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Turmion Kätilöt: What is love?

The tourist who accused the Finns of being shy and reserved, clearly has not been at a Turmion Kätilöt (“the midwives of disaster”) show. Big mistake! They give everything a Fetish club, a Metal concert, a theatre and a Goth club usually has to offer. Ok, you do need to have your open-mindedness prepared, but they will still test just how much is too much.

After a show you will have definitely learned something new about yourself, that it is impossible to be indifferent to this band! To be honest, I was slightly nervous before meeting those scandalous midwives backstage, preparing to see what in my imagination was a wild BDSM afterparty with the sacrificing of innocent kittens, only to find myself in a conversation mostly about love…

How´s it going? How do you feel?
MC Raaka Pee: Fine… (laughs) Drunken as hell! I don´t really know… how do I feel? Maybe you should ask Rytkönen…Hey, Rytkönen, how do you feel?
Spellgoth: What? Now?! Ahm… tired, I have a lot of adrenalin in my veins, because I enjoyed the gig very much, I think there´s been one or three like, lousy gigs, but most Katilöt gigs have been great and it gives me very good feelings, but tired because we try to give all we got…

Obviously… I wonder what you are going to do with all this adrenaline now…
(everyone bursts with laughter)
MC Raaka Pee: Well, calm down a bit… because I will use it all to my girl tomorrow,
Spellgoth: Well, if my girlfriend would be here… I don´t even think it´s because our shows always have this kind of sexual energy, we have our body moves and the music is like pumping and all the feelings, so often I feel aroused after the gig. And if it would be possible to have my girlfriend here right now, I think we would´ve had a great time together.

Where is your girlfriend?
Spellgoth: She´s spending the Easter weekend with her parents.
MC Raaka Pee: Same as mine.
Spellgoth: And in our band we have this kind of rule that no girlfriends at the gigs.

So strict! And you really follow that rule?
Spellgoth: Well, it depends…
MC Raaka Pee: Yeah, it depends. Because I have the best girlfriend of the group, so sometimes she is with me.

Doesn´t she get jealous because of the stuff you guys do?
Spellgoth: No no! We don´t do anything, it´s like… we meet fans, etc, there´s nothing wrong, or is there?

Not that, but I meant your act!
MC Raaka Pee: But it´s only stage moves, you have to perform to the audience, but it´s only a performance. Of course it means something…
Spellgoth: changing energy between people… We perform music, we perform moves, we have a show!
MC Raaka Pee: When people are naked, people respond and how do they respond? (laughs)
Spellgoth: Of course they are sometimes jealous, they ask questions… but the basic question is “why do you do it?” we have built up this concept of doing concerts, it suits!
MC Raaka Pee: The concept is to annoy people! To annoy all the concepts, those…
Spellgoth: …morals! Everything normal and things like that.
MC Raaka Pee: If you think being naked is normal, we are dressed up as hell! (laughs)
Spellgoth: Dressed like women or sadomasochists or something and doing those pervert things, and some people have actually said that they´ve come out of the closet because we do it on stage for all of the people. The people who come to see our shows, they are usually enjoying it! Like people who like some basic stuff, for example handcuffs…

Yeah, handcuffs are REALLY basic compared to what you do…
MC Raaka Pee: Hah?!?!… can I taste you or can you taste me!? !
Spellgoth: …cannot tell their girlfriends they like handcuffs or something, but because of us many people have opened up. I have heard that, because there is nothing strange in what we´re doing.

Are you very proud of this achievement?
Spellgoth: Yes! Actually I am very proud of it and MC Raaka Pee and DJ Vastapallo asked me to play with this band, I was really-really-really bowing down to them, because I heard the first time Katilöt when they had the first demo songs and I was completely sold, kind of Ministry, Rob Zombie, Samael, everything like basic 90s techno music which has a lot to offer
MC Raaka Pee: Leila K. rocks, it´s the best!
Spellgoth: it´s one of the best! The voice is so hard, so simplistic and punk!
MC Raaka Pee: yeah, punk actually!

(the keyboarder comes in, takes off his stage outfit and demonstrates us his old, stretched-out dirty white leggings)
RRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!
MC Raaka Pee: So did you like the gig?

Yes, until the last part…
MC Raaka Pee: oh?

I wasn´t prepared… and I´m an innocent girl from Eastern Europe!
MC Raaka Pee: Was it too much? Because if you feel like it was ok, it wasn´t enough, because our method is to go over the limits. Every time, we´re not the most tasteful kind of bands.
Spellgoth: Yeah, like this interview – it has all the features that Katilöt has, we have like everything happening around, right now, like RunQ coming and showing us his panties… and we go with the flow! If someone makes a mistake on stage and falls down, but we always come up and we just make up something, for example Petya has tripped many times and falls on his feet, but it´s like, part of the show, and Katilöt is moving onwards all the time.
RunQ: Katilöt is the niederwelt!
MC Raaka Pee: Katilöt is the therapy for musicians!
Spellgoth: RunQ plays in Tarot.
RunQ: SCHEISSE!!!!!
MC Raaka Pee: Yeah, the same keyboard player. So it´s like a therapy for him to also play with us, it´s a therapy for everyone! And give everything out what you want to give to the audience, because it is the most honest music you can ever think. And the naked guy on stage… I don´t know how you like it, more men or women, but when you wake up next to a naked person, is that extreme? The other person is exposed to you. We´ve had dancing girls, you know, go-go girls, a few years ago and they were like… it´s all about party, about being yourself, about…
Spellgoth: I think we´re trying to correct something, like 90s Techno music, they´re about party music, Scooter, Haddaway, Dr Alban, Leila K. In Finland people have this kind of red-neck feeling in them, all those people drinking their beer in a bar and driving their Toyota Corollas, it´s their music and we´re trying to correct that. There was a lot of good potential in that music, they had a lot of Hardcore sounds, like Leila K…
MC Raaka Pee: and those were extremely Hardcore sounds!
Spellgoth: Nowadays if you play a 90s Techno song in a bar, e-v-e-r-y-b-o-d-y dances!
MC Raaka Pee: I´m a DJ, one of my professions is a DJ and I play Haddaway´s “What is love”, it´s the best song I know! It´s fucking rocks and the other one is Leila K “Electric” and Prodigy “Smack my Bitch up” and that´s it! And the audience is…
Spellgoth: And I work at a metal bar in Tampere and we had a cross-over night last Thursday, and there was like DJ Proteus which is ranked like the world´s best hard-dance act, he´s also done some remixes for Katilöt, there were also other DJs, from Bomfunk MCs too, like this Drum-n-Bass style and we asked them all to come and play this crossover night, and DJ Proteus played like Metal, mixing it with hard-dance, and it was HARDCORE! So imagine like a slow song from Rammstein mixed 280 BPM, so it was like boom-boom-boom, and people were dancing like crazy! Metal people, dace people, going like hell together! And this is the exactly one thing which Katilöt has done here in Finland, we have been playing all kinds of parties, like 80s parties, fetish, and everything!

What is love?
All: (at the same time) BABY DON´T HURT ME!!!!!
MC Raaka Pee: I am the best DJ in the world! I play Dr Alban and Leila K and Haddaway.
Spellgoth: He drove his car upside down, he drove into the forest, like a little brown raisin!
MC Raaka Pee: No no, no taxis! Ambulance driver came to me and asked me if I´m ok, so well, maybe not…
Spellgoth: and we played the gig!
MC Raaka Pee: What is love!
Spellgoth: It was like a small neighborhood pub, you have like, one pub, folk place…
MC Raaka Pee: What is pain? Do you know what is pain? Have you experienced pain? Mental pain is much worse…
Spellgoth: and you can cope with physical pain…
MC Raaka Pee: you know that when it hurts enough, you are in LOVE, you love that person. Love is the thing which keeps us alive, remember this. Isn´t?
Spellgoth: This won´t be a statement of the band, but my own words and I say that to love Satan is to love life! And those words are final, I have to go meet my friends now.
MC Raaka Pee: You enjoyed our show, right?

Great show!
MC Raaka Pee: So that´s it, you enjoyed yourself, that´s the thing! Let yourself be what you are.

So when you are on stage, this is what you really are? Being yourselves?
MC Raaka Pee: Yes, well… we´re being kind of violent, violent for the life, violent for what we really like… Every time I am on the stage, I sing for my girl. Because I love and I want her to be proud for me, I love her. It´s all about love, the most important thing there has ever been.

What are your lyrics about?
MC Raaka Pee: About feeling bad. Because they are from my mouth and my bad behavior and everything feeling bad, it isn´t very nice words, in Finnish or English, just bad. Because if people don´t feel anything, it is just bad.

Who´s responsible for your stage look?
MC Raaka Pee: Everyone does their own makeup and the outfits… (laughs), everyone does their own. For example these are my girlfriend´s clothes, pants and shirt. We are poor! (laughs) It doesn´t matter, it´s not the thing, or?

Nooo!!! So finally, what´s the meaning of life?
MC Raaka Pee: WHAT?! (suddenly everyone around goes quiet and then a bursts into laughter) WHAT THE FUCK?! You´re asking me?! Look at my face (still wearing the complete stage costume and the makeup) The meaning of life is love. Every time you see something enough to care about, cherish it, always, do that, because it´s the only thing that matters, isn´t? I think so. That is my guard.

Thank you for the interview!


Author: Marina Sidyakina, transl. Kathleen Gransalke

GastmitarbeiterInnen / guest contributions

Regular guest contributors e.g. Melanie Kircher, Tatjana Tattis Murschel, Grit Kabiersch, Marina Minkler, Jasmine Frey, Maria Levin, Elvira Visser, Nina Ratavaara, John Wisniewski