written by Marko Jakob | 03.12.2020 |
Pix666: Hello Veri. The most important question right at the beginning. Are you healthy and are you well?
MC Veri: Yeah, we have managed to avoid corona in the band for now. Actually things have been really good in Finland after the spring, but past two weeks it has risen it`s head here again and we are most likely going to have another lockdown.. But let`s hope the situation gets better soon in the whole planet!
Pix666: How are the other guys from the band doing?
MC Veri: They are doing fine, all good here.
Pix666: At what age did you realise that you wanted to become a musician? Which bands inspired you most at that time and which bands do you currently listen most?
MC Veri: Really early on, like ten years old maybe, but I didn`t play anything, until I started to play guitar at the age of 15. There were some Finnish punk bands at first and when I got to my first band, my musical taste started to shift towards metal. I was really into Ozzy(still am) and Marilyn Manson at the time. Also Him was starting up back then and everyone listened to it, me included.
Pix666: Tell the readers a little bit about D.O.L. – who are you, how and when did the band members meet? The band name D.O.L. seems to be an abbreviation – what do the letters stand for?
MC Veri: Yeah, so we are a rock band from Finland, some have said we play dark rock/metal with some gothic influences. Hard to put your own stuff to boxes, but it`s heavy metal for sure. Before D.O.L, we had this band (with Catsy, drummer of D.O.L) called Days Of Lost, it was more like a trash metal band and after it fell apart we just shortened the name to D.O.L and went into really different direction. More melodies, clean vocals and we cutted the tempo to half. Seems like it was the right choice. we have so much more fun doing this and it`s closer to my own musical preferences. Also, I didn`t play guitar on the previous band, just vocals.
Pix666: Recently your 6-track EP ‘Between Love and Death’ has been released. Did you have any difficulties while working on the EP due to Corona restrictions, or do you have less problems with it in Finland than we do in the GSA area?
MC Veri: Not really, we had recorded all the songs already before the corona hit. Actually, this ep was recorded on two different sessions at Illusia studios. And also we recorded some of the stuff at my homestudio and it was then mixed/mastered by Stefan at Illusia studios. And some of the songs were recorded there. If I remember correctly, when corona hit we had just finished recording it and it was at the mixing stage. Corona has not been too bad here, but it`s getting worse now.
Pix666: A few days ago you published the video clip ‘Love Denied’. Within a few days the clip had almost 10,000 views on YouTube – more than any of your songs before. Did you expect such a big response?
MC Veri: Well, we went the extra mile on this video and had some cool light rigs and bigger set for the first time, also we had the beautiful actress Julia Kumpulainen featured on it. So, we were hoping for this kind of response… We are really thankful to everyone who have checked the video out. And I hope many more will see it soon…
Pix666: The EP is released now and it‘s not possible to play a tour. A pretty shitty situation for a band. Or was there still the chance for a small release concert in your home country Finland? What are the tour plans for 2021?
MC Veri: Well, we managed to do last show just a week before all venues shut down. Actually we had few shows scheduled, that we had to cancel. IT SUCKS!
Also, we had an official release party, just before the release, that was canceled due corona suspicion. 2021 we will be back in action (hopefully, crossing our fingers) and we might have big plans for next year, but I can`t really comment on those just yet… All I can say is we will definedly be doing somekind of tour next year and it will be awesome to play live again!
Pix666: Surely you also look at the D.O.L. streaming statistics? In which countries are you most often heard?
MC Veri: Of course Finland is at the top of the list usually, other than that, last I checked, top 3 countries were Usa, Japan and Germany.
Pix666: If you can’t play live, then you as a musician surely use your time to write more songs? Can the D.O.L. fans look forward to a full lenght album in 2021?
MC Veri: Well, we do have songs for an album for sure… And more are coming all the time, I have been writing new stuff this whole time, that corona has kept us home. So, yes, we will definedly hit the studio next year, actually in few months if possible… Don`t know yet will it be full lenght album or just couple single releases, though.
Pix666: What else did you do besides the music during the contact restrictions? Do you have any interesting hobbies? Or is music simply everything in your life?
MC Veri: I have been studying filming, video editing and photo editing for past 3 years in a film school and I love doing music videos. I have been thinking about doing them also for other bands in the future. Between that and music, I don`t really have too much time for anything else.
Pix666: What is life like in Finland at the moment? Will there be Christmas markets, are the mobile saunas already set up – or is Corona burying this year’s Christmas?
MC Veri: I trully hope not! But we are probably not having any large christmas celebrations either. Most will spend christmas with just closest family members, since you are no supposed to travel around from city to city at the moment. Like I said, we are on the brink of closing everything down, it has been getting worse by each day for past few weeks…
Pix666: Do you have any other news about D.O.L., that you would like to share with the fans?
MC Veri: We will be dropping one more video/single from the ep` in near future, but we`ll first promote this new one for a minute or two. We hope everyone would go check our latest video Love Denied out on youtube and listen to our ep`Between Love and Death on any streaming service. Other than that, have a nice christmas and holidays!
Pix666: Thank you very much for the interesting answers – Stay healthy!!!
MC Veri: Thank you for interesting questions!
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photos © Maria Ilonen
