In an interview with ultimate-guitar.com, Linde announced that a second Daniel Lioneye album is in the works. Looks like this time around its going to be black metal. Should be interesting…

I’m actually about to do a second version of that band. It is going to be a black metal album this time round. I don’t know yet whether I’ll be doing the screaming or the growling but I’m definitely making it. We already have four songs ready to go now and once we get back home in early April, I’ll start work on it. So hopefully it’ll be out sometime later this year. (from ultimate-guitar.com)

Click here to read the full interview

This past week, I was pleased to get several emails from Hot Topic about bands …. from Finland! Given that just about anyone who loves rock music has at some point stepped foot in a Hot Topic, it’s a good milestone to mark any band’s attempt to get a foothold in the US.

HIM has conquered the Hot Topic frontier thoroughly. You can walk in at any point and find the Heartagram all over the store.

I’ve noticed Children of Bodom merch in there before but usually just a t-shirt or two. So getting an email about the upcoming release of their new album is noteworthy because it signals another step into mainstream promotion via Hot Topic.

If you’re a Children of Bodom fan and have not yet ordered their new album: Blooddrunk, I highly recommend ordering it through Hot Topic. $9.99 is a great price and you’ll be voting with your consumer dollar to show Hot Topic that CoB does have a US fanbase and that it’s worthwhile to carry more merchandise.

And today’s email brought an announcement of an online Apocalyptica concert via Hot Topic! If you haven’t been paying attention, Apocalyptica is touching down this week for their first US tour starting on Friday. But according to the email, they’re starting a day early with a streaming concert exclusive to Hot Topic’s website.

Exciting isn’t it? I know they played a gig at the Roxy several years ago but that was before I learned about the wonders of rock music from the far north. I am really looking forward to seeing them at the Roxy this time around because it’s an intimate club where you can get a front row view of the band from anywhere inside the club.

Even when I went to the SOLD OUT Tokio Hotel concert back in February, we had no trouble finding a great spot even though we were one of the last ones in the club.

BTW LA denizens, keep your peepers open since the guys will probably be hanging out on Sunset Strip this week. Hot Topic’s headquarters are in the LA metropolitan area so it’s a good guess that they’ll be coming to LA first to do the concert before popping over to Vegas for the first gig of the tour. I know they like the strip because we ran into them several times last year. They were there filming the music video for I’m Not Jesus with Corey Taylor. Just look for a 6 ft Finn with long blonde hair gliding through the throngs.

I want to wrap up this post by applauding the Apocalyptica PR team for the excellent promotional photos they’ve picked. Paavo usually isn’t the focus of the artwork but it really works to have him front and center and the long haired ones flanking him and the mischievous Mikko peeking out of the background like Puck.

Note: This is left over from the first incarnation of FinnishRock.com where I wrote about going on a road trip to see HIM for the first time. Keeping it because I did go… and it was my first concerts with a Finnish band

Today was pay day so I was able to send Ms. M the money to pay her my half of the minivan rental. I bought our St Louis tickets which is the last of the concerts that we’re definitely going to. That just leaves Omaha as a question mark.

I also went onto Ebay and bought some HIM flags that we’re gonna use to cover the windows of the minivan so we have privacy at night.

Getting more excited cause at this point, it’s nearly all systems go and it’s gonna be so much fun!

2 of the flags had to be bidded on (edit: won them) and I’m planning to make one or both into full sized blankets. Gee I wonder which one Ms. M will want.

Note: This is left over from the first incarnation of FinnishRock.com where I wrote about going on a road trip to see HIM for the first time. Keeping it because I did go… and it was my first concerts with a Finnish band

I finally booked my plane ticket! Now it was more of a reality then a dream! I needed to let Ms. M know so she could book the minivan that we’re going to use for the trip. She’d made a funny pun so I played on it some more.

After a good giggle, she booked the minivan on Hotwire which was the lowest rate we’d found for unlimited mileage in the US.
Now we’ve got just about all the key items on our checklist in hand: Tickets for first three concerts, Plane ticket for me, and minivan rental.

Just need to get tickets for concert #4 and then we’re all set!

We’re gonna leave it open ended whether or not we go to concert #5. I suspect we’ll be too bushwhacked to go all the way to Nebraska because that adds an extra 600 miles of driving that must be done within 24 hours.

Mere days after deciding to make the plunge and go on this crazy road trip for a band whose music I didn’t know, I find out that the same band is shooting a music video in LA not far from me and was calling for fans to come be in the video. HIM was doing a 2nd video for their song, “Killing Loneliness”.

Ms. M, of course, was the one to tell me about it and we were sad because she was really the one who should go but she was half a continent away. So I decided that I would cast my name in the hat to be picked and if I was, go as her “proxy” and report the experience back to her. So I wrote up my letter and sent it in. Needless to say I was vague about the fact that I wasn’t actually a HIM fan. I didn’t feel guilty about it because I was already planning to go to 4-5 concerts in mid May and by the time that’s over with, I know that I WILL be a fan.

I got an email response almost right away that indicated to me that I had probably been picked to go. But it wasn’t til a couple days later, that I got the official email telling me to watch for the next one which would contain all the info we needed about the shoot. The email was supposed to arrive either Friday or early Saturday. The shoot was Sunday, April 2nd.

The email didn’t actually come til around noon on Saturday and contained all kinds of instructions about what to wear and what kind of makeup. I was annoyed because it didn’t leave me much time to get ready. Fortunately, I didn’t actually spend TOO much time trying to figure out what to wear because they turned out to be much more relaxed about it all then their emails made it seem.

More on the Video Shoot experience coming soon. To date, KL is the only song I’ve heard by HIM and I’ve heard it about a dozen times now including once at super fast speed.

Note: This is left over from the first incarnation of FinnishRock.com where I wrote about going on a road trip to see HIM for the first time. Keeping it because I did go… and it was my first concerts with a Finnish band

About a month ago, Ms. M and I were chatting online and talking about The Rasmus and bands and etc. She mentioned that she was looking at buying tickets for HIM which had just gone on sale.

For some time, I’d been thinking about when The Rasmus finally comes to the States and how I’d like to fly out to Ms. M and go with her to their concerts since she is the one who introduced me to their music. However, it does not look optimistic for this to happen anytime in 2006. If we’re lucky, they’ll come in 2007.

Anyways, the most famous band out of Finland as far as I’m aware and understand at this time, is not The Rasmus but a band called HIM. The two bands are friends and even share management. Some years back, TR opened for HIM on one of their European tours. This past February, they co-headlined another European tour along with a 3rd finnish band called Negative.

At this point, I still had never heard HIM’s music but I knew enough to know that it was practically a given that I’d like their music.

I’m the kind of person that likes to do crazy and spontaneous things so it was perfectly natural to me that the next thought I had while listening to her was: “Hmm why don’t I fly out and join up with Ms. M? We can make an adventure out of it and go follow HIM around the MidWest for a week. Road Trip!”

I’m not rich or even well off. Nor am I really much of a concert goer. But I’m excited as hell cause this is going to be fun! So what if I still to this day haven’t really heard their music? There’s still a month or so to get familiar with it.

Some people may think I’m nuts for doing this but nuts are tasty and delicious and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

It’s been a long time since I did a road trip. I don’t count my yearly meccas to Burning Man since the focus is on the destination rather than the journey there.

I’ve always wanted to see the MidWest.

I’ve always wanted to “follow a band” just for the experience. I like to do new things… and do it again if I like it.

I only know her online but we’ve gotten to be friends and I think we’ll have a blast driving around together.

We plan to camp out in the minivan and save money on hotel rooms. I’ve slept in my car many times but it was never planned that way. So this is another adventure aspect, I’m looking forward to as well. Doing a literal version of “Car camping”.
Lastly, I consider this road trip a “practice run” for when The Rasmus finally get their skinny butts here.