Sept 9, 2003
Helsinki Press Conference
Your tickets in Helsinki were sold out in a few hours or I think a couple of days, I was wondering why not do one or two more? Because I think there are a lot of people who would like to see you that were left outside?
I would stay and do another one! Yeah why not, I would. It’s up to the promoters you know. I think we should play a different city though. I think it would be fun to do something out of Helsinki. A little place or something.
I think there are plenty of people that didn’t know about this last week…
Yeah, because we drove a car and drove way up north, I don’t know the names of the little towns, Henola, a little place where we just had beers with people and they knew who I was. (laughs) I thought well we could just set up on the little stage, we could probably have a lot of fun. Y’know that is what rock and roll should be. You know what surprised me I was on the ferry to Swomanlina (sp?) just to be a tourist and see it, and a guy on the boat says a, we have a recording studio in the fortress, I said get out of here, yeah (?) recorded there, so I said let’s see it and we went in the fortress and there is a recording studio, a nice one, that was great.
I have to ask you about your new record, it is different, there is something more inside the words of your personal feelings, will you tell us more about it?
I think yeah, someone said to me that this is like the first rockabilly album with these kind of lyrics, not just about hot rods and girls, which is great, you always want to sing about that, but probably a little more emotional lyrics, times that I was going through, and some kind of spirituality, also I lost a lot of friends y’know last year, Joe Strummer and Joey Ramone, so a lot of that came out on the record. Normally I kind of push those feelings down, I don’t let them come out, but this time I just kind of let them come out.
Rat Pack Boogie how did that happen?
No it was a guitar riff…(looks for a guitar)… I came up with that riff and it is kind of a funny way to play it and I go man that is cool it sounds like Les Paul, so I put on a little echo and delay and it is like four guitars and I say this is so cool, this is something I can work with, but it was just a regular blues so I turn some of the chords around and put some jazz chords in the turnaround and then it became something. I said ok here guys, I wrote it down, let’s just cut this right now just before we loose the excitement, and that is how we cut the Rat Pack Boogie.
Everyone is doing come back tours, what about the Stray Cats?
I am waiting for the million dollar offer! (laughs) No I would do it, I mean we had a great time we played a show in California called the Hootenanny, and man it was goood. So I would like to bring the Stray Cats and play Europe if I could. I think that would be the first place. We have so many fans, y’know I have a webpage and people write in and they say “when will Stray Cats come, when will Stray Cats come” and I think maybe it is time, time to do it, but it is very expensive and I have to get some y’know a couple of big shows and then we can kinda play some of the smaller ones.
What about the other Strat Cats?
Yeah well Slim Jim is really fat, he’s huge! (laughs) Lee smokes constantly and horrible, (laughs – clearly joking)
Intelligible question
I think you will. It is actually funny, Slim Jim looks the same, I want to kill him, he looks like he is 22, he is still skinny, I think he is a vampire. (laughs)
Tell us what you put in your hair and how you do it?
My hair…’57 Chevy axel grease, I reach under the car… yeah it’s a ritual, it’s a vanity, it is, I am combing my hair I and I want it to look good, put a little, first you dry it into a quif, then you put a little it’s called Royal Crown, it’s like vasiline then you comb it through, then I run my fingers through it, little bit, and get the front up, sides up, push the sides back, y’know after 25 years it knows what to do. (Laughs)
End of press conference.
Thanks to Sonerplaza Helsinki for providing the video
of the press conference.
http://plazatv.fi.soneraplaza.net:800/