drummer Ariane banged herself into our hearts by serving us strawberries at the backstage…. Sweet! So the Stockholm Debaser Club show was sixth show in six days for us and those of you who’ve been to our shows know that they’re pretty physical for us - lots of sweat. The last two promotion days with all the interviews have felt a bit hard, but we’ve made it together with our lovely local promoter Hilda (who has Finnish roots). Tomorrow is A DAY OFF!! And our local Record company Bonnier has arranger us (Janne & his family, my Swedish friend Andreas and I) tickets to the Sweden Hockey Games to Sweden vs. Finland. I must say facing Sweden in ice hockey makes me more nervous than any show we’ll ever play. They’re good. But we will keep the faith. On Monday we will perform at the national TV morning show and head back home in the evening. We’ll stay in Finland for one whole day and on Wednesday morning we’ll take off to Switzerland and Austria. We spent last Christmas week in Austria with Jukka and I really liked the whole country, especially Salzburg. And from Vienna we go to Italy. Cool! I must remember to send email to my mom every now and then and tell her not to worry ;) The little things you must do to be able to do this job and to keep your head together are pretty weird sometimes… I’m having Reindeer toast for starters and Duck fillet stuffed with spinach and herbs with pasta as main course. And probably a hot chocolate cake with cranberries & vanilla sauce afterwards. A bottle of good Spanish red wine and a new diet coke every time the glass gets empty. This is my night off and I’m going to spend it without any clubs or other noise. I’ll probably fall asleep soon and keep snoring like a bear until the ice hockey game starts tomorrow. Fuck I love my life and especially you guys! Once again I feel I must be the luckiest guy on the planet. I’m gonna go up to my room and write a new song “Fairytale gone pretty well so far…” Added: 20.01.2007 — Samu NRJ Radio Awards 19.01.2007 Yep. I really don’t know what to say. Yesterday there was NRJ Radio Awards in Helsinki and I still have a feeling I’m flying in the air. Or actually I am flying as I sit in the plane towards Switzerland, but I’m 30 cm even above this economy class seat. Yesterday was one of the coolest days in my life. The day was really long and we worked really hard although this case was supposed to be piece of cake. But it was worth it. We got four NRJ trophies, just one short in order to be able to set up a fight ;=) But no-one was wondering yesterday who gets what. The gig was a real hard pull. I mean it was damn cool but technically one of the toughest in Finland ever. Already on the sound check on the previous day we had big problems, and so did the Finnish Pop Idol Antti Tuisku,. We both spent over two hours in the sound check after setting up the stuff. And somehow I probably had some extra pressure from the excitement and all and I had my thighs on lactic acids already after the second song, Diamonds. Maybe the coolest thing in the show yesterday was, when we had first played our 30 minute show for the 12.000 viewers, we got back on stage after fifteen minutes to play one song more at the gala for TV. Often after shows you have the feeling that if you only could go back. And yesterday we did. And there was bombs and stuff. Receiving trophies and giving the speech is damn easy when you practice it at home. If I could have said my words in front of my bathroom mirror, I probably would have said a lot more. Incredible how frozen you can get. I hope I remembered to thank those most important; Bonnier, Welldone, Bob, NRJ and our lovely fans. If I missed someone, I’m sorry. It sounded totally cool as thousands of folks shouted “Arschkrokodil.” Yeeeaaahhh ;) NRJ has supported us so much in Europe and we’re listed even in Lebanon. We are on the 16th position in the all Europe’s NRJ chart. If I remember correctly as a first European band, the ones in front are from America and UK. Now we are going to Zurich, Switzerland via Basel, where is a boxing heavyweight title match. Against each other are an enormous Russian Valujev and Mr. McCline from USA . We escort the Russian giant into the ring with our song “Faitytale Gone Bad” and the thing is TV broadcasted into 56 countries. I slept two hours last night. I hope they zoom more on the boxing stars than my eyes… Added: 15.01.2007 — samu 11/01/2007 Berlin – Munich I didn’t sleep well and I was so tired in the morning. Luckily our driver Jan had slept like a baby the whole night at his home, so he is living in Berlin, and drove us safely to the Tegel airport in Berlin. Merc to the parking hall and to Lufthansa’s Business class. I fell asleep before the plane took off. It is nice to fly Lufthansa as they always have leather seats. In Munich they had organized us some other programme, not only sight seeing and dining. In the day we had our sound check and after that directly to local radio channels. First we had a live session of two songs in the studio of Bayern3 radio channel and gave a interview. From Bayern3 to NRJ Munich, where we had some guys we knew. I didn’t even remember we had been there for an interview in September before going to shoot the Forever Yours video in Spain. Janne remembered. At first I of course said he is wrong. We were asked to name the top 15 songs of all time for a local music club and of course we had to include David Hasselhof’s “I’ve been looking for freedom” that we have played also in Germany in live gigs as a joke. Knight Rider is a tough guy! The Nintendo session was probably the best organized of all cities. Serving and everything were perfect ten and there was so much people in the premises that we were lucky to fit in. Although we had agreed with our sore shoulders that we won’t play any games in Munich, we were so hooked that we couldn’t resist the temptation. Totally great people. At night we left for a local disco club to get a taste of the nightlife. Hey, the Friday was a day off. Somehow I was feeling a bit tired so we drove to the hotel around two Jan, Bob, Janne and me all to sleep. The other’s had been to the Hilton breakfast except me. Somehow feel really ill. I hope I don’t get sick now. They say that there is snow waiting for us in Finland. And tomorrow we go to Pieksamäki to play a double show in Savonsolmu, cool ;) That kind of gaming console we have to have in the tour bus. I can beat Osama in boxing and beat the real golfers Janne and Raul in Golf… Added: 15.01.2007 — samu 10/01/2007 Hamburg – Berlin I woke up in the morning as Janne was banging on the door with the gym gear on and called for the gym. What can you do ;) Cycling for almost an hour and a little weight lifting session made the circulation running nicely and when you afterwards eat a good breakfast, it was nice to head for Berlin. Jan had changed the E-series Mercedes from the previous night to a bigger Mercedes R 320 small limousine. Not bad, the poor (that’s me and Janne) were horrified as we were heading 250 km/h to the capital. Before the gig we were following with Janne the HIFK-Blues ice-hockey game from Internet and the damn Blues went and won and took my three points. Janne was picking on me for the whole night… The Berlin stage was a real nice show-case place, a gallery-like lounge where they had set up PA and necessary gaming equipment. In Berlin also we were staying at Hyatt (thanks to Nintendo) and standard of the rooms was as awesome as in Hamburg. And there were even more people as yesterday. Now we stayed after four songs (Make it go away, Diamonds, Heal Me and Fairytale) to enjoy the evening. There was even more of the Sunrise gang from the fan club and elsewhere and we boxed and played tennis against almost everyone. Jesus how shoulders can get sore from that kind of thing. A local TV channel had wandered around the city at the day and asked people to sing Fairytale Gone Bad and those two singing best got tickets for night’s game. At night we had one night beer with winners of a EMI record company competition, Arianne and Fatima, and then again to a comfy Hyatt bed to snore. No time for gym in the morning. Flight for Munich leaves already at eleven and the Merc has to be returned and stuff. Luckily there’s no time. I think I had couple of beers at night and I might have a heart attack. You don’t have to work out every single day. Our manager Bob will join us tomorrow if his plane is able to take off from London. Added: 15.01.2007 — Samu 09/01/2007 Nintendo Wii tour Hamburg – Berlin – Munich Beginning of the year has been cosy resting and waiting for the adventures of the New Year. At last on January 9th we left for Germany with Janne for Nintendo’s three day tour to promote our music together with the new Nintendo Wii game console. These trips only with Janne are a bit easier as there are only two guys on the road, there might be some fewer temptations to hit the city every night. The gym clothes may be with me for not only as a luggage fill. Usually when we travel, we take the normal economy class. This time the Nintendo people had booked us to the Business class so also for that reason this year and it’s first three flights started being royals. The plane was Finnair’s Embrayer, a small 30-metre jet where we were by ourselves in our own VIP class and we had our own stewardess. Yeah! It was 15 degrees in Hamburg, whatta hell? Also otherwise Hamburg seems to me like a city where I could easily move to if there is going to be more stuff to do in Europe. Somehow it reminds me of Helsinki. At the airport Mr Jan Engel, our driver/security/travel manager for the next couple of days, was waiting for us. Totally awesome guy who does everything concerning entertainment and travelling as a freelancer and has previously played rugby and American football on high level. You can see it from his shoulders. We had been booked to Hyatt hotel preferred by all the stars and even to the Club Floor where is all the privileged refreshment areas and services. Five stars! Sound check at around four and back to the centre around the hotel to eat and shop. I found new gloves to replace my lost ones although we had so warm weather that I really didn’t even need my jacket. So it was Nintendo’s and our night. Nintendo was promoting in Germany their new Wii console what you don’t play traditionally with a joystick but you use handheld sticks as controllers which you sway in different directions depending on the game. For example boxing was totally cool. You go in front of the screen in a boxing position with your friend and you make fighting moves with the controllers in your hands. Janne was knocked out already in the third round. We played four acoustic songs for the invited guests and to the winners of our German fan club. In Hamburg we went pretty early to the hotel to eat and sleep around midnight although there would have been drinks available. Somehow I was tired and I wanted to go to the hotel’s amazingly cool gym in the morning. Jesus what a bed… Added: 11.12.2006 — Samu Haber 10.12.2006 Stuttgart NRJ Music Tour Yesterday we were in Stuttgart playing for the NRJ Music Tour. The day started with awakening at 0630 at home in Helsinki and of course I had slept mighty 2 and a half hours. So picking up Jukka by taxi and to the airport. I was supposed to sleep in the plane but we were talking about everything and when we came to Frankfurt I was dead tired. Our regular driver Dirk and his colleague Stefan were waiting for us with their minivans. Dirk was driving me and Janne some months ago all over Germany as we were touring radio and television stations with acoustic guitars. Then Dirk drove me nicely to a doctor in the middle of the night as my flu was about to destroy my throat. He even paid the medicine with his own money as they accepted only cash. Julia, Bob and Bob’s daughter Rosie were waiting for us at the hotel and we had a quick lunch before driving to the arena with the NRJ event’s drivers. The place was put up really cool for the evening’s party. An arena of 10.000 people was supposed to be filled up. For once the sound check didn’t have any problems in this kind of radio show. We had in addition to Mixer-Mikko and Monitor-Mikko our new technician Karri who seems to be a good guy. After the check to a hot shower in the hotel. My throat is somewhat sore again. A totally super gig. There was a 10 metre long cat walk on the stage along which Janne, Raul and I could go in the middle of the crowd while spot lights were shining. It is pretty cool to stand in the middle of 10.000 people, them waving their hands and singing your song. Short gig of five songs (Choose to be me, Diamonds, Forever Yours, Fairytale and All because of you) and to the backstage to pour sweat. Probably the coolest show ever in Germany. Our new stage technician Karri poured me a sip of rum to my mug before Forever Yours in order to get the slime out of the throat. It helped! After the gig we had a meet and greet with local NRJ competition winners where the prize was to be able to meet us sweaty (!!??) after the gig. Hundred photos and autographs for everyone and finally to the backstage for our own pre-Christmas ritual. In Düsseldorf a week ago we had each drawn a name from a hat to whom we had to buy a 15 euro Christmas present. Everybody had remembered to buy a present (Janne, Raul, Sami, Jukka, Bob, MP, Mikko, Julia and me) Karri was shooting and Rosie acted as a Christmas elf. Janne got from Julia a golf game to the backstage and Raul got from Bob belly dancing gear. I had bought to Sami Stefan Lindfors’ design condoms and an ovulation circulation counter. Jukka got a NECK SUPPORT (!!!) from MP and some heartburn medicine. Mikko had bought Bob an English version of the Finnish classic “Unknown Soldier” book (good) and MP got a scented candle series from Jukka. Everybody’s hobbies were in a big role clearly when choosing the presents. Sami had gotten BMX biking magazines and batteries to Mikko. Julia, who has been taught the most essential phrases in Finnish, got from Janne a cap where it says “yksi olut kiitos” (one beer, please) and I got from Julia a black Superman shirt that Tarja has to pimp to a stage condition. Next we checked new Sunrise Avenue clothing and fan stuff that Bob brought from London. Jesus they looked good. You will see soon. They will be on the market during spring. The ladies’ pink hooded jacket is coolest in the world. We made a couple of video interviews at the hotel and I answered to a Bravo magazine interview in German with the help of Julia. To the shower and after parties. There will be waiting at least free drinks and if old signs were to be believed also the people from the local fan club. But as we were so dreadfully tired and hungry and as there was no food served in the after parties, we decided to head for the city and find an Italian restaurant. As we didn’t find an Italian one or anything we decided together to go to McDonald’s. Stomachs full for everybody. And to sleep at three!!! So now we have slept for 10 hours and we are riding with our driver Dirk (Captain Dirk) to Munich. We have a day off today and tomorrow the first thing is around five in the evening when we practicing for the Tuesday evening’s PRO7 TV show. This sleeping thing is worth a try another time also… Added: 03.12.2006 — Samu 3.12.2006 On the way home We’re 10 miles high above Denmark on the way home. We signed some autograph cards as soon as the plane took off. It’s sometimes a bit annoying to do that in such public places (some of the passengers might give mean looks…) but the girl who wanted them for herself and her friend was too sweet for us to say no. The show yesterday was really cool although on stage and behind the stage it was a terrible mess. Still the lights and explosives (that they mentioned about to us 10 minutes before the show) saved the night and we heard that it sounded and looked extremely good for the audience. It’s just that if your hearing is bad on stage, it’s so hard and so much work to sing. But still, I must say it’s pretty cool to see an arena filled with 10.000 music lovers raising their hands up and singing our song with us. The noise was huge! After the show we went to the after party (again;=), but it was not long late as yesterday. And no gay bars this time. Also our drivers Jörn and Eik joined us for partying and that was cool. It’s really nice to have cool and nice guys driving you when you go from a town to another. We spend quite much time together with them too. Now the flight attendants are approaching with food plates and I’ll finish writing. Next show on Tuesday in Jämsä on Finland’s Independence Day party. For those who didn’t know, my country got independent on the 6th of December 1917. Added: 03.12.2006 — Samu 2.12.2006 Hannover It was a very long night last night – again! We partied until the morning. I guess I was in bed at 630 AM. First we went to the noisy after party. Probably at three we called our drivers to pick us up and take us to the hotel. We were supposed tohave only one beer with the All Saints gang in the lobby bar, but finally at five we all we walking towards this gay bar nearby. The gang with me at that point was Jukka, Sami, Julia MP and also this totally weird German grand father who didn’t speak a word English and he also did this odd jodling sound every now and then. I was amazed how wanted I was among the gay bar customers. Nobody scored! Now we’re in Hannover at TUI arena backstage after our sound check. It was a disaster. The company providing us with the stuff on stage (or someone) did not deliver what we need and the whole check was a mess. Also our FOH engineer missed his connecting flight and we had to survive without him. I just hope all stuff will work in the evening. I mean it’s still 10.00 listeners. I need a hot shower at the hotel now. Added: 03.12.2006 — Samu 1.12.2006 DOME Düsseldorf Yesterday evening was so much fun. First we had beers at a tower 180 meters above the city of Düsseldorf. And after encouraging ourselves with some beers, we went bowling. Yes, bowling. How cool sis that! It was The band, Julia, MP, two drivers and Bob. Julia won the whole contest but I must say Raul’s performance with the ball was the best of the night. He has a background with ballet and we were all able to see that by the way he moved with the bowling ball. Jukka won the second round and Raul was on a lead on the third but then they switched off the electricity and the game was never finished. I’m glad that happened. I was 21 points away from the 100-point hetero limit and there was only one shot left. Still hetero… So now we’re at the DOME. We slept really well last night (starting 6 AM). Our hands weren’t as shaky on the red carpet as they were last time. But it’s still always pretty exciting. Hundreds of music lovers screaming as you get out of the limousine. We’ve done many interviews for magazines, radio, TV and websites and soon we’ll get some lunch. Our show time is 715 PM and after that we get to hang out at the venue. Later on we’ll go to the official after party to have some free drinks together with the local and international superstars. Today we have bombs on our show but also the lasers. I hope they don’t burn my hair… Jeeeesuuuuus!!! That was cool! The only down side is that on these events you only perform one song and as soon as you have the adrenalin running like Edwin Moses, you must get off stage. The screaming was awesome! It was some 9.000 viewers. And of course behind TV screens there are millions. The lasers were even cooler than I expected. Now were sitting at our back stage and we’re waiting for the grand ending when all the performers get up on stage together. And I’m sure the party will go on at the DOME after party somewhere in the center of Düsseldorf. Last time we got to the hotel at 7 AM. We’ll see how late it’ll be this time. We play a full show for a full TUI arena in Hannover tomorrow and it would be good if it wouldn’t be five corpses on stage. Added: 03.12.2006 — Samu 30.11.2006 Day off in Düsseldorf The bell rang at 10 in the morning. I jumped straight to the shower. We had agreed to meet in the lobby at 1030 and head straight to the venue. I had just washed my hair and put the conditioner on my hair as the water turned cold. Cold as hell. I stood there for a while hoping for the situation to change, but no. I even called Julia (still all the not –so –tasty chemicals on me) if she would have something else but ice water in her room, but no. We all know how easily the conditioner gets off with cold water. I had to stand there for 15 minutes. I’m sure if the water had been any colder, it would have been ice cubes coming out of the pipe. Jörn’s warm limo van cheered me up a bit. After having the some coffee at the venue it was our time for camera rehearsal. We’ll have the bombs and flames and stuff but also a laser show tomorrow. The show’s producer and the guy who operates the equipment said we must look forward during the whole show. Otherwise we’d get free eye-operation. They said it could really damage your eyes. They also said it’s ok to feel this warm kind of burning feeling on you cheek!!! Cool. We played the song Fairytale Gone Bad a couple of times for the cameras and went back to the press section for interviews. The camera rehearsals are done so the director and the cameramen know how we move on stage tomorrow at the actual show. Sami, Jukka and Raul got off already at two PM. Janne, Bob, Julia and I went to one of the biggest radio stations NRW to an interview and to play a couple of songs acoustic. There we also signed the guitar that Hoobas Tank had signed some months before. After the session at NRW we were also free. We’ve never had this much free time on our German trips before. First we all had lunch at Subway’s and after eating Jukka, Janne and I went shopping. We bought mostly perfumes and stuff. It was really nice to have our own driver Jörn driving us around. I don’t have a driver for shopping trips in my country ;) So we have an evening off and the pick up tomorrow is at 1:30 PM!!!!! Holiday! I’m thinking of having a beer (you have to if you’re in Germany) and play some guitar in my hotel room. We’ll have dinner together later on and hopefully we’ll go to bed early. I just have a bad feeling (knowing us all too well) that we’ll find ourselves in the center of Düsseldorf in the middle of the night… Added: 03.12.2006 — Samu Berlin 29.11.2006 Yesterday we played NRJ live in Helsinki for our wonderful home audience. The NRJ staff said there was more audience seeing our show than in a long time in similar events and the atmosphere was just fantastic. I got to sleep at three AM and I had to be awake early to go to the morning show of YLEX rock station.. The VJ Peltsi mentioned Raul’s dirty boy band past twice. We flew to Berlin in the afternoon. Jörn, our beloved limo driver was there waiting for us together with his colleague Eik and they took us directly to the VIVA TV station to join a live TV show. America! There were some fans waiting for us outside the door and also some body guards with black suits and headsets. Men in black! The program was in German and we got the translation through our ear monitors. I guess it was the first time for Sami and Raul on a live TV talk show outside Finland. We have had some of those with Janne before. I accidentally said Cookie-George (Muschi-Klaus) live on the show. Ooops! We had a quick signing session outside the TV studio and after that awe headed towards the Post Bahnhof Club in the center of Berlin to support Madsen together with another Finnish band Disco Ensemble after we won the vote at MTV Germany. Thank you all for voting! So Finland rules tonight in Berlin. I’m sitting at our backstage with my feet on my bag and I’m wondering how the week will be. It’ll be many interviews and stuff and we’ll be really busy. We perform at The DOME, the biggest pop/rock event in Germany on Friday and tomorrow will also be about that. We’ll get up on the same stage with many local super stars and some international major acts, such as All Saints. On Saturday we’ll play in TUI Arena in Hannover for some 13.000 viewers. Cool. Sound check will start soon. I’m so hungry right now but it’s too late for me to eat before the show. Can’t really perform with my stomach full… The show was so cool! 900 listeners. I’m so tired even though we played only seven songs. I’m lying topless at the backstage dreaming about a hotel bed waiting for me in Düsseldorf where we’ll start driving (600 Km) as soon as the pulse has come down back to normal. On the way we saw Into The Blue DVD featuring Jessica Alba and friends. It’s so nice to look at her work. She’s so good… I mean a great actress. Janne is sleeping next to me and Jukka passed away on the back seat an hour ago. Raul, Sami and MP follow us in the other van. We left Mikko in Berlin. He’ll fly to Finland tomorrow for a show of his own band “Häiriköt.” Their hit song is called “Violence is the answer…” I’m not that much into violence right now. I think I’ll join Janne and Jukka and close my eyes for the rest of the trip. The screen of the navigation system says 300 Km to go and the speed seems to be 195 / hour on a German autobahn. I didn’t remember how good a quality hotel bed could feel. I’ll dive into the bed and start dreaming about Jessica and her diving sessions. Tomorrow is a long day again I guess. Added: 05.10.2006 — Samu 22/09/2006 Tavastia Club Helsinki I have had a few dreams since being one meter tall (long ago ;) and one of them has been to play for full Tavastia club in Helsinki. Tavastia is THE club in Finland. The biggest bands, such as Foo Fighter and all play there. I’ve stood in the audience a million times just visualizing my self on that stage with a guitar. The day started with radio NOVA interview in the morning. I listened to nova on my way to the studio in my car and as I had some 15 minutes to go, I heard the VJ say “Samu will be here in 5 minutes…” Luckily there was no traffic control. I drove FAST! Me and waking ups… I also dropped my coffee cup as soon as they gave it to me in the studio. I cleaned the mess my self. Too early ;) I woke up in the afternoon from my nap when Raul phoned me. He said they had already taken all the stuff to the club and they thought it would be best not to wake me up because of the morning shift and all. Sweet dudes… Sound check went really well. This time we had all the time in the world since were the only band performing tonight. Our first Tavastia show ever!! Jeeee ;) There were also some really nice young ladies asking for autographs and stuff outside the club and what could be a better coffee break place than that every time they’re checking someone else’s equipment. Raul had bought us (with our band’s money) wireless stuff for guitars and bass. For the first time we’ll be able to run around the stage without thinking about twisting cables. We had an acoustic show and some interviews with Janne at seven at NRJ Finland’s birthday party right next door. First set of performance clothes on quickly and ready to pose for the cameras. There were a lot of invited guests at the party and the place was really cool but the guests weren’t quite as polite as the ones we saw in Stockholm. Finnish VIP don’t always know how to behave. Who cares - It’s our Tavastia night tonight! Back to Tavastia. I haven’t been this nervous for months. Usually I’ve only been worrying if the club is going to be full or not, but I haven’t had even that for months. We heard that they had sold a lot of tickets during the week but even that didn’t comfort me. The last minutes before getting up on stage move sometimes terribly slow and at the same time awfully fast. On stage. Full house!! And what a reaction! I felt like the king of the world for the whole 82 minutes. Nothing has ever felt that good. Add all the times you have had sex and all the ice creams you’ve eaten to one moment and you’re near. They shouted us back two times and on the second time we had to give them NASTY, the live special. We sat down in front of the stage for half an hour signing album covers and stuff and after meeting and greeting we went to the after party at Teatteri Club VIP with our manager BOB and some record company folks. I lost my extra t-shirt somewhere and you know how you sweat on stage. Wasn’t nice for the ones with me but I just didn’t want to go home to change. Who cares after a show like that..? I was home at around five with my stomach filled with Kebab. I can only sit on my balcony and smile. If I’d die now, I’d probably go with a smile on my face... Added: 05.10.2006 — Samu 19/09/2006 Showtime Stockholm It was sooo cool and my throat didn’t break ;) The event was held at a real garage in the center of Stockholm and they had made it look really nice. The back stage was at the place where they normally really paint the cars; there were actually some cans of car paint on the walls. Candles, salmon cookies, beer and red wine served by extremely pretty Swedish girls. Yammy! The show went so well. Seems as if when we play these shows for invited guests outside Finland, the guests really know how to behave. They all stayed focused during the speeches and performances, some because they really enjoyed what they heard and some just to be polite. The rest of the guys took off to Finland right after the show and I stayed alone for one more night in Stockholm to do some interviews and stuff in the morning. NRJ has added us into their power play list and seems as if the business will start also in Sweden now. Tavastia club 3 days… And counting… Added: 05.10.2006 — Samu 18/09/2006 To Stockholm We’re on the way to Stockholm to play at mobile operator 3’s gala. They hand out golden mobile phones for the most downloaded tracks of the year. We perform there together with one of the biggest local bands, Bo Kaspers Orkestra. We flew here already today to get some rest before the show. We all feel a bit ill and I really hope my throat won’t break... Added: 05.10.2006 — Samu 16/09/2006 Saturday Night Fever Whatta TV week! First the thing two days ago and now the biggest weekend show in Finland, the Saturday Night Fever. Every week they have one band performing live at the show and this week it’s our turn. I saw the show last week and I thought it looked a bit boring, but this week the atmosphere was totally different. After the performance and some autographs, the guards told us that some girls had been waiting for us outside the TV station gates all the time from the afternoon (some 7 hours) and asked kindly if we could go see them on the way home. And there they were. We spent a moment with the lovely girls signing stuff and taking photos and it was a lot of fun. There were feeling a bit cold (poor things), because it was probably some 10 degrees outside and they had been standing there all day… ;) We had a pizza with Sami and Janne on the way home. The guys went home, but I had to have a few at Stockholm Diskotek with the record company guys. They were really happy with the weeks TV performances and they said it’d effect positively on the album charts… We’ll see… Added: 05.10.2006 — Samu Charity Concert at Hartwall Arena 14/09/2006 Yesterday we played at a really cool student party in Kotka (FIN) and we drove directly to the next show in the morning to the biggest arena in Finland, The Hartwall arena in Helsinki. The biggest yearly charity is being held there this year and we are one of the few live performers. For 13.000 viewers Cooool!! Again I forgot my ear monitors at home and I had to borrow Osama’s (Samis). It’s always me… I didn’t realize how big the place is until I jumped up on stage at sound check. Checking went pretty well, even though we didn’t have that much time for it. Would be pretty important to have a good sound today. A huge audience and some million folks at their living rooms listening… After the check, there was the press stuff. We met Kim Wilde there again and as soon as she saw me she came to say hi. I hope I didn’t do anything stupid at the after party in Leipzig three weeks ago to leave a clear image of my face into her mind. She’s so sweet… After the press, there was only waiting and waiting. Finally they called us to be ready for our performance… It was so cool!!! All those folks in the audience screamed so loud. It’s funny how it makes the blood run in your veins. The stadium almost lost its roof when we started the song Fairytale gone bad. It’s been number one on the Finnish airplay charts for 5 weeks in a row, so most of the folks should know it. The only down side was that we had to leave the audience right after the song. It’s a bit stupid the get yourself in heat and as soon as your body is boiling you sit back down at the dressing room… I could have done the same thing again. And again. And again. We had a drink with Kim Wilde and her band & Crew and one EMI Germany lady in the night at the after party. We stayed until they closed the place... Again... ;) Added: 05.10.2006 — Samu 08/09/2006 Show time The day started with publishers (the first one already at ten!!). Publisher’s job is to promote the writer’s music and pitch songs into movies, TV ads and stuff. They also collect the money from all around the world for us poor writers. We need to have some tuna fish to eat too ;) We / I still don’t have a publisher since all has happened so fast, but luckily there are many applicants. No hurry! Sound check was just fine. Alcazar is a small club, probably only for 200 persons max, but it feels like a nice place to play at. Swedish style. I’m a bit nervous. Nobody really knows about us in Sweden. Ok, local NRJ added us on their play list today, but that will not bring anyone in yet today. They’ll start the airplay next week. The club was full before the show JEEEEE ;) The Swedish media took us really well. They even sang NASTY with us. That would never happen in Finland. Swedes are so cool. We had a few drinks after the show in some really cool place down town. At Östermalm, that’s the place to go they say. We knew there will be a photo shoot of SuperStar magazine in the morning. We shouldn’t stay awake until late. We were the last ones with Jukka (Again;) and we dived to bed at around five I guess… The interviews and photo shoots went really well and actually the pictures were really coool. Now we’re in Arlanda Express (airport train) heading towards the airport. Next week will be really cool. Finally a whole week in Finland. First a really big student party on Wednesday and Thursday and Saturday really big TV live shows. Added: 05.10.2006 — Samu Stockholm 07/09/2006 – Shopping We went to Stockholm together with Sami and our stylist Tarja to buy clothes for the next video shoot. The rest of the guys will arrive late tonight; Tarja didn’t want us all five to walk after her in the shops asking “is this good, is this good…” It’s so cool to have someone with us who knows exactly what to get and even more, who pays! We bought a lot of cool stuff. I hope She has some money left for the other guys too. They’ll go shopping tomorrow. Tomorrow we play at the local Alcazar club for Stockholm media and other guests. I have some meetings with publishers in the morning and also a few radio interviews. It’s nine PM right now and we’re getting ready for a dinner at my friend’s restaurant down town. Seriously, if you’re in Stockholm, please go taste the delicious stakes of Texas Long Horn. Yammy!!! Evening off…. Added: 05.09.2006 — Samu 3/09/2006 Thank you Tokio Hotel & Fans! We were invited to support Toki Hotel, probably the hottest band in Germany right now. We had played a show in Finland the night before and I slept for an hour the night before. The alarm clock rang 5:40 in the morning. I was pretty tired as we got to the venue, Loreley open stage near Frankfurt. It was so cool. It was this kind of an open-air theatre on a huge hill. The Tokio Hotel guys have fans even in Finland and we’d heard they’re big in Germany but as soon as we got to the back stage, we realized how big they really are. There were tens of medics, hundreds of police officers and guards to secure the event. The band also had a separate room for gifts from fans. The room was full. Cool! We were a bit late with the schedule and they opened the doors as we were on stage doing sound check. That can be pretty annoying sometimes, because you don’t want the audience to hear how you build up the whole thing. But this time it was nice. The growing crowd of TH fans cheered for each sound we made. Cool! We were nervous how the teenagers would take us. I mean the TH fans are really fanatic and they might only want to get rid of the support and get to the point. But no. The noise was huge as we got on stage. Just amazing. We’ve been supporting different kinds of groups before but never before has the audience been like this. All the 7.000-12.000 fans (nobody seemed to know how many;) gave their full support all the way. The best support slot you could ask for. After the show was confirmed some weeks ago, we heard a lot of stuff about Tokio Hotel and many folks asked how do we think we’ll maintain the image of a credible rock band after playing with them. First I must say after being there, I’d do it every week if I could. It was so much fun. It was even better than the red carpet at the DOME. There’s nothing better than thousands of girls screaming with their hands up. And second about being credible. Yes, the TH guys are young and so are most of their fans, but there are many cool “credible rockers” who should buy a ticket to TH show to see how to make the crowd get what they want. Well done guys und wielen dank fur fie einladung! We’ll buy you beers as soon as it’s legal ;) You rok! Added: 05.09.2006 — Samu 27/08/2006 Home calling Our driver picked us up at 13:00, Bob and Julia had already left for their earlier flights. So were in our minivan right now and we bought some breakfast at a petrol station. I really wouldn’t want to go home. I’m so happy we have this great show on SAT next week, otherwise I’d probably stay here. I must be the luckiest guy on planet Added: 05.09.2006 — Samu 26/08/2006 Halle supporting Ray Wilson The morning started fine. Two nice cars, one BMW X5 and one VW Lux Buss picked us up at the hotel at 2PM. We drove to Halle, some 40 Km towards Berlin. Everything seemed to be ok with everything as we checked in to the very nice Kempinski Hotel. It was really coool. You know, in normal 4star hotels they make the bed in the afternoon, but here they also open the bed and close the curtains in the evening so you don’t have to do that yourself when you want to dive into bed. Cool. Jukka and I went shopping and the rest of the guys headed to the festival area to check everything just in case. So we bought some perfumes and clothes with Jukka and afterwards went to eat in a really nice Italian restaurant. After eating we decided to have a nap and just before I closed my eyes in my room, Janne called me that we had no backline at all (Drums, Guitars, Amplifiers, etc.) Great! First I thought of waking Jukka up and getting there with a taxi, but hell no. I was sure the guys, Bob and Julia would do everything there is to do. I fell asleep as soon as I closed my eyes. Janne woke me up (he seems to do that a lot;) and said everything was ok. Mr. Ray Wilson had promised to borrow all his stuff, even drums and amplifiers. Cool guy. He joined us with his band to build up our stage system and I gotta say, without them, the night would have been a disaster. The show was great. There was a 15 meter catwalk on the stage and for the first time I was really able to get in the middle of the audience. Cool. It was also the first time the audience was so big that you couldn’t see where the last guy stands. We met some really nice German fans after the show; especially the 4 pretty twin girls. We drove back to Kempinski hotel at around 12 and we had several bottles of red wine, cheeses (not rock credible, I know), baileys and beer. As Janne stood up to get to sleep, he went to the wrong direction. Must be the blue cheese. We were the last ones up with Jukka. We were already on the way to our rooms at 5 in the night when we had this great idea to go out downtown. The sun was already up as we got to our beds. Added: 05.09.2006 — Samu 25/08/2006 Leipzig, the DOME As soon as I woke up, I had the image of us standing on the red carpet of the dome. It made me nervous. Quick breakfast and the driver picked us up at ten. The morning and mid day was all about interviews, fan meetings and make up. We did probably 15 bigger TV channel and magazine stuff. Around 2 PM they started to do the makeup for the red carpet. The red carpet is the official way in for the artists of the dome. Hundreds of music lovers, mostly teenagers, are behind small barriers screaming for autographs of their idols. And it’s so many TV and photo cameras. I wasn’t really nervous about the thing itself, but the fact that probably not that many teenager knows us since we’ve just started our stuff in Germany and it would be annoying if they wouldn’t scream at all… We sat in this black limousine hands sweating. It was only a couple of minutes until the car would drive us to the carpet. We could hear the screaming folks through the car windows as the artist before us drove to the spot. The door opens and all the flashlights fill my eyes. I don’t know witch way to walk. Anywhere you look, there are screaming girls and guys. I’ve seen a lot of thing’s and experienced a lot of stuff, but this is something I’ll take to the grave with me. I mean the feeling. For the first time in my life I really feel like a rock star! The stage was cool. The production company had arranged movie projectors on stage, the same kind we have in Fairytale Gone Bad video. The 3,04 minute thing was quickly done and over. The coolest thing was the Finnish flag with our band logo in the first row, right behind the fence. After party was soooo cool. When we walked in, there were youngsters who’d been waiting there for autographs, cool. It was in the center of Leipzig in a really cool club. The drinks were free and we met a lot of cool folks and we were shot for different magazines, websites and stuff. We spent most of the evening in a room, where they had built a small lake inside. We just wanted to relax. Ok, Raul went on the dance floor to show his inner Backstreet Boy. We were back at the hotel at six. We had to party a little bit. But we also have a show tomorrow, a big one. Gotta sleep now… Added: 05.09.2006 — Samu 24/08/2006 Leipzig One hour sleep The morning was wonderful. We were out pretty late and I didn’t pack my stuff in the night. I woke up as Janne knocked on my door saying I have 15 minutes to get downstairs. It was the world record of packing 50 Kg of stuff. And the guitars and stuff… We went straight to DOME camera rehearsals from the airport and of course I had forgotten my guitar strap to Cologne. I did the rehearsal with air guitar… Some lovely person from EMI capitol Cologne picked the strap up from my hotel and flew it over to Leipzig. So, all ok! After the rehearsal we got ready to play an acoustic show with Janne at the Games Convention nearby. It was a really cool beach they had built on a huge parking area. And they had hired 15 really good looking young ladies to give massages with sun cream and we spent the afternoon with them at the back stage. After the back stage birdies and acoustic session, we went to play this weird cucumber game with Collien Fernandez, the Maxim cover girl. She and Sami and Raul, Janne and I were against them. We won! Julia got a call in the afternoon that Ray Wilson’s (from Genesis) supporting act had cancelled the show in Halle, near Leipzig. Our tech. team had just arrived in Helsinki and they had messages waiting in their phones as they switched them on at Helsinki airport to get back to Germany, Cool. It’ll be 15.000 viewers. JEEEE! We had the evening off. We went downtown Leipzig to have dinner in a really nice Italian restaurant and went to bed pretty early. Well Jukka and I had some beers in my hotel room, but let’s not tell anyone…. Added: 05.09.2006 — Samu 23/08/2006 Köln Underground Show day, JEEEE! The day started pretty early at 10:00 with interviews and stuff. We also had to do a fitting for stage clothes Feli had given us yesterday. I was a bit nervous the whole day. In Finland it wouldn’t be a problem getting a club like the Underground full any day but not that many folks know us in Germany. I so hoped the club is not empty. Sound check was cool. We found out that the company providing us with backline services had delivered exactly all we need, so there was no mess with that. We did a camera rehearsal for the camera guys so they would know how the show’s gonna look like. It’s a bit weird to play rock in a club with only 10 camera guys and assistants. I really hope this is not what it looks like in the evening. We had an hour to relax at the hotel before the driver picked us up before the show. That’s actually cool. Less would be bad because then you’d have to hurry a bit. And two or three hours is too much. Then you lose the vibration you get from sound check. As soon as we got to the backstage, I got a message that the club is full!!! JEEEE. Another 45 minutes to get ready and soon we’d be up on stage in Germany for the first time. The crowd was awesome. Just fantastic! The album is to be released on Friday, in two days, and they heard the songs for the first time, but still they were fully with us all the way. So cool. The shouted us back on stage two times. First time we played Wonderland and the second time we just bowed. After the show I did a short TV interview with Janne for WDR bootleg. And after that some beers with the fantastic folks in the club. We met the German fan club girls and they were nice, they’re gonna travel to Leipzig tomorrow to see our acoustic show and the DOME on Friday. I have one hour to sleep now. The pick up is at 5:30…. I love my life!!! Added: 05.09.2006 — Samu 22/08/2006 In front of media I woke up 9:30 to Janne’s phone call asking me to join him at the gym. Goooood…. Ok, it’s not that rock credible, but you feel so good after it. And especially if you’re gonna sing, some running or anything that raises the pulse will make the throat work better. The day was filled with interviews. Magazines, TV and Radio. The German media treats us really well. It’s a bit amazing. In Finland we’ve had to explain how rock can also be played without eyeliners but here it’s different. Really cool. One of the reporters asked me and Janne what drugs would we like to try…. JEEEE! In the evening we went to this outlet store in Düsseldorf with our new stylist Feli. We got all kinds of clothes to perform in at the Cologne underground and at The DOME. Our manager BOB and tech guys Mikko and Mikko-pekka and also the Finnish record company guy Mikko (A lot of Mikko’s) and a Finnish reporter Aino arrived and we had a fabulous German style dinner together. And a few beers… Tomorrow is a big day and we must go to sleep early to be in shape. Added: 05.09.2006 — Samu 21/08/2006 On the way to Wonderland Here we are on an airplane again above the Baltic Sea on the way to Berlin. We’ll have a busy day there promoting and visiting Radio Channels and in the evening we’ll drive to Cologne, to our “home town” in Germany. This is probably my 8th trip to Germany this year to work with EMI folks but this is the first time we’ll also play full club shows with the band. We’ve done all kinds of stuff at radios before, but the club thing makes me a bit nervous. Nobody really knows us in Germany and I’m worried if anyone’s gonna come see us. On Friday we’ll also perform at the DOME in Leipzig. That’s pretty cool. It’ll be some 6.000 viewers in the audience plus some millions watching TV at home. Really cool. As our driver Jörn drove 200Km/h on the autobahn we saw the movie (already forgot the name) about the black guy who’s this little girl’s bodyguard somewhere in South America. The girl is been kidnapped and first they think she’s dead but the end is happy after all. I was more focusing on dreaming and staring at the air condition control buttons above me. And thinking how happy I am to be on road with these guys… In the evening we met Julia briefly at dinner and after dinner a few beers in the hotel lobby bar. After that we all dived into our beds. Tomorrow is full of interviews and stuff – need to sleep. Added: 15.08.2006 — Samu Day 4 Berlin The wake up call was late, at 10, all though I could have slept for plenty more hours. I went down for breakfast with Julia and soon the others followed to order their Café Lattes. Today we did interviews all over Berlin and also went to discuss stuff at Gibson office. We gave them a list of guitars and basses we want to have on stage in the future. How cool is that! Raul and Sami got the rest of the day free and they went shopping. Julia, Bob, Janne and I drove 45 minutes to another radio station for the last interview. All the radios were pretty curious about our friend Mikko who sold his house to fund our album. The also were pretty amazed of how we’re not wearing eyeliners and black clothes like other Finnish bands. When we arrived back to the center, Raul and Sami were happy with all the cool stuff they had bought while we’d been working with Janne and the guys. Janne was also able to get a new pair of Converse shoes before we took the car to the airport and I got nothing. Damn. My revenge will be sweet next week in Stockholm. I only have 11 pairs of All Star Converse’s, and we all know that’s not enough to survive. On the way to the airport Julia got a phone call and after she finished it she said we’ll be supporting the local mega band Tokio Hotel near Cologle on the 3rd of September. Apparently it’ll be some 8.000 screaming youngsters in front of the stage. They’re really big in Germany and it’s the last show of their tour. We also made a deal with Contra Promotion for booking us in Europe. That’ll hopefully take us all around the continent. There had been a terrorist group in London who tried to get explosives in the airplane. Because of that they checked our luggage with extra care, especially my innocent Martin guitar who always causes extra trouble when checking in at airports. Janne wasn’t even allowed to take his toothpaste in. He might have hurt someone with it. In Finland we use toothpaste as weapon pretty often… Our manager Bob’s flight to London was cancelled and he had to stay an extra night in Berlin (poor thing, I could have done that too…). So, once again we’re above the Baltic Sea on the way home. I must say that we’re pretty lucky to experience all this even though the trip made us too tired. I’m gonna sleep until the wheels hit the runway in Helsinki. Added: 15.08.2006 — Samu Day 3– Hamburg – Kiel - Berlin Robbie was just awesome! It’s amazing when 80.000 fans stand up their hands towards the sky and sing angels with him. The first feeling I had was “I wanna get there!, on stage I mean. I think we still have some miles to go… After the show we were invited to Robbie Williams VIP after party. I’ve been to several cool parties before but I gotta say this was the coolest after party ever. There was a red carpet even for us guests. We would have wanted to stay (so much) but we all knew there’s an early flight to catch in the morning and we decided to go to sleep after a few drinks. We flew to Hamburg in the morning and from there we drove to Kiel, a harbor city to meet new radio folks. In Kiel there was this very cute interviewer girl who was doing the stuff for the first time with an international act. Raul and I helped her with the equipment. Sweet… We drew her a painting “on the way to wonderland”, where a crocodile walks (or do they crawl..) on the road next to Sunrise Ave road sign. None of us four can really draw… We gave our best. From Kiel we took a minivan to Berlin to visit the Gibson office. We’ll get our guitars and basses from there from now on, JEEEE! The first guitar I tried was the same guitar Faith Hill performed with in the Grammy gala a couple of years ago. I decided to take that model. Janne chose a bigger one. Size does matter, he said. In the evening I made a few more phone interviews and I had only 11 minutes for shower and to get ready for dinner. We had a dinner with a director from Ibiza, who’s probably gonna direct our next video We had a long dinner (with a bit more red wine and stuff that the evenings before) and brainstormed like hell. We even needed a few drinks after dinner at the former Eastern side of Berlin because of sitting in the car and interviews all day. Bad excuse, I know. Tomorrow will be a long day again and we’re gonna have to sleep too. Added: 15.08.2006 — Samu Day 2 – Cologne We woke up in the morning from the fabulous Marriott hotel and we went to gym right away. Not so rock credible… yesterday we spent the whole day driving around Frankfurt visiting radio stations. We played acoustic Fairytale gone bad and gave them interviews to be broadcasted on the spot or later on. We drove to Cologne in the evening for one more interview for the big 1LIVE channel and after that we were free for two hours before dinner with some EMI folks. The dinner made us all sleepy after the long day and we all fell asleep around midnight. Today we played a live gig for the whole EMI Capitol office folks with Janne. Usually it’s not nice to perform to record company people because they’re so professional and live out of criticism, but today it felt really good. It’s nice how the rock songs get softer and even better in a way when played only with two acoustics. That’s the way I write most of the stuff in the first place. We played Make it go away, Diamonds, Heal me and of course Fairytale gone bad. We were told that Fairytale gone bad has been doing well on the German TOP 100 radio charts and that’s gooood. In the afternoon we had a meeting with our new stylist and we also gave a few interviews for local radios & press. Finally we’re able to get ready for the Robbie Williams show tonight. So I’m sitting in my room only with my towel on ( just had a shower;) writing this stuff. Soon we’ll see how Robbie and his guys handle stuff on stage… JEEE! Added: 14.08.2006 — Samu Promotion trip to Germany We are above the Baltic Sea again. We’re on the way to Germany to promote our single Fairytale Gone Bad. It’ll be released in Germany + Switzerland + Austria on 11th of August. I have two seats. The other one is for my Martin (Guitar;), who I didn’t dare to put down in the cold with my luggage. It’s a pity they didn’t serve him breakfast. I would have had two… Two stewardesses have already asked for autographs for their kids. One got it to the safety instructions card. Was the first time for me on that one… We’re gonna play live acoustic song at radios. The first one is today at 1130 AM. I decided not to sing public before afternoon EVER after Playing NRJ live a few months ago with Janne. But this time I’ll be flexible. So it’ll be only Janne and I playing. Raul and Sami can focus on looking good and answering correctly. Tough job! Our Finnish record company MD Anne escorts us. She takes the trip with us to get to know her German colleagues. So we’ll land in Frankfurt and in the evening we’ll drive to our “home town” Cologne. Tomorrow will be like today. But tomorrow evening we’ll all also see Robbie Williams show at Cologne Arena. Robbie is also EMI Capitol artist, just like us. I gotta have a coffee now. This’ll be fun… Added: 09.07.2006 — Samu 17/06/2006 Across Finland Our driver Mättö woke us up at ten and told us the buss is fixed and fine. Hotel Breakfast (We do love it a lot). Stuff & guys in the buss and towards Kuopio. We had slept for some four hours so we all fell asleep again as the buss slowly mowed in the curves. After an hour or so I woke up to a terrible heat. The AC had broken down and now it’s hot as hell!!! It’s +27 outside and you can only open the driver’s window. So I’m sitting in the front of the buss and writing this diary. We’re all wearing only shorts and in a way it’s cool. Summer!! When we got to Kuopio, the weather got a bit cooler at 8 in the evening. We did a quick sound check and had some dinner. I usually can’t sleep right before the show, but this time I slept like a pig. U know, a cute one. Janne kept on pushing me for snoring. I don’t snore??? He must be dreaming. I woke up 30 min before show time. I was still not totally awake as we started. I even forgot some words. Hope nobody noticed. Henry’s Pub is a nice place for bands. Not like at most of the clubs, here the folks come to listen to the music, not to party and drink that much. The evening was nice and we found out that some ladies had come all the way from Northern-Finland to see our show. How cool is that! It would have been nice to hang out at the clubs of Kuopio after the show, but we had to get home for the first time in 10 days. I had no clean shirts left. On the way home, we were supposed to sleep, but no. The club owner gave us some bottles to go and the whole gang, Janne, Jukka, Raul, Sami, MP (tech guy), Mikko (Front man), Mättö, Janne’s friend who got a ride and I stayed up all night drinking wine etc and listening to the show on Minidisk. It’s hard to describe how pretty it is when the sun gets up from behind a Finnish lake and woods and you’re in the buss with the best guys on the planet. I could go on for a zillion years. But it’s nice to visit home too. We’ll have a week off now. Only some interviews and the next gig is at Virgin oil Helsinki on July 1st. Added: 09.07.2006 — Samu Back in suomi Finland We came back from Barcelona shooting the video for Fairytale Gone Bad. We spent the whole week by the Mediterranean Sea and as we got back to Finland, the tour bus and our driver MÄTTÖ was waiting for us at the airport. Jannes bag had disappeared on the way home and due to the early flight (and some beers the night before) he already had spent two days in the same clothes. Just like the rest of us. Jukka was also waiting for us with our tour agent Elina. A short brief how things had gone and the trip towards Pori started. We had only slept for some 2 hours and as the engines of the buss went on we all fell asleep. I woke up after 2 hours when Jukka yelled “all up for lunch”. Idiot… Pori was a quiet city. We’d never been there before. One of the biggest festivals was on in one of the neighbor cities and seemed as if all the folks had left the town. Club19 was a nice place and we put our hands to work. Right after the sound check our driver Mättö told us that the steering assistant of the buss is broken. We’re supposed to continue our trip in the morning to the next city… We’ll see. 2 minutes before show time there were 4 guys sitting in the club. Cool, this’ll be fun! Feet back on the ground after all the 5-star breakfasts in Barcelona. Together with the club manager, we decided to wait for another 30 min. And finally the room got pretty full. And they were great. The yelled us back on stage twice after the set. We’d promised our live agent that we won’t play any cover versions, but this time we gave them “Let me entertain you” as the last song. After the gig we had some beers with the guys and the morning (10 AM) felt pretty early. We must have fallen asleep at six or something… Added: 09.07.2006 — Samu 12/06/2006 The Summer starts We came back from Jyväskylä in the morning from Killeri Rock festival. It was the first festival gig this summer and I must say the audience was just Great! Thanx again. We replaced one of the biggest Finnish singers Anssi Kela as last artist of the whole festival and to be honest, we were a bit nervous how the fanatic Kela fans would take us. You sand along and the night was a pretty as a Finnish summer night can be. Wow… The stage was built in the middle of a horse race track and they had locked the horses in the stables not to get hurt with our drummer. Sami could scare them. Last night was also the first trip with our Night Liner buss, 9 beds, kitchen, 50inch plasma TV, DVD, Play Station, etc. Traveling couldn’t be more fun. We also gave a ride to the Finnish band Egotrippi as they had run out of fuel. They let us shoot Fan pics with them ;) We also had Ms Ainoo Kuutamo with us from Suosikki magazine. We gotta get back to Jyväskylä soon to play to the wonderful folks. On The Rocks – Home arena On Friday we played our first public show at On the rocks Helsinki (Release party on WED was with invitation only) and I almost had tears in my eyes for a couple of times. Especially when the crowd sang “On the way to wonderland” with us. The club was packed and the crowd was awesome. At last we’ve had two gigs in a row we feel only good about afterwards. No idiots throwing stuff on stage or yelling nasty things. Good. The only thing we need to control is partying after shows since we’re having plenty of them now. Can’t stay up until 6AM after every gig. Our hearts could stop beating and we wouldn’t wanna die now.. ;) |