Do you speak "afro-garage-mambo-groove"? THE MUTANTS are intrumental only in doing so. We´re pretty much interested in the story behind their debut album "Voodoo Blues":InterviewHails to Kallio & THE MUTANTS - whoever of you six will answer my questions.
Hola! This is Don Hesus from Los Mutants speaking. All hail to the Satan praising readers of Metal-Inside webzine and greetings from Hellsinki, Finland!
Of course we´re metal, but - hey, man, we´ve got taste. And, yes, I like "Voodoo Blues".
Well, it seems we´re nowadays the most well-known "mambogroove" band in the metal scene. Must be the influence of Spinefarm Records, uh? Or the likeness of our sound to the ´70 porn movie soundtracks.
What does an average web user have to know about THE MUTANTS?
We´re all-out-party type afro-garage-mambo playing instrumental monsters straight outta Finland. We´ve been down the road with the Mutants last 6 years know. Released bunch of vinyl 7" singles, 1 CD compilation of singles & b-side tracks "Deathrace 3000" and finally our debut CD / 12" "Voodoo Blues". Lock your daughters and minibars, we´re coming to your way soon. If your smart enough, you can sneak a preview what this shit is all about from our website http://run.to/mutants Last but not least, we also drive deathrace with vintage mopeds with our "Mutants Racing Team".
How does it fit together - making a perfect blend of soul, surf, garage and other music that´s based in the early sixties and seventies and having a precise up-to-date home page?
Hey, we´re living in the year 2004, not in the past. Nowadays to keep up with the competition, you need working website more than your mother. What´s most important thing, advertising via internet is free. When we started we were born broke streetpunks with pockets the wrong way round. Lack of money doesn´t have to mean the lack of style, so we made as cool lookin´ website as we could without spending a dime. Keeping it updated is important ´cause people lose interest pretty soon if there´s nothing happening.
Concerning your sound: 9 or 10 years ago some bands from Germany, Japan and Scandinavia were highly anticipated for their unique surf-sound - ok, it was just the wave of one hot summer... but: Is it too cold in Finland to go surfing so that you had to heat it up a bit more?
Yeah, no surfing here except in the snow. Spooky Pupils studio where we have recorded all our stuff is located in the middle of the nowhere somehere in the backwoods of Finland. While fighting against polarbears and wolves we needed something more exotic to think about. In drunken stuborness our thoughts wondered far away from the frozen hell of our nativeland and we ended up doing shithot groovy samba. I´ll reveal one of our best kept secrets only to the readers of mighty Metal-Inside zine. None of us likes surf music that much! We´ll probably lose all our listeners from traditional surf / instro music scene when we say this, but that´s the ugly truth. Artists like Dick Dale & Link Wray are groovy cats but after that it gets pretty boring. We´re more onto rock´n´roll of The Stooges and groove of The Jimmy Castor Bunch.
Next topic: How well do Don Hesus and the guitar player on the Cover of Voodoo Blues get along?
You mean the Devil? We get along pretty good, baby! We´ll play XXX-rated groove and repair the innocent souls for His part of our deal. Rock´n´roll has been Devil´s music since the days of Jerry Lee Lewis & King Elvis to this day. Ain´t no particular reason to try to change that. Nice boys don´t play rock´n´roll, you know.
How long did your guest need to invent some aliases as well?
It´s 50/50. Our guest "singer" Mr. Nadi Hammouda is a real person using his birthname. As for the rest, Boris Raw was named by us and Mr. Ski Williamson used his alias long before we used his guitar playing skills. Lots of people have been asking why we use aliases, tho. C´mon, don´t take it so seriously! It just sounds cooler. I mean, if Cronos, Mantas & Abaddon we´re called Bill, Bob & Joe, would they´d been as cool and evil as they were back in the day? I don´t think so.
Ok., that are idols to keep up with. But with Abnormal, El Toro, Orb Sirius, Burt Sibulanski, Jack Europa and Don Hesus himself THE MUTANTS have shown a decent sense of humour themselves.
Name a movie or movie director you´re really keen on writing a soundtrack for?
I wouldn´t mind to hear our songs in next Tarantino movie or something. Everybody knows he use cool songs in his movies and after Pulp Fiction fame even the "ordinary" people know what "blaxploitation movie" means. Not to mention all the cool surf instros from his movie soundtracks.
Name a movie you would like to attend as an actor?
If i had a timemachine and some counterwise skin technology from Mr. Michael Jackson, i would like to be some superbad badass black dude like "Shaft" (´70 version that is).
As a main actor or side kick?
Doesn´t matter as long as I can be one of the cool guys.
Favourite Movie?
"Empire Strikes Back" from the original Star Wars saga. No happy ending, Darth Vader is still a bad guy and lots of cool alien mercenaries.
Back to the record: Why did you name your first song "Caligula"? Special taste in historical dictators of small body height?
Naw, the thought of small body height dictator came later. What happened was that our ex-drummer was drinking in a bar somewhere and for some unknown reason he sent a SMS message to us which only said: "Name the next song Caligula-Hula-Hula!". At the time we were in the studio recording the particular song and we hadn´t thought any name for it yet. "Hula-Hula" in the end sounded too humorous for the song so we kept only the first part.
Your living in Kallio, the infamous quarter of Helsinki. Your favourite incident with the KALLIO police department?
Once our cardriver, Mr. K-700, was stopped by two mounted policemen. They were lookin´ for a 2 metres long, 90kg weight bold guy wearing denim vest. Description of a denim vest fitted perfectly except K-700 was 25cm shorter, weighted 59kg and had a long red hair at the time. After checkin´ his ID´s out with a magnifying glass, they finally believed he couldn´t possibly have grown his hair in a few moments. Usually we try to avoid any contact with any police department. Our faces look too guilty, even when we are innocent.
Your record is out for some time in Finland and comes to the German market as well finally. Are you planning to release "Voodoo Blues" in a vinyl edition as well?
We´re ahead of this already. Voodoo Blues 12" vinyl version came out November 2003 via Ranch Records. Vinyl version contains "Innerspace Traveller" as a bonus track. Vinyl freaks can order their copies from Ranch Records international mailorder: http://www.spinefarm.net/ranch/index.php?pg=orderspg
You´re touring Germany this summer. Are you staying over for some festivals as well?
According to our tour schedule, the answer is no. We´ll have a gig in Provinssirock festival in Finland and that´s where the tour will end. Provinssirock is one of the largest festival in Finland and it would be pretty stupid to miss the chance to play there. But with our karma & bad luck, who the hell knows. It is also possible that all our plans will go down the drain. Happened before and could happen again. We´ll just cross our fingers and ask our friend the Devil just one more favour for this one.
Stay heavy!,
Don Hesus + rest of The Mutants
(All questions and answers were delivered via email - da ed.)
