DISCO WHO?
FRIDAE MATTAS June 2, 2007, 09:04 PM  
Disco Who??
By Fridae Mattas
A phoner with one fourth of Finland’s best kept secret, lead vocalist of Disco Ensemble Miikka Koivisto. Keep an eye on Altsounds.com for the review of their sophomore release “First Aid Kit” in a few weeks. Extremely impressed with his enthusiasm and his English, it is better than Celine Dion’s and she was born in Canada. Do you want to know what Miikka had to say? Read on people read on.
THE BAND
Mikko Hakila - drums
Miikka Koivisto - vocals, keys
Lasse Lindfors - bass
Jussi Ylikoski - guitar
Fridae: Who is Disco Ensemble?
Miikka: ‘Disco Ensemble is a four-piece rock and roll band from Finland that is hooked on refused caffeine.’ *Laughs*
Fridae: When did you guys come together as a band, how did Disco Ensemble start?
Miikka: ‘Our drummer Mikko and our guitar player Jussi have been playing together since they were eleven or twelve in different bands. I have been in this band for seven years which is surprisingly long. Now that I think of it Seven years sounds like a long time.’
Fridae: Wow, you guys have been around a while
Mikka: ‘Yeah I guess we have, our Bass player Lasse we found when we moved to Helsinki he has been in the band now for four years.’
Fridae: How is the music scene in Finland, what is it like over there?
Miikka: ‘Actually, it’s pretty good. It used to be kind of really mainstream oriented and Metal has always been huge in Finland, so it used to be just the Metal heads and just mainstream music listeners. Now there are all kinds of alternative music around, Indie Rock and Indie Pop are getting more attention from people, People are more open minded to different kinds of music now. It is getting better all the time, not that bad anymore to be a band from Finland.'
Fridae: I noticed you guys made the video for “This is My Head Exploding” on your own tell me a bit about that.
Miikka: ‘We actually formed some talent inside of our selves and always have a video recorder on tour except for right now someone stole it!'
Fridae: That sucks!
Miikka: 'We are always fooling around taping bits and pieces. I guess we had too much spare time on our hands when we found this editing program and just edited what we recorded.
With traveling and being on the bus it is good to have something to do to occupy the time. It was fun I hope we get a new camera and film some new stuff.'
Fridae: Absolutely, your video was actually pretty good.
Miikka: 'Yeah it is surprisingly good and surprisingly easy to edit yourself, I think we are going to concentrate in the future on making small artsy film noirs.' *Laughs*
Fridae: How are you enjoying Canadian Music Week, any bands you are going to check out?
Miikka: 'It’s the second time we are here and it is always fun and hectic so many people running around every ones drunk and lots of bands. It’s exciting a good atmosphere, you always meet friends and all the bands you toured with somewhere. It’s nice I like these events when there’s a lot of people around you feel like you are in the centre when things are happening it’s a good feeling I guess. I have not had the chance to check out the bands but there is probably a lot of good stuff.'
Fridae: Your album is titled “First Aid Kit” is this your first album or have you recorded others?
Miikka: 'It is our second one.'
Fridae: Ok, what is it about what can people expect on it?
Miikka: 'Well it’s just a rock and roll album it is very much Disco Ensemble. The album does not have any fill material it is like a documentary of what we do kinda.'
Fridae: Who writes the tracks?
Miikka: 'We have our own method of making songs, everyone has to be around when we make them. We have daily jam sessions in the rehearsal room where we all gather around and build the songs together. If someone has a riff or a beat or I have a vocal thing or a piece of lyric we just start playing. We drink lots of coffee and have microwave pizzas and we just start playing to see what comes out of it. We have days where we come up with three songs in one day and then we have three weeks with nothing.
Sometimes it is stressful though because there are the different opinions on how the song should be. What comes out of that it is nice to know that everyone is involved in the song because everyone is into them. Everyone loves the songs we play because it is written by all of us there is no “Let’s Play Miikka’s Song” or “Jussi’s song” they all end up being Disco Ensemble songs.'
Fridae: It is good to know you all work together as a team.
Miikka: 'We tour a lot like last year we spent more time on tour than ever. We spend so much time together we are kind of married to each other in a way. It’s nice to know all of the material on our albums come from all of us it has created a certain gang mentality we are a solid team.'
Fridae: What is the song “Black Euro” about?
Miikka: ‘Black Euro, is just a rant about destroying the world with money and how people are ready to make anything to profit from it. It is your basic punk rock song with an angry punk rock lyric about capitalism. People come up with strange perceptions on what the songs are about. Personally, I think it is more interesting to hear what someone else has to say about a song than explaining what they are about but I think Black Euro is pretty straight forward in that sense.’
Fridae: Is there anything you want people to know about the band? What makes Disco Ensemble different from the 500 other bands.
Miikka: ‘We are better than four hundred and ninety seven of them’
*Laughs*
Fridae: You are the first band that actually said that.
Miikka: *Laughs* ‘Yeah, I don’t see why I should be in a band that I wouldn’t think is one of the worlds best rock and roll bands. You gotta believe in yourself I think.’
Fridae: Is there anyone that you would like to work with?
Miikka: ‘As far as special guests and collaborations we have pretty much turned down everyone.'
check them out
Disco Ensemble
www.myspace.com/discoensemble
©2007FRIDAE™
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