Posted on October 26, 2009 - by Mark Zonda

Not The Lips

The Flaming Sideburns are one of the few bands willing to profess the rock credo in the cold Helsinki. There’s no trace of post-core confused personality headed to noise and nonsense continue innovation. There’s just… noise! Some axe guitars and pure energy! Let’s cover our hears and ask’em some questions…

Mark Zonda: Bein a band in Helsinki… what it’s like? It’s easy with the competition?

Eduardo Martinez: Well I don´t know… I was not born here so I´ve always felt like a stranger. Not anymore though, times have changed. There´s always good music competition here in Helsinki and I would say finnish culture in general is very music oriented.

Mark Zonda: How the band was born?

Eduardo: The band was born in the middle nineties around a club idea runned and organized by our drummer, who knew about a thousand untrendy rock& roll bands that needed more exposure in Finland. The idea for him I guess it was to play drums supporting most these bands apart from arranging their gigs and taking care about promotion, but he needed also some other members for this proyect. He got in touch with guitarrists Vilunki 3000 from The Barefoot Bros and Jukka Suksi from Jack Meatbeat & The UGS. Along came The Punisher on bass and me on vocals. The main thing we were gonna do was covers from back then unknown mostly 60´s bands along with some Little Richard standars like “Lucille” and “Bama Lama Loo” once a month at most. Vilunki left the proyect after a few months and he was replaced by Teenage Kicks members Arimatti Jutila (guitar and vocals) and Jone on sax. Jone lasted one year, maybe more. Soon the band settled down to a classic double guitar 5 piece line up and started to tour abroad.

Mark Zonda: Barefoot Bros, Meatbeat, The Punisher… seems all like super heroes names. Is musician and star system a little bit like a comic book?

Eduardo: Hahahaha!!! Well yeah, finnish names are so strange sounding that we try keep it all comic style!!! Many people in the band are into comic books and even draw themselves. Not me actally, but all the three founding members for example. I was myself mostly brainwashed by TV series while growing up in South America. From stuff like Hijitus(an argentine comic) and Pink Panther to Birdman, The Hulk, Spiderman, Captain America, Mighty Thor, Green Lantern, Flash, Fantastic Four, SuperFriends, even Scoobie Doo. I was into local comic books too or let´s mention Phantom, but TV was much wider and easier for us. As a kid I remember well being into Adams Family, Lone Ranger, Zorro and loads of sience fiction mostly plus music ofcourse.

Mark Zonda: Soundgarden or Lenny Kravitz… who would be more proud of “Off Direction”?

Eduardo: No idea, maybe both or then none of them. I think it is way more agressive music than what they do or did, without saying anything bad about them. But I had personally other artists in mind while making those recordings.

Mark Zonda: Such as?

Eduardo: Such as 70´s Kiss and Monstermagnet for example.

Mark Zonda: Can you tell us a little bit more of Radio Reaktori?

Eduardo: I think it’s a Helsinki based alternative radio channel that once did a special broadcast focused on us back when we needed it.

Mark Zonda: Why tigers are so popular on heavy metal?

Eduardo: We have a song called Heavy Tiger, I identify with the strength, colors, power and aura of the animal. It´s symbol, also tattooed on many people but not only heavy metal fans.

The Flaming Sideburns – “Psyched out and furious”

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