Iltasanomat 26.7.08, article about LIAWWY video shoot

Set decorators are painting each other's bare upper bodies, rockers are skate-boarding, blond and beautiful Swedish women are stretching in their black tights. The women are the swat-team of the new The Rasmus -music video!
The long-expected and prolonged by a paternity leave Black Roses -album is finally going to be released on 24th of September. The video for Livin' in a world without you was directed by Rasmus' trusted, Swedish Niclas Fronda.
Over 300 musicvideos have been filmed in the Mikadelica-studio.
In the leading role, besides The Ramus, is a mystical black rose.
- It's like in Stanley Kubriek's 2001: A Space Odyssey's black monolith - nobody quite knows what it is, the bassist Eero Heinonen says.
In the video the solist and the head-figure of The Rasmus, lauri Ylönen appears in a room with a beauty. They both know that the black rose is important. The woman wants the rose herself and is with Lauri just because of that.
- The girls calls the swat-team, together they try to steal the monolith from Lauri, Heinonen explains.
Backgrounds of the song are so tragic that Lauri doesn't want to savor with them.
-You can read it all between the lines. I like to let the listener's mind wonder. The lyrics fit in many people's life situation.

The plot of the video is created by Ylönen ja Fronda. Lauri has also designed the cover of the album. The rose shows up in it too.
In the video, when the rose touches something, crystal starts to grow from it.
The rose isn't the only crystal clear thing. The roaring music on the set is produced by Desmond Child. The man has brought Bon jovi from a cellar to fame, wrote 'I was made for living you' of Kiss, Alice Cooper's 'Poison' and Aerosmith's, Cher's, Ricky Martin's and other biggest hits.
The legend heard Rasmus' Dead Letters -album and was sorry for the band being from so far away Europe. The man was afraid that the band has a invariable producer. Musicians from Helsinki were reading e-mail messages sent by Desmond Child with amazement. Could this be true!
-It all started from Desmond being our fan. Desmond thought that Dead Letter was cool, Lauri says.
Expected meeting in the Caribbean culminated to a race on a putting green with golf cars. The rocking meeting was satisfying for both sides. Co-working got started and the album started processing. Recordings were made in Helsinki, Stockholm, Singapore and of course in Child's headquarters Nashville USA.

Spiky-haired singer lived in Desmond Child's mansion for two months, visited his fridge once and ate the maid-roasted eggs.
-Sunny side up. Absolutely. Relaxing. Eating some lunch, swimming. Singing for couple of hours per day. If you don't feel like it, then lets continue like tomorrow, Lauri explains the day schedule.
In the USA Lauri wrote the lyrics of Black roses album and enjoyed the easy-going freetime thinking about his achievements. The new dad told he has also got some perspective to other things he has going on in his life.
-It is a good thing to ladle from when you're alone. What if you'd be just alone? Appreciation for good friends and everything good rose. Overall it was instructive.
Working with precise men was also stressing. Lauri's pronunciation got involved. Even pronuncing the English word 'me' didn't satisfy those perfectionists. Did Lauri learn?

Laughing tells everything. Lauri asks for not telling to Desmond the truth - he still can't do that.
Right or not, Desmond Child's presence has brought some maturity to Rasmus' lyrics.
To Eero Heinonen it was the coolest thing to see what kind of human being the producer-guru is.
-Desmond thinks very boardly. He always thinks what a someone who likes the music gets from a album. It was groovy. I'm just a player myself.
How does the music of the album sound like, Lauri Ylönen?
-It's very Rasmus. Desmond has brought something new to it, made the band listen their own palying from outside, with an American side.
The album also aims for the USA's market. The point of the album is to synthesize the band's best sides on the way. It even has some rap in the style of old Rasmus and a duet sung with Anette Olson of Nightwish.
As a single and a video -to-be-released song Livin' In the World Wothout You is more mechanical than the band's earlier production. The change has came from Rasmus itself - by an accident, actually.
-LIAWWY changed the whole album's direction, even though it was made last. The other songs were mixed closer to LIAWWY's sound. Like many times, the most significant single comes last. First you try too much and then you succeed by an accident.
During video-making the boys of Rasmus are being maked and dressend up. They drink coffee and give interviews for foreign magazines. While costuming the guitarist Lauri Rantasalmi amuses the make up artists in Swedish with a dog-ralated jokes. Who claims that Finnish people can't speak Swedish!
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