The Lodging’s High Light:
Cigarettes, Cynicism, Modesty and Music in an Interview with Lodger

Ordinary men can make extraordinary music. This is a considerable contradiction to the wide world of rock and roll. In fact, it seems that there are no ordinary people in the music industry. Legendary acts like The Rolling Stones include members and stature that in each passing year, become as distant from reality as a Disney film.

Bands such as Bloc Party take much time to assure the media they are just normal guys. As Shakespeare might note, these bands usually protest too much, and render their claims insincere. This happens especially when the band are still evidently enthusiastic about getting their pictures in every magazine and street corner. These observations lead us to question our opening sentence. Wouldn’t ordinary men create bland, boring and well, ordinary music? Are there any actual ‘ordinary men’ in the world of music?

To contest such questions, enter a band from the often over-looked Nordic country Finland. Visiting the soil of my native land, I was spending a relaxing sunny afternoon in the Esplanadi Park in Helsinki. A friend of mine gave me his headphones and told me to listen, claiming that I would like the group. The name was interesting enough. Lodger sounded short, snappy and memorable.

As the music began playing, the word memorable became a key-term. In my experience, I had come across with a band that seemed interested in making music that was, quite frankly, something extraordinary. Present in the album Hi-Fi Highlights Down Low was evidence of the effective blending of different styles in the songs previously noticed in works by Beck and The Beta Band. Only, I heard something that was distinct to this band, Lodger, from Finland. There was a certain melancholy, cynical sense of humour that I gathered from the lyrics. That nice day in the park marked the beginning to an investigation.

As I moved below from the tip of the iceberg, the story behind the album my friend presented seemed more extraordinary than I imagined. In brief, Lodger released their debut album independently after self-financing the recording. Their success spread through interesting animated music videos and their website (www.lodger.tv). So loud was this electronic word of mouth, that they were now getting media attention in Finland, the album is pending on a re-release through a label, and the music is beginning to make its way through Europe. For the sake of my investigation, I decided I must contact the band. Surely, music that accomplishes all this must be crafted by some extraordinary gentlemen.

If there is anything to be learnt from my interview with Lodger, it is that the band disagree. Cool and level-headed, vocalist/guitarist Teemu Merilä, guitarist Panu Riikonen, keyboardist Jyri Riikonen, bassist Hannes Häyhä and drummer Antti Laari all insist on the ordinarity of the group. Instead of the dramatic notions I envisioned with the beginnings of the band, they view their origins as rather basic. According to the group, what happened was “Teemu wrote some decent songs, we got some decent guys together, practiced couple of times, made a record etc. The ordinary story.”

The last sentence of the band’s reply is key. Throughout the interview, Lodger remain concise, precise and above all, modest with their answers. As I communicate with the group through the internet, I begin gathering the idea that the lyrical content of the songs, which I find to bear signs of genetically Finnish cynicism, occupies much of the band’s dialogue. So I decide to ask them. There are some fantastic, simply expressed lines in the songs. One that struck me was “You can taste the cancer in my morning kiss” in ‘I Love Death’. What kind of a world-view is present in Lodger’s songs?

“The world view of a stupid bass-player, since Hannes writes them”, is the answer I receive. Certainly the band members must be having a laugh. So, trying to continue on the same line, I ask where does the inspiration of Lodger’s lyrics come from? Again, there is a peculiar sense of humour in the response. Apparently, they are inspired by the “limited life experience of our stupid bass player”.

The previous paragraph could be mistaken for a frustrated attempt to make the band seem difficult. On the contrary, it is a sign of respectability in the group. For a band that seems to be uninterested of being prophets and gurus, Lodger can put the proverbial money to where their proverbial respective mouths are. In an attempt to find out of their social and political views, that seem to affect songs like ‘God Has Rejected the Western World’, I ask the band to speak of the causes they strongly support. Instead of becoming a set of Reverend Geldofs and St. Bonos, the band quip with this: “We are very concerned about prohibition of smoking in restaurants. The next album will concentrate mainly on this issue and most of its profit will be used to organize political party here in Finland to fight for the rights of smokers.” I decide it is best to leave the matter at this.

The visual presentation of the band represents the apparent modest attitude. The band’s videos, viewable on the website, do not show a glimpse of the members, but adventures of a one-eyed black stick figure in a cynically sad world. In the videos, the songs find a visual medium. The video for “I Love Death”, amongst other pertinent images, bears a striking scene that could be said to portray the mandatory military service in Finland. According to the myth, the videos were initially so successful, that Lodger had to reply to queries about the name of the song playing “during the ‘I Love Death’-video”.



Is this kind of visual counter-part risky for the band? How important are the videos for the songs? The band are, yet again, far calmer about the situation that I. The “animated videos helped us to find an audience for our music” they explain, “but they are not important for songs per se.” Thus, in cases like the aforementioned example in ‘I Love Death’, the video does not steal away from the song itself. As Lodger explains, the videos “mainly follow the message that already is in the songs”. The band also reminds us that the videos do not exist as a way to create mystery around the band. Instead, “there just isn’t anything interesting about us as persons. The music should do the trick.”

Yet, the band are still aware of the help the videos provide. They recognize the how luck was on their side as they moved from the field of independent recording to the feared world of music business. It seems a remarkable distance from the initial release of the album. Hi-Fi Highlights Down Low was released two weeks after recording as “just a page” on the website. Now, the album is about to be re-released on a wider scale. How does all this feel? In their own words, they “have just been lucky.” Certainly, luck was a factor when the “videos and music has spread so well over internet” and lead to the fact that “the evil businessmen found” the band.

This puts Lodger in an exciting time right now. The re-mastered release of the album will open a wider audience to a version of Hi-Fi… which will “sound the same as original, only little better”. After this, there are tour dates that wait the band in Europe. They seem to set sails with the right attitude. The band simply wishes the wider audience will “dig” the album, that the band themselves describe as a “Beck, Eels, Bowie… rip-off”. With other influences, like Talking Heads, Frank Black and Elliott Smith, the album certainly ought to cater to many tastes.

Not to be accused of idleness, the band is also working on a new record, tentatively titled How Vulgar. Keeping in mind the various events in the band’s career, what are the plans for the album, aside from the agenda of public smoking? The band presents us with this comparison. During the recording of the first album most of the songs were “not ready when we went to a studio and we were hardly a band then, so it was mostly up to Jyri (and Richard Anderson, our first guitarist) who produced the album to put it all together”. Presently, on the other hand, Lodger is “much more like a band nowadays and that will naturally affect the results”. As a minor sneak preview, we are promised that the “songs will be better, lyrics will be worse and no-one agrees about the sound yet”. How Vulgar should be something worth the anticipation.

Looking forward to the second album might be a bit hasty in the UK. Taking cue from the level headed view of the band, it is best to begin by hoping they would arrive on the island. This should happen “as soon as possible” but it is best to keep breathing, because the “earliest will be in the beginning of 2006”.

Before letting the band go off and enjoy a smoke of Lucky Strikes, I try to get out a clichéd ending for the interview. I ask the band to sum up Lodger in a sentence. Transforming from a musical troupe to a dictionary, the group informs me that a lodger is “one who resides in lodgings”. In such a case, I would advise you to give a knock on the door of said lodgings, and have a listen to the extraordinary music composed within.

By Juha Virtanen

Sources:
Interview with the band conducted online by Juha Virtanen
Picture of the group provided by Hannes Häyhä

Copyright October 2005