Having created an album of Metallica covers played on the cello in the late 90's, Apocalyptica made a nice start for themselves, garnering the attention of metalheads and classical coinsures worldwide, uniting them in one common question - "where in the blue hell did this come from?"

Indeed, Apocalyptica have been something very different from the beginning. After releasing two albums of cello metal covers, they have been releasing a steady stream of originals that have made people realize that Apocalyptica is no novelty act. This is the music they have a passion for and they are here to stay.

Paavo: We just played some Metallica songs in the beginning and we started that quartet for our own fun, of course we felt it was fun to do that inside of the classical music. Then we started to do more and more covers and it was really fun. We did the first album with Metallica covers and the second album was also a cover album, then there was one with just "Hall of the Mountain King", it was like a classical cover, but it was basically just the theme taken apart and creating a new song around that, so you could call that an original song. That was the start for our own material. In the third album, "Cult", there was almost all the material were originals, of course we felt that even the basics and the reason why we are, Apocalyptica existing is because of the cover playing. We felt the idea was used already three times and it got a bit like an inflation in our minds to do once again a cover album. Also, if you do your own music, it gives you much more free hands to create the kind of music that you like and for an instrument, it also gives better possibilities for using the cello as a rock instrument, because then we could use all the good sides of the cello, like the bottom riffs working very well with a distorted cello and then the beautiful melody comes from the classical side. So it was just our own musical interests, which was the main reason we turned to do more and more original material. We are still doing a lot of cover songs in the shows; it is part of Apocalyptica and why we are existing and it's still fun to play those songs in the live shows. But at the moment, we feel that we'll still go on with the original songs in our album recordings. But you never know, maybe one day we will do one more cover album if we have the feeling and a good idea for that.

Paavo: Never. We play half and half originals and covers. We have always gotten a very good response from the audience with our own music. But to play first the cover songs, it's maybe easier for an audience to settle down to that sound and the mood and then it's not that big of a difference for our own songs.

Paavo: Great! Now he has played on two of our albums; on the "Reflections" album, he played on four tracks and on the newest album, which is not released in the U.S. yet, he played on one track. We have known Dave since '97, the story of how we met; he was having a drum clinic at the same festival that we were playing on the same stage. His drum kit was already on the stage during our show and before our show, he came backstage and said hello and he had heard that we are playing some Slayer songs and he suggested, "what about playing together?" We didn't really practice at all on the stage, but Dave was hitting his sneaker with the drum sticks and Eicca was playing the cello and we checked out the structures of the song and we played "Mandatory Suicide" and "South of Heaven", the big hit songs, as an encore at the end of our set. It was really fun. After that, sometimes was in Europe, he came to see our shows, so we were in contact all the time. When we asked Dave to play on the "Reflections" album, he was really willing to do that. But we did it so that we recorded all our material in Finland and we sent all the material to Dave in the U.S. and he did that in the studio here, so we were not really in the studio at the same time. But for this new album, he came to Finland with Slayer and he had one day off, one free day before their show, and he came with us to the studio and did "Betrayal". It's really Dave's style of drumming. Why we asked Dave to do that certain song, we now have a drummer with us, Mikael, and he also played on our album, but he thought that "Betrayal" is not really his style of drumming and "why not ask Dave?", because it's really a custom made song for Dave and it was a perfect combination. And it's really great to work with that guy because he's a musician, with big letters; he's playing with a full heart and emotion and his sound is really recognizable.

Paavo: I don't know at the moment about the situation, but it's going to be released here, but I don't know yet how. I don't know whether we are making a new deal with a new record company or if we will go on with the old one (Nuclear Blast). So we're in an edge on what to do, so I guess it's going to be released one day, but it's a pity that it's so late.

Paavo: I don't think there was really one main idea. It's like doing music on that time and that kind of music we feel those days. We made, on that album, more simple songs, more rock oriented compared to metal oriented. For the Self-Titled, it's more back to heavy songs. And even there, there's some really rock songs, quite simple ones. Next year when we go back into the studio, we are definitely going back to the more heavy and a bit more complicated music and no compromises. We are very happy with all the albums we have done, it's like a picture from that time and every album has it's good sides and bad sides. The "Reflections" album, the sound was more strong and easier to listen to. The "Cult" album is really hard stuff, somehow we have been returning to a be a bit more… (pauses briefly to look at two women walking by) …harder again. But with "Reflections", there's good moments. It's a really good album, I think.

Paavo: Oh, yeah. We had to get a proper budget for the video. (laughs) It's a stupid thing, but we are not millionaires at the moment, we are earning good money, but there's always a problem to a get a good budget for a video. The budget was a thousand Euros, so it's not much and we got it cheap, but to find that extra money from somewhere, you've got to get somebody to pay part and that video game company offered us a deal. I don't know anything about the game; I'm not a big fan of the games. At all. (laughter) Perttu is the big fan; he plays a lot of the Playstation and so on, but I don't stand it. (laughter) So it was just for money reasons. There were three versions of the video; there is there is one where there is the stupid knight at the end of the video. There's some short parts from the video game, but even if the video game graphics are really good, if you compare it to the film shot real picture, it's always crap and those parts are really looking like shit in that video. But luckily, it's cut so well that you don't really realize that it's looking bad. But if you stop the film and look at the picture, it's like "what the hell is this?" We also have the version with none of the video game parts in it. What's sad in that video, I guess you have not seen it on television here…

Paavo: Of course. We are not allowed to use that in the U.S. It was a big hit in Europe, all the channels showed that in the main rotation, but because of Ville's (Valo of H.I.M.) record deal with Sire Records, they didn't let us use that in the U.S. But somehow, it's really understandable because H.I.M. just got the new deal, the really expensive deal, and the record company took a big risk with millions of dollars and they were just going to release the new album after half a year and they didn't want to take any kind of risk. They did good basic groundwork in the U.S. I hope they use that video later now that they have released the album, but when they get settled down touring, tour a little.

Paavo: It was done since The Beatles and even earlier; country has always used the violin. When it's reasonable, there's a reason to use those classical instruments in rock music, it's good. It gives some good mood to the music and then it's alright. But in the metal scene, there has been quite a lot of the symphony/orchestra stuff during the last ten years, especially in the last five years after Metallica did "S&M", a lot of metal bands have done some collaboration with orchestras. (sighs) Sometimes they are working well, if you are talking for instance Metallica's "S&M", there's a lot of good songs, all the songs are good, but the versions… some of those are really good, but some of those are not really working. I think the problem is that the band is not doing the arrangement by themselves, they can't do that, write to the symphony orchestra, it's difficult to do and there's always some other guy, Michael Kamen; he was a very skillful writer for the orchestra, but he made a lot of Hollywood stuff and in some songs you hear Hollywood strings, which does not fit to the original mood of the songs. A big problem with the other symphony orchestra stuff as well; orchestras are normally playing just the harmony lines and if there's some new musical material added to the top of that, it's rarely fitting well. But there's a lot of crossover things where classical players are playing rock. The problem in those projects are that those people, they are not really rock, you know, (laughs a little) and if some orchestra is put into a forest, they know that in a weekly or monthly working list, they see that "okay, this week we will play some Beatles song" and they go to work and play. They have none of the force and fire in their soul to do that, that "we" want to do that, really. It's not really rock or heavy at all if you are just playing.

Paavo: Thirty years.

Paavo: (laughs) No, I haven't been playing thirty years, but you know, we have been playing cellos since we were six years old… six, seven, eight years old. Cello and all the string instruments are quite challenging for the players, 'cause you've got to get your physics; you can't start that after ten years old. All the muscles have got to grow and your motor skills have to be started at an age of six, seven, eight, otherwise you can't get yourself as a good player. For instance, if you look at my hands, they're not on the same level; my left fingers are much taller. Of course, in those days we were studying in Sibelius Academy and even earlier, in our childhood, it took a lot of practice every day, which was sometimes hard, especially those years when you're fourteen and fifteen. It could be hard, but if you have reached a level of those skills earlier, then it's easier to get over those difficult years. But we all did some other stuff as well; Perttu was playing drums and guitar, I was playing bass in my school band, Eicca was playing drums, so we have been playing music already during those years and we have always been big fans of rock and metal music. The metal music and the classical music have been living side by side in our lives and that's why I can say we have been metal heads forever and that's why we have a right to play metal music by cellos, even if it's a strange kind of instrument. You know, guitar is also originally a classical instrument, maybe something went wrong in history, that guitar became a rock instrument and cello didn't. (laughter) No, I'm kidding. To get yourself to be a good player, you've got to practice in your study years four to five hours a day. It's hard, lots of concentration. Now, we don't practice that much. (small amount of laughter) This year, we will play a hundred and forty shows and the best possible practice is playing the concert, 'cause then you are one hundred percent concentrated on what you are doing. But of course, inside of playing the concert and metal music, we've got to take care of all the physics and practice some of the technical etudes and some classical music as well. It's also good for mental health, to have different kinds of things, 'cause classical music is also a big part of our life, always and it's part of our identity and I could not live without that, so it feels really good to practice alone some Bach suites, for example.

Paavo: Because we were cello players and even though we have been playing guitars, bass and drums, we really couldn't play that well. Cello was the only instrument we could play. I'm a cello player and we wanted to do something special and fun in the beginning. Cello is our instrument and that's why.

Paavo: Yes, thank you.