Mikko von Hertzen – Von Hertzen Brothers – Uber Rock Interview Exclusive
Written by Michael Anthony
Sunday, 10 April 2016 04:00
Arguably they should be playing arenas worldwide and commanding the same recognition and respect as the likes of Muse or the Foo Fighters. Certainly they have the songs, they have the chops and in live performance they always display an endearing blend of confidence, fun and humility. Seldom can a modern rock band have shown such inadvertent adherence to the old Tommy Vance dictum: “It’s the music that matters!” Uber Rock’s Michael Anthony caught up with front man Mikko at the band’s recent headline show at The Fleece in Bristol to talk about the challenges of building an audience, the impact of being labelled a prog band, the Finnish archipelago and the Welsh weather. There’s a ‘New Day Rising’, says our scribe, and he’s one of a growing band who think we should all be part of it.
Hi Mikko, I’ve read that you headline festivals in Finland and that your albums just fly into the charts. There are people who think you should be that big in other countries too …
Of course we should be that big. What kind of question is that? [Laughs] No, no, we should be way smaller than we are! [Laughs]
So what are the challenges? Why hasn’t that happened yet?
You know, you have to be patient with these things. And honestly, in Finland we are very well known, our family is well known, and we’ve been doing this for 25 years. But we’re new here in the UK. We’re nobody in, say, Peru, you know, so you have to start from scratch, everywhere. Everywhere you go you have to start turning heads. “We have a band, please listen to us”, that kind of thing. We’ve been lucky because people like what we do. And every time we come here to the UK, more people show up. So the word of mouth thing is working, and people really enjoy our shows. To end up headlining festivals in the UK? I don’t know if that’s even possible. But to be there, among the rock bands that people like, that’s possible and that’s where I think that we should be.
You often get lumped in with progressive rock bands and play prog events and people here sometimes think of the name in that way. But I think of the Von Hertzen Brothers as a rock band with some prog influences. How do you see yourselves?
Well, you’re absolutely right. It’s the way we were brought into the UK market, because Jerry Ewing from Prog Magazine was the first one who got it, so to speak, who said I like this band and I want to feature them, and it’s true that we do have prog elements. But honestly, if you go to a prog festivals and you listen to the twelve bands that are there, you know, the technical prog and this and that, and then on come the Von Hertzen Brothers, it’s a rock band! We are rockers and then we have a vast library that we take influences from. So we love ELP, we love Pink Floyd, we love Led Zeppelin, and all those early ‘70s and late ‘60s prog bands, that’s there, it’s one of the influences, but we do also love other things, you know, like the Seattle movement, back in the day. So it’s not like we want to be a part of some kind of image, it’s just about the song and the stuff that we can pull out of ourselves. The song is the key. The song is always the main thing, and whether it’s a pop song or a rock song or a prog song doesn’t really matter. If it’s good, we’ll put it on the album.
I’ve heard Jerry describe you as “the future of our genre” and it must have been good to win the Prog Anthem award for ‘Flowers And Rust’, but do you think the prog label has helped or hindered you in terms of building an audience here?
It has helped a lot. People are turning up to see us play without expectations because prog audiences are quite open minded, you know. They are open to new things, they are open to hearing instrumental parts, choruses, you know, this and that, and that’s a good thing. If you’re a metal head, and you come to see us play, you’ll like the riffs but not much else. So, in that sense, the prog audience is a good audience for us but it’s not the only audience. In Finland the audience is very diverse. There are many girls there, young, old … you know, it’s very diverse. Whereas here, it’s slowly going in that direction. It has been more of a prog audience and now slowly more rock people are turning up, and females are turning up, so, you know, it’s getting there.
It’s building?
Yeah, because it’s all about the music, it’s just the music, you know. For us, it’s music.
With ‘New Day Rising’ you seemed to hone your sound and produce an album that was very much more song-based, with shorter more punchy tracks. Did you make a conscious decision to move in that direction?
Yeah, we wanted to make a rock album, that’s what we wanted to do. ‘Nine Lives’ was proggy. ‘Love Remains The Same’ was very proggy. ‘Stars Aligned’ was experimental. So this time around we wanted to emphasise the rock side of things. We hired a producer who is well known in those circles [Garth Richardson – Biffy Clyro, Rage Against The Machine] and so forth. So every step of the way we had this vision of making a kick-ass rock album. And that’s what we tried to do, though, of course, bringing everything that we had, all the best songs to the album, whether they were rock or not.
And that was a year ago, when the album came out. What can we expect next time?
Something very different, I think.We always try not to do the same as we did before. We have a lot of stuff that we are playing around with now. It all depends on what feels right. I think there are going to be maybe softer elements this time. I feel that, you know, we are getting older and so we don’t want to be jumping around the stage all of the time. [Laughs] There might be more emphasis on the harmonies and the beauty. I think so. It’s just a gut feeling I have. We haven’t really talked with the Brothers yet about what we are aiming at but that’s the feeling I have, you know, landscapey, Pink Floyd-ish stuff.
It’s great to see you on tour in the UK. Has it gone well?
Yeah, so far so good. Everyone is healthy and crowds are bigger than before, so it’s all good. It’s picking up. It’s always nice to come here and see the enthusiasm in the crowd, see that people are getting it, because that’s the whole point of doing this. Being a musician is all about giving experiences and when you see that happening, that’s what you want. That’s what you aim at, and when you get that, it’s beautiful.
And you have a couple of festival appearances lined up in the UK?
Yeah. We’re playing The Steelhouse and the same weekend we’re playing The Ramblin’ Man, so it’ll be like classic rock stuff.
You know about The Steelhouse, up on a Welsh mountain?
Yeah, we’ve heard about it. Everyone is saying that it’s the most beautiful place for a festival to take place. But if it’s raining? You can’t prevent the rain from coming because it’s from everywhere. Apparently the wind up there is so strong that it just circles around the mountain. It’ll be interesting. I’m looking forward to it!
I am wary of telling a Fin how beautiful parts of Wales are.
Oh yeah, yeah. We just drove to the HRH Prog festival [in Pwllheli, North Wales] and it was absolutely stunning. Really, really stunning. But the thing that we have which is very special is the archipelago. There are tons of islands, beautiful, beautiful islands. So in the summertime people go sailing there. It’s so beautiful. But yeah, nothing compared to Wales! [Laughs]
And the Ramblin’ Man?
In Maidstone, yeah. That’s also one of the good rock festivals, more, like, earthy, folky, classic rock stuff.
So have you put time aside for writing and recording the new album?
Yeah, we are in the process of writing it, but I think the actual processing is starting after the upcoming tour which we have now in April in Finland, so when that’s done we are just gigging here and there and then focusing on the new album.
Anything else you’d like to tell us?
No, I’m just grateful to those reading this and I think people should give us a chance. We’re a good band and we do it with a big heart. Von Hertzen is German and it means ‘from the heart’. And we always try to remind ourselves that as long as we do this from the heart, without any pretence, just being true to ourselves, it’s the most beautiful thing that we do and offer to the world.
http://www.vonhertzenbrothers.com/
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Photography courtesy of Mike Evans: https://mikeevstog.wordpress.com/
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