Pestida

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Interview : Jari from Pestida

When and how was your band created?
In a sense it started already sometime in 1995 through a need to create music for the poems that I was writing. However, Pestida as a band was formed in 2000, and since then it has gone through numerous line-up changes. The current line-up, which finally feels like the right one, dates from 2005.

Where is the name of the band coming from?
Heh, originally it comes from a symbol-laden dream I had sometime in 2000, where it was a name of a person. In addition to this , and the fact that I like the sound of it, the reason for calling this band Pestida is that it is (and will hopely always remain) a name meaning exclusively this particular band, because it doesn't mean anything else (except in Indonesia).

What musicians or artists did have a major influence in your life / work?
When I started out grunge was the big thing, so I'd have to say bands like Soundgarden, Smashing Pumpkins etc. - but also britpop. Particularly I guess Billy Corgan's songwriting has always impressed me. And then there's Radiohead and so on, but influences change all the time. On the other hand, the other members of the band have at times very different taste in music, and this is what makes things interesting.

What are the positive and negative aspects of being a musician in Finland?
In a small country where there is almost an oversupply of bands, it's not easy to get gigs, let alone make a living with music. On the other hand, because of this, the overwhelming majority of the bands are not "in it for the money", and thus many find the courage to try to do something interesting instead of playing it safe.

How could you define your style of music?
The term "alternative" doesn't really mean anything anymore, and grunge is kind of gone too. I used to call it melancholic grungepop, but nowadays you could add a few modifiers to that and call it quirky, sometimes bordering on progressive, melancholic grungepop.

During the years how has your musical style changed?
It started out as early 1990s riff-based grunge, from that went to more pop-oriented and lyrical alternative pop/rock, and finally started to add the riffs and rhythmical explorations to the pop songs. Nowadays we experiment a lot, and the present rhythm section brings in quirky rhythmical patterns which we incorporate into melodic pop songs. But really the song is the thing, we do whatever the song seems to require.

How do explain these changes?
Learning over time, and the need to experiment so that we won't end up writing the same song over and over again, like so many do.

What are the topics you treat in your songs?
It ranges from introspective, impressionistic, symbolistic, sometimes even abstract poetry to human relationships and social phenomena. As far as the more usual subjects of human relationships, love etc. go, one of my objectives is to bring a bit of magical realism into the way they are written about. My worst fear is that someday I'll realise I've written nothing more than the usual "Oh baby I love you so" and "Oh baby why did you have to leave me" -songs that most pop/rock songs in the end are. There are a lot of people in our songs, and quite often the characters have real-life counterparts, but the songs have not really been written to talk about, or to criticise how those people behave, but to explore the phenomena behind such behaviour on a more general level.
Ultimately, I like to leave space for the interpretation of the listener, because that is what kind of songs I like myself.

What is your favorite song in your repertoire and why?
This changes all the time, the most recent songs are usually always the favourites because there is something new and challenging in them, as our songs tend to be very different from each other. Right now it's probably a song called "After the Structure" because of it's abstract lyrics, soothing melody, and the fact that it's still kind of "under construction" and damn difficult to play cleanly with it's rhythmical shifts.

Do you actually prefer performing your music live or in a studio?
There's always the excitement of performing live that you want to return to where it's all about the spur of the moment, whereas when you record, you can shape the songs and decide what kind of a permanent mark you want to leave. So it's really both, one compliments the other.

During the process of making a song, what is the moment that you prefer?
It varies, it can be the lyrical inspiration when you come up with an idea, or just a few lines of lyrics and start working on the whole. Or it can be the moment when the lyrics and the music suddenly "fit" together even though when you started it seemed like there was no way to combine the two. Or, and nowadays this is quite often the case as the band has become a tight unit capable of creative cooperation, it can be a moment when a jam suddenly evolves into a complete song and it just all makes sense.

A stupid question but... what is among all the songs you've been listening in your life the BEST song?
That's a really hard one, and again I'd have to say it varies depending on the day, time of the day, your mood, etc. But I'll just say that "Soma" by Smashing Pumpkins is one brilliant song.

What is your opinion, as a musician, regarding internet?
As far as I'm concerned, it's a great way of spreading awareness of your band, and it's a media through which I've discovered some great bands. I understand that if you strive to make a living with the music, it can be a two-edged sword, but as far as our kind of music and our philosophy of making it goes, it's a great media.

What are your projects?
Currently we are working on recording some new material and looking to play some gigs in Helsinki and possibly also in some other cities in Finland during the late spring and summer.

What "image" do you have of French music?
I don't really know much about French music, but I'd like to, the language is really beautiful one to be used in singing, and the few French alternative bands I've heard sound very promising.

Is there one French song that you prefer? If so, what song is it?
To properly answer this I'd really need to head more French music :)

Interview by Vincent Lefrançois - 2006