École
When and how was your band created?
Band was created at spring 1995. We used to play in different band earlier, just for fun. Then two guys from the former band decided to set up a new band that would do things more seriously. They asked two other guys to join the band, and after few changes in the line-up, the EXTAASI band was created. During the years the line-up has changed totally, and nowadays only the singer has been in the band since the beginning.
Where is the name of the band coming from?
Band name was chosen just because it just sounded good, and it sounds familiar for everyone, even if the person hasn’t heard the band earlier. The name comes from the state of mind, ‘ecstasy’. Some people think that the name means the drug, but it isn’t. Actually the drug was unknown those days in Finland, and the band member’s hasn’t even heard about it then.
What musicians or artists did have a major influence in your life / work?
Personally for me, it’s mostly the punk bands in the 80’s that have been influencing mostly in my life and my way to make music, even though we aren’t playing punk anymore. I think that mostly bands like The Exploited, Sex Pistols, and several finnish punk bands like Appendix, Lama, etc. have been affecting mostly at the beginning. But nowadays there are finnish bands like Kotiteollisuus that has a major influence in the current sound.
What are the positive and negative aspects of being a musician in Finland?
There aren’t so many places in Finland where you could arrange gigs for alternative bands. You don’t have chance to play gigs as much as you would like to. And also the record labels don’t make deals with new bands so easily. Positive aspect is that it’s quite easy and cheap to do it yourself. You could always release your own records for your own label with quite small amount of money.
How could you qualify your style of music?
Today the music is some kind of metallic, hard rock, I think.
During the years how has your musical style evolved?
When we started, the music was quite punkrock, but during the year’s, when the line-up has changed and also the music taste of the members, we started to get more and more metal sound into our music. We always had the metal sound in our music, but during the last two year’s, the punk sound has been deposed, and the basic sound is darker than earlier.
How do explain these changes?
I think I already said this in the last question, the music taste and line-up has changed during the years. The last change in the line-up, when the new guitarist came in the band, we decided to do more changes, and we abandoned most of the old songs and decided to do new ones to replace them.
What are stories/topics you tell/treat in your songs?
Our lyrics are quite gloomy, and they are mostly related to death or depression. But we do handle all kinds of small misfortunes and dark side of human life.
Have you ever considered the possibilty to change totally your style of music?
Actually we just did. Well, not totally, but it was quite big change anyway.
What is your favorite song in your repertoire and why?
It’s the title song of our latest ep, called ‘Kiveen kirjoitettu’. It just has the right kind of aggressive and crushing drive in that song.
Do you tour regularly? Do you prefer performing your music live or in a studio?
Yes, we are trying to, but we do usually accept almost all gigs that there is available. Usually we have two or three small tours during the year, and some occasional gigs besides. We prefer playing the music live, because when we make new songs, we usually play it live before the songs are recorded. Our music works the best in live situation, and in studio we are trying to catch the live energy and emotion.
During the process of making an album, what is the moment that you prefer?
Usually when all tracks have been recorded and the songs are starting to get the final form and starts to sound like it should be. And of course when everything is ready and you can have the real record into your hands.
What kind of music / What artists do you currently listen?
Currently I’m listening mostly Kotiteollisuus, Evanescence, Nightwish, etc. Not so much punkrock anymore, but old punkrock classics are still spinning occasionally.
A stupid question but… what is, among all the songs you’ve been listening in your life, the BEST song?
What a question! There is so many great songs in the world that it’s impossible to name one.
What is your opnion, as a musician, regarding internet?
Internet has helped many underground artists a lot. It’s much easier to get contacts and promote your music and events in the internet.
What are your actual and future projects?
We are going to have few gigs in Estonia during the summer and fall, and a small tour in Finland in the fall. Maybe a bigger tour next spring. And probably next year we should start the recordings of our first album. We are going to set up our own company, and if there won’t be any record label that would like to release the album, we are going to do it our selves.
