Mikko Von Hertzen – Von Hertzen Brothers – Interview Exclusive
Written by Tazz Stander
Thursday, 14 April 2011 05:00
I suppose the question a lot of you might be asking right now is “Who are the Von Hertzen Brothers?”
Well, when you see Ginger Wildheart tweeting about them, then you run into his guitar tech, Dunc and Rich Jones propping up the VIP bar at their recent London showcase you immediately wonder what you’ve maybe been missing out on or maybe more so, how you’ve missed to not hear about them ’till now? On paper, they’re Finland’s No.1 rock band … they, really are! So how then has the UK, by and large, managed to miss them right off their musical radar screen?
Amazingly, the Von Hertzen Brothers are being hailed as a prog-related band – so whilst a step away from a prog-rock band musically, prog-rock is where the influences of Pink Floyd, Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin lies at the forefront of their sound. Not in a visual sense; but these three brothers and the two other members are the most unassuming looking band you’ll ever cast your eyes upon, leaving their skilled musical craftsmenship to literally let the music do all the talking.
I got to sit down with Mikko Von Hertzen in his dressing room at the Jazz Cafe in Camden recently and I was eager to find out what had been happening in the last 10 years with the Von Hertzen Brothers and why the U.K and London in particular was only just becoming aware of them.
Your new album ‘Stars Align’ is out on the 21st March. Comparing it to ‘Experience’ in 2001 and ‘Love Remains The Same’ in 2008, how would you say your sound has evolved?
When we started with the whole project in 2001, I was living in India and I called my brothers up and told them to come over as I had some songs. We put the songs together over there. At that time, it was more of a project. It was just the 3 of us, we played all the instruments on that album. After that we played 3 gigs and then I flew back to India for another 2 years doing my own things.
We met up again in Egypt in 2004 and I had some new songs which I played to them. We recorded ‘Approach’ in 2005 and it was released in 2006 and we won a Finnish Grammy for it. Things then took off and we were really busy gigging after that. If you compare the first album with the latest album, I think the band has evolved a lot.
We’re also now a 5 piece instead of a 3 piece. Apart from that, on this album, we have a new producer that we haven’t worked with before. He is really particular with every individual sound – we never really gave that much attention to how we were going to produce each sound; we were just playing and thinking that the song would carry itself. I would say that the pre-production of the album is much more detailed than on previous records.
Since forming in 2001, winning a Finnish Grammy and releasing your 4th Album, 10 years have passed. Why has it taken you so long to start infiltrating the world beyond Finland?
The thing is that we were on a very small label before but the people around us weren’t really networked – they didn’t really know what to do with us. Things started to change when we found a manager, which we had done on our own before.
Like every other band starts off I guess?
Yes, like other bands to a certain extent. We were in a situation where we were headlining festivals in Finland and there were bands that are big everywhere in the world, were on the stage with us. So many people used to come up to us after the gigs and say that they don’t understand why we’re not ‘out there’. That did start us thinking that maybe we should be out there too and what do we need to do to be out there. We needed people who were enthusiastic about us and who were willing to do the work to get the word out there. We didn’t have that; we were just concentrating on the music and the gigs that we were getting. The management part only came along about a year ago when I sent an email to the label that’s managing us now and things started to change very rapidly after that. Now we have a really good deal with Universal, the album is being released all over Europe and we’re over here playing. I think it was just a matter of having the right people around us. Dante [Bonutto of Universal] background of music is outrageous and to find someone like him to work with us. We know all about the music but not about how to be celebrities. We just concentrate on what we do.
Lyrically you’re inspired by William Blake and other poets rather than a more traditional Rock ‘n’ Roll fare. What parallels between prog rock and poetry do you find so fascinating – why can’t you write about sex, drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll?
For me personally, that’s not interesting. To be really honest, that’s not the theme that I find inspiring in this life. I started being interested in spiritual things when I was in my early 20’s and I found words from rare poets that really stopped me, it touched something deep within me. I found it so inspiring that when I started writing songs and lyrics to them, I felt that those things that resonate with me, within my heart, profoundly – I really wanted to have something as big. I understand people that write about booze, beer, and how much fun it is to go out and party but for me, what I’m interested in is something bigger than life. What’s beyond life? What is the oneness that we try to feel when we are on a spiritual quest?
I lived in a monastery for 7 years doing voluntary service and during those years, the way I write songs formed. I feel that if a song doesn’t have a message that stops you and penetrates you in a deeper element, the existence for me of that song is not that well justified. I feel I really have things to say but it has to come from my heart, it has to be pure; 100% pure, it can’t be anything else like talking about the yearning I have for God or something greater. That gets translated in our songs.
William Blake and poets like that make me want to contemplate what they’re saying. I get so inspired by that so I want our music to be like that.
In your press release it stated that you are Finland’s No. 1 rock band. What qualifies this statement over bands like Pelle Miljoona, Wigwam, Hanoi Rocks, The 69 Eyes and even Lordi?
(Laughing) Maybe it is an overstatement but at the same time, in Finland, there are not really that many rock bands. We are kind of classic rock and prog. I think the statement comes from the record company because we are selling more, way more albums than Lordi or Pelle Miljoona or the others. We have platinum sales; I mean, we are selling more than HIM at the moment.
Going back to the production of the album that you mentioned earlier, one of the first noticeable elements when listening to your music is how technical and well produced the songs are. How difficult is it to get that sound on stage?
It’s the way we write songs. I used to write all the songs but now on this album, my big brother Kia wrote almost half of the songs. The first demo version is almost like a complete song but then we tear that apart and start from the beginning, looking at the good things and then we add to it if there was something that wasn’t so good in it. It’s a really long process but in that process we really pay attention … as an example … everything has to sound really good when it’s mono, at the centre, only after that, we start throwing things at the sides.
Of course, it won’t be the same live but as our drummer says, with us, everything changes at every single rehearsal. We never just rehearse the song, there is always a new twist and we try and come up with something new and we try and make the live version of it really work. The songs that you will be hearing tonight, they’ve lived a long life after the album version. We aren’t just repeating the album version, it will be very different and that’s the way we like it. It has to flow with the energy of a live performance.
After your first show in the UK tonight, what’s happening next for the Von Hertzen Brothers? I’m guessing it’s world domination time?
We’re in a wait and see kind of mood. The album has been ready now for almost 3 months – we’ve never had an album ready so far in advance. We normally tweak and tweak and tweak it until it’s running very late. I feel like we’ve almost got a little bit of distance from the album so now when we get back, we will start rehearsing the new songs to be ready for when the tour starts. We are trying not to concentrate on where the tour leads us to – the people that are now working with us will choose which territories are the most important. I think the UK will pretty much dictate what we’re going to do outside of Finland and the UK. If it goes well here, we are definitely going to concentrate ourselves here but if people hate us here, we will go somewhere else. We were talking about it yesterday and we are looking into a few festivals in the summer.
You need to speak to Dante about High Voltage Festival.
Some people claim that it’s already confirmed for us, some people say they want to see us tonight.
Tonights a big night then!
Finally, give me one sentence that describes the Von Hertzen Brothers.
This is a brotherhood from the heart, we are on a mission to break through all the shit and touch your heart in a way that you have never experienced before.
Thank you ever so much.
Thank you
So there you have it folks, that’s a glimpse inside the world of the Von Hertzen Brothers for you, all in one nice bite sized chunk of a prog rock enthused chat. Now it’s up to you guys to go out and spread the word and make the band’s ‘Stars Align’. However if you still need further convincing of the Von Hertzen Brothers musical charms then check out their Myspace or simply watch the video below, and then tell me you’re not impressed.