Monstereophonic Theaterror vs. Demonarchy via AFM records was released September 2016 and I’ve had the album since the release. If I had to choose between a horror movie or an action adventure, I would choose the latter. Even though I am a fan of the horror movie series ‘Saw‘ if you call watching it with my hands over my face peeking through my fingers, but that’s beside the point. Looking at the photo on the cover of the album, my imagination took off giving me the feeling I would be scared. I would be photographing the show and doing an interview with Mr. Lodi, so I set the album next to my computer and every night when I sat down to work I would look at the photo with the hopes I wouldn’t freak out later. It’s the weekend before the show, and I have no choice but to open this album and write up an interview.
The opening track on Monstereophonic Theaterror vs. Demonarchy is the SCG: One Message Waiting introduction, the answering machine, the heavy breathing with the mysterious voice saying. “I bet you thought you would never hear from me again. You were wrong. It’s Ruiz” … I now have the ‘Home Alone’ scream going on. That emotion changed quickly with the following song, Let’s Go Slaughter He-Man (I Wanna Be The Beast-Man In The Masters Of The Universe), which is a fun upbeat song, as Mr. Lordi would later state, I went on a rollercoaster of emotions. I love the album, it was not what I expected, one thing is for sure I have a great imagination which makes life interesting.
Monstereophonic Theaterror vs. Demonarchy is considered a two-sided album, Side A six songs of the classic Lordi melodic tone, Side B the six songs are a concept album.
Without further ado, on this dreary raining night at the City National Grove of Anaheim, Anaheim, California I spoke with the man himself Mr. Lordi, about the album, writing the music and lyrics, designing the costumes, stage props and being a film school graduate. He’s amazing, much respect!
Hello it’s very nice to meet you.
Mr. Lordi: Like wise
Tonight’s was the fifth show of the North American tour, how has it gone so far?
So far, it’s going good. If you leave out the fact that it’s been, fucking raining the whole time we’ve been here. We’ve been here six days and it’s been raining ever since we landed. I don’t know what the hell. Rain is a minus but that’s not our fault and then another thing is, well, that always happens on tour. Now, pretty much, I would say, 50-60% of the crew and the band is sick, myself included. So, if you leave those things out, everything’s going just fine.
How’s the crowds been, welcoming you?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It’s so fun to see people who are wearing t-shirts from eight years ago, or something, when we were here last time and even some shirts from Ozzfest, from 2007, some people are wearing, which is fuckin’ cool. It’s been way too long. Eight years I guess, seven years, eight years, something like that.
My introduction to Lordi was the new release Monstereophonic (Theaterror vs Demonarchy) via AFM records. The first video release Hug You Hardcore, but before we discuss this song, I would like to start with the beginning of the album.
All right.
SCG: One Message Waiting, if it was meant to get a reaction from the listener, it did, my hair stood on end, I felt the goose bumps and with the phone call my first thought was the horror movie ‘Scream’, that fear feeling. Is this the type of reaction you had in mind, something to grab your attention?
Well… It doesn’t really matter to me, honestly, what kind of reactions people get from the songs, from whatever we do. Honestly, whatever we do or whatever pops into my head and we do, is something that I love, I like and if somebody else likes it, it’s a plus. Whatever it is. It doesn’t matter to me, what the reaction, if it’s good or bad. Of course, good is better. Let me put it this way, some people might find for example, some songs, they find them really funny, some people find them fucking cool. Some find them disgusting, some lyrics, you know. I don’t care. I don’t know and I don’t care. It’s just, well, but then again, if you were kind of scared or whatever.
It gave me a little fear.
Fear, yeah.
Adrenaline.
So, did you like it?
I did like it.
So, there you go. It’s like roller coasters pretty much, or haunted houses or something. Some people, they enjoy it. They enjoy being spooked or whatever and some people hate it. They will never go to a roller coaster again, because they’ll throw up afterwards. You know, some people like throwing up.
Then it transitions into the song Let’s Go Slaughter the He-Man, that takes you to a totally different emotion, I think of actions heroes. What’s the correlation between the two songs or is there one?
No. No, there’s no connection there. We always have these SCG’s in the beginning, it’s Scarctic Circle Gathering from the first album, that was the name of the intro on the debut album. I think it’s SCG8 now already, so we kind of, continue the tradition on every album, to do that. The intro is called SCG.
Okay.
On many albums, it has a connection to the track, to the opening track that comes right after that but this one doesn’t and usually we do it – this is the first time that we are not doing it like this, that the intro tape is rolling, that’s on the album, and then we start the actual opening song. This time we are not using that intro as an intro tape. We are using the second half intro of the album, as the intro of the show, which makes it kind of confusing but the whole speech, the whole answering machine, didn’t really work as an intro tape for that song. For the album, it’s fine, but for live, too much talk.
What’s the story behind Let’s Go Slaughter the He-Man? Is it taken from one of your comics?
No. No. No. No. It’s Masters of the Universe. I’m an ‘80’s kid so, I loved playing with Masters of the Universe action figures when I was a kid. I’m a huge geek. I collect all kinds of shit you know, you name it. When I was recording the demos, there’s always this problem – I write so much but I still must come up with some sort of demo lyrics for every song, even though I write for this album, I think it’s like 50 songs that we chose ten for the album.
You must come up with something for the demo lyrics when you’re recording because you have no idea, is that song going to make it, so you’re not really thinking about it. So, I’m sitting in my work room, which has lots of collectibles and lots of shit and geeky stuff and I’m looking around. I’m so bored of writing another lyric about necrophilia, horror, or some zombies rocking out – something. So, I’m looking around and there I see, my Masters of the Universe Castle Grayskull set, and with him, Skeletor and all those action figure and I’m like, why not.
How do I feel about He-Man and these guys well, slaughter He-Man and the lyric became so fucking funny that, even though that song didn’t make it to the album, the lyric was in the demo stage, it was still on another song. So, the music and the lyric were separate in that point but this is a lyric that I have to use because everybody – when we were listening to the demos everybody was like, “Ha-ha. That’s funny. That’s funny.” So yeah. Also, we have had some new audiences because of that song like those geeks. I didn’t know but there’s this, surprisingly, many people around the world who are really into Masters of the Universe so I have interviews with those Masters of the Universe fan clubs or collectible guys or whatever and they’re like, “Oh, we didn’t know about the band before, but now, we heard this song and it’s awesome.” So yeah. Yeah.
The song Hug You Hardcore, I really liked the tone, the power in the song, the lyrics didn’t bother me. Doing research on this song, I found two versions of the songs video, a censored and uncensored version, personally people’s political correctness is pathetic at times, to put it nicely. With two versions, it’s giving the fans a choice of what they want to see, do you feel this was a good compromise, keeping both parties happy?
Nah. It’s so stupid. It’s like, okay, I told the video director, I told him, “Okay. I want a really hardcore video, it should be.” Well the song is about anal fisting so you cannot really…… I told the director that you are not supposed to talk with our A and R. You’re not supposed to talk with anybody at Sony Music, Finland. No. No. No. No. No. You just talk with me. We have the script for it but then the director at Soundboard was like, okay this is too extreme for me so he made it so much lamer than I wanted it to be.
With that being said, I’m satisfied with it, but it should have been – wanted more. There’s 200,000 metal videos released every day on YouTube, all around the world, while the band is playing in an abandoned warehouse or something. What’s the point if you’re not going to do something – you know what I mean.
Then when it got out, surprisingly; the most criticism that we got was from our die-hard fans who didn’t like the concept at all. They didn’t like the lyrics and they didn’t like the whole, you know. I was like, really? Really?
Because it’s was something different. Different from what they’re used to?
Yeah because they’re used to seeing lots of videos – demons and zombies and possessed people. Well listen to the lyric again, it’s not about those things. There’s nothing supernatural in that song. You know.
And now there’s a choice. I mean, they still have a choice?
Yeah. Funny thing about the choice is also that the censored version also wasn’t good enough for Sony. They could not put it on their official channel or anything because it’s a family friendly company, so they couldn’t. Let’s face it, there’s nothing in there that’s revealing – there’s nothing in that video. You don’t see any weird stuff. All the stuff that I wanted to be seen in the video is cut out. There is none of that. I wanted to see the blade – the chainsaw blade – to go into the flesh and rip it out. I wanted to see everything in detail, extreme close ups of everything – yeah and the dildo and blood – Nooo. Next time.
There’s always a next time.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I hate censorship in all forms. I hate it. It’s like, you either like it or you don’t but don’t tell me what I can do. It’s like, come on. You have all the right to think that I’m sick or somehow – I don’t really care. I know that I’m a good person even though I might think weird stuff but it doesn’t mean that I’m urging people to go and kill people and you know, blah. People are stupid.
Yes. The political correctness has gotten out of hand.
Yeah!
On the subject of music videos, with the industry changing to the digital age, there is not much of an audience, do you feel it’s a necessary evil to produce at least one music video to promote a new release?
No I don’t because – we were – within our fan base or whatever, our core audience, we were known to have really cool videos, ten or fifteen years ago, because that was a different age back then. We were still shooting on film and there aren’t people making music videos anymore. All our regular guys who are doing our videos, they aren’t doing it anymore. They are not doing music videos because the bat shits are gone.
There are not TV shows that show videos and labels are not spending money anymore. There’s no budget. For me, personally, I would rather not to have a video but then again, it’s a label issue and I understand it that you kind of have to have it as a calling card even though it’s a completely different ball game now-a-days than it was for example, ten years ago.
Even eight years ago, because the whole music video world, it changed so dramatically, so quickly – in two years, it like whoosh. It just went down, you could take zeros away from the budget like boom, boom, boom, boom. Now-a-days you’re happy if you get a budget for 2,000 euros or dollars for a music video when ten years ago, it was 150,000. Think about it, it’s crazy. But that’s what it is and I kind of get it but the main reason is that it’s the whole digitalization of the world. The labels or anybody isn’t getting any money back from their investment, if you spend money on a music video, you’re not going to get it back. It’s just throwing away money.
You’re hoping that it brings in sales on the album?
Of course, but from an artistic point of view, it’s frustrating because everything is shot on video now, it sucks ass. It’s just, but then again, I mean, yeah. Yeah. I don’t like it.
I like watching the videos, it seems like the bands put out at least one, it’s a treat when there’s more.
Yeah. I’m a film school graduate myself. I graduated from film school in 1994 and I was making part of my living for quite a few years, ten years, in the business. So, I feel strongly about it. I hate the whole change that came with the internet. That is the one source to blame whether it’s the downfall of the music industry and or music videos, that is the internet, sadly. I mean of course, people are watching more, people are listening more than ever, but the problem is that nobody’s getting paid for that.
I don’t take it– It’s such a lame excuse to say that I can do it because it’s technically possible. I can watch it because I can listen to this music because it’s technically possible but I don’t want to pay for it.
I agree, that is a major problem.
And that’s the problem. Yeah.
Monstereophonic (Theaterror vs Demonarchy) is a two-sided album. Theaterror is the classic Lordi, 80’s oriented, melodic sound. Demonarchy is a concept album, or half of an album. Tell us about the concept side, what’s the story?
Well, the story is about these last monsters of their kin, or the breed – breeds that are living in the same town – what is it, 200 years ago, or whatever – there’s a vampire, a zombie, a witch, and a werewolf and they have somehow learned to coexist in the same area and they are having these demonic meetings, every once in a while, about the territorial issues. This story takes place on one night and morning when they’re having one of these meetings and then actually the town folks they came in and then all shit hits the fan.
The lyrics “Time has no meaning when love means more than life”. That line stood out to me, can you elaborate on the song And the Zombie Says?
I’m trying to remember where it is in the story. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s a little bit about the characters there because it’s the witch, the mom who loves her son but she is a witch so when he died, she made him a living dead because she couldn’t bare to let him go. Also, there’s the werewolf girl who’s really like a teenager, kind of something, so she has a huge crush on the vampire guy who’s like, super old and you know – there are all these – I’m trying to remember these because there are other one – oh yeah, the zombie boy who has no brain really and that dude and the werewolf girl, they used to be lovers – star crossed teenage lovers – so that’s the story.
It’s the mother’s love for her son?
Yeah. Yeah.
Thank you, that explains my feeling and why that line touched me so.
That too and it depends on the chorus because it connects to the verse that is before that.
The last song on the album is The Night the Monsters Died, or did they?
They didn’t, as you know they did not.
They came back to life. Is that a lead onto another concept album or another story?
I don’t know. I don’t think we’re going to do another concept album right after this one, even though I had a blast doing it because it was way much more work than I thought it would be. I’m a huge King Diamond fan so I thought, “He can do it. I want to do it too.” And it was – fuck it was difficult because all the criteria that you have to have of choosing the songs that we’ve had before, was thrown out the window because you are not selecting the songs anymore by, oh this is a great riff. This is a great chorus. No, you must think about the story – the whole drama there. How does this music serve the story? Yeah but now I know. I learned something. It was challenging for sure, it was like, fuck. Damn this doesn’t work. I need an extra verse to tell this, fuck. Different mood for this music at least these lyrics and so it was way more difficult than I thought it would be so my hats’ off to Mr. King Diamond. My respect, sir.
This being a two-sided album, the costumes are two sided also. Since you’re the creator of this amazing work, was the song writing and costume design going on simultaneously?
Yes and no. First, there was the song writing thing and then, I already knew, all right, we’re going to have the two-sided thing and with some of the characters it worked better and with the other ones, like with my costume it didn’t work as well as like, Hella, she’s our keyboard player. She’s really half and half, and I think Ox, our bass player, he’s also half and half but it’s kind of hard. For example, with my costume and mask and Aman our guitar player it’s already done – it’s ninth version and – it’s trademarked so I cannot change them too much because I lose the trademark. There are certain things I cannot change for the trademark for example; I cannot make my costume pink. That’s a thing. All kinds of little things like that. They were not simultaneously done but right next to each other.
This is the end of my interview, is there anything else you would like to say to the fans?
Thank you. Yeah, thank you for staying with us because we have fanatic fans, which is awesome. If we’re talking about the American fans, it’s been way too long and it’s so nice to see people who say, “Ah, I’ve waited for eight years. Nine years and whatever” I saw you and…” Some people don’t understand why doesn’t that band come to your town or your country, it’s never about the band. It’s never the band’s decision. I can tell you, all the artists will and they want to come and play wherever they are invited to. That’s the problem because for all these eight years, we haven’t got – I mean, it’s just music business – we haven’t gotten the offers that will make it worthwhile for us to come here. That’s the problem. It’s a long travel and I hate that we cannot bring – we can only bring like little crop of the production that we have back home, of the show for example. It’s impossible. But thank you for the fans, for being so loyal and wanting us.
As I stated earlier, I’m new to your music, I love the new album. I kind of delayed listening to it a little. My imagination went a little too far, I was thinking, okay, I’m going photograph the show and interview Mr. Lordi and it will freak me out.
Nah.
This was a lot of fun. I love the show and I love the new album. So, thank you very much!
Thank you. Thank you so much.
You’re welcome, safe travels and enjoy the rest of the tour.
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