The 69 Eyes - Interview

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Published on Tuesday, 10 October 2023 17:55

"When the sun goes down and the moon comes up Finnish goth glam ambassadors, The 69 Eyes, proudly don their sunglasses, leather jackets and black eyeliner to become one with the night."

One of the most iconic and monumental goth bands, which ruled the dark scene in the late 90s and early 2000s, is The 69 Eyes. The Finnish band, often called by the nickname Helsinki Vampires, was formed in 1989 and since then released 13 studio albums. There is certainly no fan of goth music who doesn't know the essential albums such as Wasting The Dawn (1999), Blessed Be (2000) and Paris Kills (2002). This year, the band released, via Atomic Fire Records, another outstanding full-length, Death Of Darkness, and showcased that the true vampiric spirit is still alive. The sheer passion and enticing mystery, suspense and smirk are still very much present in their compositions. The 69 Eyes does its unique brand of gloom and doom, glam and wham, often considered a dark rock band, a term the band has embraced. We met up with the band's frontman, the Scandinavian goth rock epitome Jyrki 69, at the M'era Luna festival, and we had a nice chat. Here it comes, all written down for you...

Interview with: Jyrki 69
Conducted by: Tomaz, Jerneja
Edited by: Jerneja

Jerneja: Pleased to meet you, Jyrki, and thank you for taking the time for the interview! This April saw the release of your 13th full-length, Death Of Darkness. When comparing to Blessed Be, which, I believe, was your most prominent album, how does Death Of Darkness stand - regarding both public response and critics?
Jyrki 69: Blessed Be has been a very successful record commercially, and that was over 20 years ago. So, it's a very different world where we are living now. Naturally, it's impossible to combine anything you did 20 years ago with what you do today. People today consume and find things differently. Let's hope that people who liked Blessed Be when it came out have heard about us and the new album. I'm sure that they will like this album. Somehow, I have a feeling that many of those people don't know that this record is out, and we are still trying hard to make sure that people know it is released. There's so much stuff coming out all over the world, so I'm not sure that all the people who would like to hear new things by The 69 Eyes know that Death Of Darkness is out.

Jerneja: Terra Relicta did a lot of promotion for the album. What about you, how are you satisfied with it?
Jyrki 69: Thank you so much! Ha, I'm already bored with it. For me, it's already an old one. I'm only upset with the thing which I said before. I'm not sure if all the people interested in hearing it know about it. I guess, that many don't know that we are even releasing new music. Personally, I'm bored with it because I'm doing new music all the time. As I said - for me - it's already an old record, and I'm looking forward to the new songs we are currently writing.   

Jerneja: Now, about one of the catchier tracks of the album - "This Murder Takes Two (feat. Kat Von D)" - it's a pity it wasn't written before 1994 - namely, it would be perfect soundtrack for the Natural Born Killers movie...
Jyrki 69: That's one of the songs people have never heard because the single/video came out at the same time as the album. Unfortunately, it wasn't released as a standout single. Musically, it came out normally, but I think people didn't recognize the song properly - and that's one of the things that we can remind people of. We released so many singles before the album, and those singles people found, but this one they didn't because it was for many just one between a bunch of other songs. Unfortunately, it got buried under the album, I think. I expected more from it, to get more exposure, airplay and stuff like that.

Jerneja: But was it inspired by the movie Natural Born Killers?
Jyrki 69: Hmmm, in many ways, it is, but, to be honest, I don't know where the title came from. It's just like an unhappy love song.

Tomaz: How come you chose Kat Von D? Is there any interesting story behind this cooperation?
Jyrki 69: She's just an old friend of ours, and we already did some music with her a decade ago. It was a good time to ask her if she was interested in doing something with us. She's been our friend forever, and if you want to make your friendship even stronger, you do some projects like this together. It was cool and fun. I'm excited to hear her new album, which will be out soon. We are proud that we have another song with her singing, for it has been over ten years since "Rosary Blue" was released as a bonus track on the album X in 2012. With "This Murder Takes Two", it was some kind of a return to those days. I'm happy that she's now releasing music by herself. Kat is like a goth queen of modern times, and on many levels, she's just a fantastic person. It's lame to say, but it's just cool. To sum it up, she's one of our good friends, and we made music and video together.

Jerneja: Before hearing the song, I didn't even know she was a singer also...
Jyrki 69: Yeah, that's the whole fucking point. Exactly. She had that TV show around 10 or 15 years ago. So, everybody knows her from there. As mentioned, we had her featured on our record back then, but almost nobody noticed. We said this time we would do a better and proper thing with the video and all that, but I think it got buried by the album. Thanks to you for playing the song on your radio!

Jerneja: The 69 Eyes has influenced many bands, be it with a "suave fusion of gothic romanticism meeting hard rock energy at the dawn of the millennium", quoting Terra Relicta's reviewer Ines (Death Of Darkness review),  image, or thematically. How do you feel about that, and who influenced you the most?
Jyrki 69: When we got to be more known here in central Europe, we've already played for ten years in Finland. So, when our records came out in 1999 and after, we were already mentioning some other bands that were our influential bands, like The Cult, Danzig, and The Sisters Of Mercy, and if you know these artists, it's easy to point that out, and we look like this still today. We were fans of that stuff. We wanted to take it to the next level with our own ideas and other different sources. Those bands: The Cult, The Sisters Of Mercy, Danzig, The Cramps, New York Dolls, you know, like the whole crazy rock'n'roll.

Tomaz: But you started as a glam/hard rock band...
Jyrki 69: Yeah, exactly. But still, those bands are important to us. If I put some good music behind our backstage, it would be something like New York Dolls, The Stooges, The Cult, or Motorhead before we go on stage.

Tomaz: Most of The 69 Eyes releases came via Nuclear Blast Records. What was that bad with it or that good with Atomic Fire Records to cause the switch?
Jyrki 69: Don't forget that our early records were released by Roadrunner Records. Well, I mean, Nuclear Blast didn't want to release our music anymore, so we needed a record label that was interested in us, and at that time, Atomic Fire Records was just born. They were interested in getting Amorphis, us, and a few other bands. We were lucky to be on this new, fresh label.

Jerneja: Terra Relicta's reviewer Ines, who, as mentioned, reviewed Death Of Darkness, is wondering whether The 69 Eyes will ever go back to the OG Helsinki vampires - at least for another ride?
Jyrki 69: Haha, yeah, of course. I mean, I'll turn fucking 55 years this year, and I can't be like I'm 29 anymore. That was then - I had a good time, and I'm glad we shared that period with her. Now, we are going forward - in another direction, a new future, or whatever that means.

Tomaz: Death Of Darkness features even more country or Americana music elements; is it just a coincidence, or does it have something with you living in Los Angeles for twenty years already?
Jyrki 69: No, it doesn't. It was kind of weird that this stuff just came into our music. A funny thing. Yesterday, I was in Berlin, and while hanging out, I was thinking that we have a song called "Feel Berlin", and I would like to do it again somehow because that one also went a bit unnoticed. It is a radio hit in Finland, but here, in Germany, it isn't. We didn't do any music video or anything for it. But then again, things started happening in Hollywood, and we started to play there a lot. Those Americana influences were there with us since the beginning, but now, I guess, it is just more evident. You know, the music and songs just come, and we don't distance ourselves from the music that comes out. It is how The 69 Eyes sounds right now; we left many things in the past. We like to create new music and like I said I'm already bored with our latest album which came out some months ago. At this point, I can't even say I'm looking forward to making a new full-length record anymore. At the current time, I see that it's more interesting to just release one song or a maximum of three songs. It's not that we couldn't create a new album, but I don't know if it's worth it. Seriously, people are satisfied with what we have done so far. I guess, that now, we need to release songs one by one on purpose because it's more interesting to people and fans to get new music every second month or something. We are actually keeping that same track by releasing a couple of cover tracks. It's fun releasing new music, as well as playing shows with old songs that people like. It is the way we do it. I'm also releasing here and there my solo tracks, because I like to create all the time.

Tomaz: So, we can expect more singles by The 69 Eyes soon...
Jyrki 69: Yes, you can expect it. In half a year, there will be something. We have already released two songs this summer. We've often been asked to do some covers, and we are doing them occasionally. Last year, when we were doing the album, we recorded a track for The Cramps tribute album and the Rammstein tribute album. They just came out during the summer. Those are two totally different bands that we've managed to do. Somehow, it fits us, and we did it because it was interesting and inspiring.

Tomaz: This year, a remastered version of the album Blessed Be came out. Do you consider this album as the groundbreaking one for The 69 Eyes?
Jyrki 69: I actually don't know about it. Our guitarist manages such things. I think that it could be released by one independent underground label. That album certainly changed our lives. In a way, it is our groundbreaking album.

Tomaz: In my opinion, Blessed Be is not a groundbreaking album only for The 69 Eyes but the entire dark rock scene...
Jyrki 69: Do you think so? Really? That sounds great. I'm surprised to hear this because right here, on M'era Luna, we played for the first time "Gothic Girl". It was the first time we came here, and everything went wrong. We fucked up the whole song, and everybody was just staring at us and didn't know the song at all. Nevertheless, it was cool - we played the song live for the first time, and it didn't go very well. I hope there was no video camera, and it's probably not recorded. Thanks for saying that. If nothing else, that album brought some life there because everybody was circulating the same idea. As we see here - the scene has become very electronic nowadays. I remember that for many years of playing here, we were the only band with real drums on the stage. Fortunately, that's also changing.

Tomaz: To me, "Stolen Seasons", "Gothic Girl", or "Brandon Lee", to mention some, are nothing less than monumental...
Jyrki 69: Yeah, thank you. There was some magic there. I was just 29, turning into 30s, and something was happening. There were really some magical things. I didn't know what we were doing, but it had to be something different from what everybody else did. I didn't analyze it back then, but some explanation must be that I was so young, and those were innocent times. We were trying to do it and had a chance to make an international record. We did it - it's made of thoughts we had and the life we lived.

Tomaz: Back to Death Of Darkness. Is there a special meaning behind the title?
Jyrki 69: Oh yes, the title song is pretty close, in my mind, to Blessed Be songs. When it's played live, I can feel a special feeling among the audience and me. The song, "Death Of Darkness", and those songs you've mentioned before have some kind of a weird magical vibe. We really succeeded with that song, and it gives me goosebumps every time we play it.

Jerneja: Can we expect The 69 Eyes in Slovenia any time soon?
Jyrki 69: In Slovenia, hopefully yes. We tried to play there this year, but things didn't work out.

Tomaz: Since we have no more time, the last question, even if we could ask you hundreds more. Is there something you would like to communicate to your fans and Terra Relicta dark music web magazine's readers?
Jyrki 69: Thank you, and next time more. I'm thankful that you guys are following The 69 Eyes. Stick around because we have a lot of new music coming up, and we are very excited about everything that comes in the near future. We will announce soon a special New Year show. We have special shows and special ideas coming up. We will try more often to play for you guys here, and not just when a record comes out. We will try to be more present here in many ways. Keep your eyes on the news about the New Year's show.

Live photos by: Tomaz

The 69 Eyes links: Official Website, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Linktree

The 69 Eyes discography:
- Bump 'n' Grind (1992)
- Motor City Resurrection [Compilation] (1994)
- Savage Garden (1995)
- Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams (1997)
- Wasting The Dawn (1999)
- Blessed Be (2000)
- Paris Kills (2002)
- Devils (2004)
- Angels (2007)
- Back In Blood (2009)
- X (2012)
- Universal Monsters (2016)
- West End (2019)
- Death Of Darkness (2023)

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