Miss Treatment

[ WWW.FINPOP.NET ]

THE FINNISH POP CULTURE PORTAL

Music
Interview : Slim from Miss Treatment

When and how was your band created?
Along many years and in different directions all of us have thought of making rocker/psycho based stuff in another way, melting pop & some other "forbidden" influences in it. Things started to roll on 2004. Then the string bass expert Mika Railo and myself were given a chance to back up Paul "The Quakes" Roman all over Europe. The so interesting co-operation was sadly ruined by too different personal chemistries. As we then searched "the new front row", it turned out that singer Kaisa from Patsy Walkers shared very similar vision to ours. Ex-Come Inside & Flaming Sideburn guitar man J. Alajuuma hopped in too. But now he´s retired from gigs as a background studio assistant member only. Our very new axeman is Urbanus - a talented surf specialist known before from Raili Eronen & Twangers.

Where is the name of the band coming from?
Lack of mental treatment that we missed before forming this group. Go ahead and ask our former band bosses. They´ll tell You more! At last we feel much more sane and free to spread real musical treatment for everybody who craves it! Afterwards we noticed that "miss" stands out practically female fronted group like we are. The name has nothing to do with nurse uniform porn like some woodheads want to understand it. F.e. duetto song "Killer Nurse" describes one mental hospital worker´s burnout turning blackout - ending up lethal for patients. In record Topi Sorsakoski shouted the surviving victim´s role revealing his darkest screams. On gigs we try to find the best local shouting freak to play this quite difficult part.

What musicians or artists did have a major influence in your life / work?
Some namedropping from everybody: Kaisa is towards rarer garage, Kate Bush, Cramps, Danzig and Morrissey who is also Mika´s big favourite among Nirvana, Toy Dolls and Beatles. Urbanus is into Keith Richards & Link Wray style plus Spanish and Russian-slavonic melodies in overall. I prefer The Who and f.e. way too undervalued 60´s & 70´s era pop-crossover efforts from classic passed-by rockers. Especially "The Day The World Turned Blue" by Gene Vincent is unique.

What are the positive and negative aspects of being a musician in Finland?
Feels like every second one here is now in some kind of a band. Better not to mention "I´m in band" anymore unless You want to be considered as a total jerk! They also school masses of people as professional musicians here who have to fight for jobs in future. Music biz here has become a raw competition. With taste of blood in mouth pursuits for even a small international recognition. The good thing is fair rise of overall quality after decades of regression. Finland is a special case between East and West. This area has a lot popular music resources yet unexploited.

How could you define your style of music?
It´s Psycho-Pop. Colorful perspectives to stiffer rocker stuff – rough cut rocker edge to beautiful pop. Psyched-out lyrics with supernatural terror hints. Everything is yet in growing phase and that´s only a good thing.

During the years how has your musical style changed?
We started making our first release "It´s Psycho-Pop" minicd in pure excitement of novelty. The elements are all there for sure but the result was bit half-way and rash. The main accuse goes to inexplicable series of unlucky accidents. Many have to be taken wounded to hospital, some more than once. Lots of broken wrists, collar bones etc. Luckily after all painful suffering the media rebound and radio airplay was quite encouraging so next autumn we´re permitted to start making full length release and hopefully we manage to sharpen the idea of psycho-pop this time.

How do explain these changes?
We believe in fast spontaneous action and growing as a band by doing things rapidly in field - in gigs and studio. Risque method but works much, much faster than too much speculation and rottening in practice cellar. Besides the place is almost "too-psycho": hotter than hell, rusty waste pipes in ceiling that may crack any minute, lots of cement dust in air, dead rats, loony janitor ambushing drunken musicians in corridor with rubber stick, objects moving by itself, lamps exploding and so on…

What are topics you treat in your songs?
Most of our song topics could be found in a b-movie catalogoue. Their main
characters are mad scientists, deranged nurses, carnies and inhabitants of a
haunted house. Kaisa makes all the lyrics. Despite some clichés in titles the contain is real weird and more complex than in average trash-horror vocabulary.

What is your favorite song in your repertoire and why?
I like them all but I guess everybody is now most into "Haunted House". A new yet unrecorded song. There´s amusing "ride a horse" rhythms, smashy old school metal B-part and ridiculous poppy-gripping chorus, supernatural oddity lyrics with tight high shouting climaxes.

Do you actually prefer performing your music live or in a studio?
Of course alive. There´s always more dangerous situations which can lead to real excitement for us and audience. We´re still in creative step and thus bit unsure of stage situation. But according to some late experiences I believe we may soon achieve the possibility to jam inside the seemingly ruled pop-structures. In studio we have the pleasure & honor to work with Sami "Stringbeans" Roine who is our producer, supplemented by J. Alajuuma´s pop-ear abilities.

During the process of making a song, what is the moment that you prefer?
For this one I must turn to our musical director & composer Mika: "As the main melody clears to my head it´s then sheer fun to search out the right chords to it and compose the supplemental melodies. As the song is composed to this phase it´s time to give it to the band for arranging. I always wait for this with great interest. This is the very best moment – to see the song grow ready to be performed before live audience!"

A stupid question but... what is among all the songs you've been listening
in your life the BEST song?
My suggestion is "Cobwebs And Strange" by The Who from 1966. It also has a superb "video" including Keith Moon as a robot. This song makes You see the bright sides of life. I consider it the best musical anti-depressant this far.

What is your opinion, as a musician, regarding internet?
Especially MySpace is ingenious uniting subcultural bands & people worldwide. I didn´t even knew it existed before Kaisa started mastering Miss Treatment segment there.

What are your projects?
Now the main focus is to get ready for the album making. If all goes well I hope we can fit the playful idea of minor "Psycho-Opera" in it - some waltz, odd time and so on! If not now then later. Some gigs too. Soon we head for Russia, Moscow & St.Petersburg. The restaurant wagon of Moscow night train creates the exactly right mood. People from all over world moving, drinking some vodka & talking whatever freely. It´s very possible that the main inspiration of the album awaits somewhere there. But to be honest, at first place I pray & hope this group would get the possibility to exist & survive even some time. Nothing feels so sure & secure anymore. There´s maybe something totally wrong with us. We´re maybe cursed or something. I don´t know, just got to be humble and take it day by day – month by month and hope for the best.

What "image" do you have of French music?
The origin of the countless beautiful popular music melodies. For far over a century they have influenced traditional Finnish dancing & schlager music and overall slavonic popular music tradition. Maybe some bits are audible in our melodies too. Also we can´t wait for possibility to play in French psycho scene someday soon I hope. We have received some curious e-mails which is a great thing indeed.

Is there one French song that you prefer? If so, what song is it?
Eeech…maybe it´s still after all "L´amour est bleu" by André Popp and Pierre Cour from 1967. Furthermore I suggest to give a try to the Finnish version by The Agents from 1990. The live version from those days was even better, really beautiful and rough.

Interview by Vincent Lefrançois - 2006