{"id":14910,"date":"2021-03-20T05:00:21","date_gmt":"2021-03-20T05:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/?p=14910"},"modified":"2021-03-14T20:06:31","modified_gmt":"2021-03-14T20:06:31","slug":"miqu-december-plastic-tears-interview-exclusive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/?p=14910","title":{"rendered":"Miqu December – Plastic Tears interview exclusive"},"content":{"rendered":"

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(Aleksi Lausti Photography)<\/a><\/div>\n

Coming outta Helsinki Finland, Plastic Tears have been around for ages knocking out a glam-punk sound on their own terms. They’ve just recorded a brand new album and to be fair it’s taking them to the next level with some excellent songs and they have undoubtedly found their own sound and added some good time Rock and Roll into the mix.\u00a0 We thought it was about time we sent out the call and brought them in for questioning. So it’s with great pleasure frontman and mainstay of the band Miqu who joined us for a chat and talk about all things Plastic Tears…<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>The band has been through some changes since starting out – how do you look back on the band’s career so far? You claimed that break-ups, lineups changes, record company changes and drama enough for a soap opera.\u00a0 Talk us through some of those soap opera moments?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been around for long, so we\u2019ve seen a lot of ups and downs. The dramas are mostly stuff that happened in the beginning of our career. But we\u2019ve split up on stage, had fights on stage, been filmed completely wasted for national TV and so on. We were wild, young and cocky then, I guess we\u2019re a bit more stable nowadays. We\u2019ve had a lot of lineup changes back in the day, and Eco and I are the only ones that are left from the early days. But I\u2019m not much for nostalgia myself, I prefer to focus on the present.<\/p>\n

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The lineup is settled now, right?\u00a0 who writes the tunes in the band?\u00a0 and why?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, we\u2019ve had this lineup since the last album, ‘Angels With Attitude’, and the band has matured a lot I think. I guess that\u2019s what happens when you find the right guys who stay together. If you look through the band catalogue I seem to have written most of the songs. But I guess that\u2019s kind of natural as I\u2019ve been in the band from the start. But everyone in the band is welcome to contribute to the songwriting, and on our new album Juha has also written a couple of tunes. And that\u2019s good because it widens the band’s sound.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>The new album ‘Anthems For Misfits’ is about to be released, tell us about who’s releasing it an Italian label I believe?\u00a0 Where it was recorded? Give us some of the background as to how it was recording under lockdown during a pandemic or had it already been tracked?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wormholedeath Records is releasing it worldwide. We\u2019re really excited to work with them as they seem to be doing good work and still leave us the freedom to do stuff ourselves. That\u2019s important to us, as we\u2019re used to being independent and doing a lot of promotion ourselves. We had a European tour at the end of 2019, and before that we had already recorded the base for the album, the drums and bass.<\/p>\n

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When we got back we continued recording, but soon after that the pandemic started showing signs of itself. We were still able to continue recording, even though it progressed slower than originally intended. Our original plan was to release this album in the summer of 2020. We had to look for a new keyboard player too, as the one that was lined up didn\u2019t want to expose his family to the virus. That\u2019s understandable, but luckily we found Ville who did a marvelous job in the studio. We recorded at East Sound Studios in Helsinki with Sammy Aaltonen who also did the previous album with us. It\u2019s easy for us to work with him as he comes from similar musical backgrounds and we could well fit on the same bill as his band Private Line.<\/p>\n

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As somebody who has been lucky enough to hear it, it’s fair to say it’s your strongest album thus far.\u00a0 Is that fair?\u00a0 I think the songs are stronger and the songwriting is really good there have been a few risks taken would that be a fair assessment?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I agree, it\u2019s our strongest album this far. ‘Angels With Attitude’ already got a great response, and people have doubted me when I\u2019ve said the new album is even better. I guess that\u2019s how bands always feel about their new release, but I honestly think this is true. The band, the songs, and the production is better. We gave a lot of thought to the arrangements and wanted it to be a diverse album. I guess there are some risks, but, it\u2019s not like we\u2019ve consciously calculated what risks to take, the songs just came out like this.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve always mixed in a bit of this and that, like ‘Spanish Whispers’ (still one of my favorite songs) reggae vibe on the first album, ‘Beat Me Blue’ on the second and so on. But I guess this time the production makes these things stand out better, and overall the album is diverse in a good way I think.<\/p>\n

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The first video\/single is ‘Riot Zone’ which has a good hook but is only a fraction of what’s on offer why choose this one as the first to go public off the new record?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We had a lot of choices so this was a hard decision to make. The label wanted to make an animated lyrics video to go with the single, so in the end we made the choice based on which song would fit that kind of video the best. It\u2019s also a strong \u2018bang your head and raise your fist\u2019 style of song that shows our punkier side and is easy to sing along to. And it has a really funny midsection!<\/p>\n