The 69 Eyes: We are never seriously dark
The latest album of the Finnish gothic metal band The 69 Eyes «West End» was out on the 13th of September 2019, on Friday. Musicians visited St Petersburg in one of the last days of summer to perform acoustic set as part of the modern music festival «Polygon fest». The band’s frontman Jyrki Linnankivi, more known by his stage name Jyrki 69, told about The 69 Eyes latest work, his charitable activity and upcoming Russian tour in honour of the band’s 30th anniversary – specially for InRock magazine.
Why has the band decided to call the album «West End»? Is it prediction of the end of Western civilization or maybe an attempt to say that European Union or the United States don’t play important role in the world anymore?
No, no, it’s not political. The present days are pretty dark, there are a lot of dark news coming all over all the time. So I just want to take some inspiration from that and put it in an album title. And I came up with the idea over a year ago. And this kind of dark news come up more and more every day. And it was just cool title, West and End together, it looked good and sounded good. I asked the other guys: «What do you think of this title? Isn’t it kind of dark?» It’s mystic and, of course, it raises a question, so, I think it’s interesting. On the cover there are like funeral balloons, like at the funeral in New Orleans. I think it works because it’s just a rock’n’roll record to entertain you but maybe it gives you something to think about as well. Maybe when people stare at the cover it inspires them for new ideas. I want our music to be something fresh, something unpredictable as well. The 69 Eyes are never really seriously dark. We might sing about death, I might write lyrics with a lot of dark issues but they are never serious. In that sense they are more like romanticized verse.
Let’s talk about the songs. You have released music video «Juicy Lucy». It was in 1992. And this music video was finished in 2013. It was written in the end of the video.
The video was actually ready. It was done in 1992. But then we digitized it.
Don’t understand. Was this footage lost and found? Why was there such a delay?
No. It was made for television in 1992 but television didn’t take it and there was no place to show it to anybody in the world – there was no Internet. It was made by a friend of ours – Tony Laine, movie director. And some guys who were working for that video are really famous Finnish movie directors these days.
And then, I think, in 2013 I saw Tony in a bar and said «Why don’t you digitize that old video?» He digitized it then. We just put it out right now because we are celebrating the 30th anniversary. But I think it’s been around in the Internet earlier but not in that good version.
Let’s continue talking about the songs. The 69 Eyes have the composition «Christina Death» released more than ten years ago. And on the new album you have the song «Cheyenna». In both cases the main character is a mysterious girl. Christina Death is a girl that lives with two cats and sign «Please, no ads»…
…on the door. Yes. I don’t know if it’s going to be understood but in some countries, like in Scandinavian countries, we have a little hole in our door where they put newspaper and letters and stuff. And you can write there «Please, no ads». They deliver free ads from pizza places or free advertisement around the area. If you put «no ads»on your door you won’t get advertisement. It can be a little bit cultural related like that.
But «Christina Death» has few friends of mine in the same song. Like I’ve known some girl who’s been smoking cigarette in her bad. I know few who have two cats and some girls who hate Christmas, don’t ever dress up in white. There are couple of characters in the same song. So, it’s actually about some of my friends, real persons. Cheyenna is imaginary character.
How was this image created, how was the song created? Is Cheyenna a name, nickname or term?
With «Cheyenna» it was like I heard demo of the song and I came up with this. The chorus is very simple. I like to write everything as simple as possible. I write the lyrics and then I take half of the lyrics away, then I sing the demo and after that I take another half of way. I want to keep it extremely simple, on purpose. Sometimes it’s funny, about «Cheyenna», someone was wondering like «Why is the chorus so simple?» Well, it’s very catchy because it’s just one word. That’s how rock’n’roll is written. I like to write as simple as possible and repeating things because my favourite songs are like that.
So, «Cheyenna» came to mind, I heard the chorus when I heard instrumental song as a demo: «Chey-yee-eena». And I was like «Is this even a word or something?» And I wrote it down and it was like a name. Then I googled it up if it was like native American princess or something. And it turned out there had been missing girls over the years whose first name had been Cheyenna. So it was spooky and I wanted to write a ghost story about female biker turning into ghost rider. So, the guy is driving his motorbike in the desert in the night and then comes a shiny driver, shiny mama next to him. It’s a beautiful woman, it’s Cheyenna and she is a female ghost rider. She’s going to drag you down to hell like she was dragged down to hell by regular ghost rider earlier which is told in a story.
Christina Death and Cheyenna are really two very different images.
Well, Christina Death is like the girls that attend our shows and Cheyenna is probably… well, Cheyenna could be there too. Cheyenna is also like some person I’ve known, there are, of course, examples in real life.
Would like to ask you about you charity work. Are you still an UNICEF goodwill ambassador?
Yes, I am, I’ve been there over 15 years, and I haven’t been active for a while but if they want me to be active, I’ll be again. I just hang out there, maybe someday I’ll need it but not that moment.
What is your biggest achievement as a goodwill ambassador?
Well, it’s this – you ask about it. When The 69 Eyes were very successful in Finland I was asked to be goodwill ambassador because people were interested in that – I was involved in charity work. And being involved in charity work in this case is very simple – when I’m doing interviews and people are asking about this. Maybe people don’t have time anymore or don’t know how to be active and take part in charity work. Then they read the word UNICEF in my interview, check out what it is and maybe want to learn more. Now this is obvious – the planet is suffering, so all of us should help the planet. One of the ways to help the planet is to help the children.
And as a final part of our conversation, would you be so kind to tell the fans about The 69 Eyes Russian tour that will take place in 2020?
First of all – it’s incredible to be in St Petersburg in summertime. I’ve never seen this city in summertime, we are always here in November, January or February. So, now we are coming in March to play four shows in Russia – St Petersburg, Moscow, Ekaterinburg and Samara. That’s fantastic. But we also would like to come in summertime, hopefully, at the festivals. Please, invite the Helsinki vampires when you have festivals as well. I mean, we love to play here, we love our fans, we are very thankful for a loyal Russian vampire follow. Without you, guys, we wouldn’t be able being here playing for 30 years. So, with you we are going to play another hundred years. So, thanks, thanks a lot for your support.
The 69 Eyes tourdates in Russia: 13 March, S.Petersburg, «Zal» club, 14 March, Moscow, «Red» club, 15 March, Yekaterinburg, «Tucha» club, 17 March, Samara, «Zvezda» club.
Interview by Alexandra Prozorova
Photos by Yaroslav Serikov
Acknowledgements to Maxim Bylkin of Soyuz Music Russia for organizing this interivew.
Russian version — http://inrock.ru/interviews/the_69_eyes_2019
