The Rasmus are a Finnish rock band that has seen huge success all over the world but has yet to make a big mark in America. The band has sold over 6 million records, toured with the biggest names in rock and headlined festivals all over the word. Frontman Lauri Ylonen took some time to talk about The Rasmus’s new release Weirdo, written with Desmond Child and produced by Marti Frederickson.
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On the background of the band – So we come from Finland, every one of us is originally from Helsinki, the capital city, Northern Europe. We started the band 30 years ago we were 15 years old back then. We were schoolmates, first concert was played at the Christmas party at school. We played five songs in front of the whole school, and it was amazing. We felt like, “Oh, this is what we wanna do”. Now, 30 years after here we have 11 albums and a lot of things done you know. We come from very normal families and living in the suburbs of like outskirts of Helsinki and, and we have four members. I’m the singer. We have guitarist, Emppu (Emilia “Emppu” Suhonen) just joined us recently, three, four years ago. We have Eero (Heinonen), who’s one of the original members with me and then Aki (Hakala) the drummer.
On how he would describe the sound of The Rasmus on Weirdo – Well if you know us from before you would say this is the, the hardest rocking or album that we’ve done so far. It’s the heaviest sound and I think we were able to bring it to something like a modern band sounds in 2025. Even though a lot of the influence comes from nineties or eighties, we have that kind of like melodic music background and then combined with this more modern sound. It’s, it’s pretty good, I’d say.
On how he met and came to work with Desmond Child – I’m really honored to know Desmond Child and had a chance to work with him so many times. First time he contacted me, he sent me an email all of a sudden in 2007 saying, “Hi, this is Desmond Child. I would love to work with your band.” I was like, “No, this can’t be true”. I’m a fan of his work. I knew every song I grew up with, Kiss Aerosmith, Bon Jovi, Alice Cooper, all my idols, all the posters I had, he was behind all that music and then all of a sudden, he’s wants to work with us like, wow, that was amazing.
We actually met in Dominican Republic. We had a show there and he came to see it, and we stayed for a couple of days in this beautiful hotel, smoking Cuban cigars that he had brought with him. Then we starting to plan the next Rasmus album, and ever since we’ve been good friends with him. We have this tradition going to Greece. I think he has gone there like 20 times since then I’ve been there like five times, five summers. We go, we write music, we just talk about life and have a good time. But mostly work. We’ve written like 30 songs there at least. Usually, I have ideas like I record every day something, write down lines and talk to my Dictaphone or record on my phone. Then I would go there and present my ideas, and this is where I wanna take the band. But we basically start from scratch almost. I like to work like that when I work with him, because he’s so talented and by now he already knows me so well. So, it’s very easy to get started, and we’ve been writing such good songs.
On what classic Desmond Child song they would want to cover – That’s an interesting thought. Maybe we should do “Poison” from Alice Cooper…I love that song. I think I was 10 years old when that song came out and I had Alice Cooper’s poster on my wall, and I was always looking at him when I fell asleep. That villain dude, he’s my hero. I based my own archetype a lot around Alice. I was so influenced by, he’s that anti-hero kind of guy. Actually I’ve met Alice a couple of times. We played a tour together once in, in Russia, actually.
We, we had a beautiful tour. We were with Scorpions, Alice Cooper and us. Then we got to hang out with the older guys. But it was really cool tour. We actually had our own private jet, like a huge one. Not the tiny one. It was like a big plane that they had made or like a luxury plane. Inside, they had sofas and all white leather and the whole plane. It’s like crazy. Those were the times, but I don’t think there’s going back to Russia anymore.
On what he learned writing songs with Desmond Child – I think I learned so much from him. It’s so many things, not just writing. Just hanging out with him and like talking about politics or family or anything. Just having that wizard there in my life. Someone said he’s Gandalf and we are the hobbits, pretty well said. I learn every time we write a song. My brain is all over the place. My thoughts are all over the place. When I work with him, I maybe learn to control my thoughts and my mind a bit better. How to say something in a way that it makes more sense or deeper or whatever. He’s amazing writer, so it’s really a pleasure to work with him every time.
On bringing The Rasmus to record in Marti Frederickson’s Nashville studio – Well, first of all, it was really awesome to work in a great, beautiful studio in Nashville at the end of Music Row, right there in the heart of music. It’s the music capital as we know. So, Marti had his studio, Sienna Studio there. We could play together so we could see each other and instead of one by one, we could really play together. That’s really a luxury because a lot of times now nowadays they make albums by sending files and recording something at home. It’s good to go there together. Some of the songs get so much better when we were able to play together. See each other, play something, record something, go and listen. “Oh, hey, let’s try that.” Things evolved so much right there. I think it’s very important to have that chemistry and that feeling when you’re together in the same room.
On completing their first US tour in almost 20 years – It was really wonderful. Some people said they had been waiting for 20 years for us to be there, and you could really sense that. We played quite small venues, I think 500 to 600 something. It felt almost like being on a stadium or something. They were singing every song from the beginning to the very end. It was crazy. Just unbelievable. So, we are really now thinking we should come back as soon as we can after this European tour, which basically will take the whole rest of the year. We’re going to go to Mexico and some places this year, but then the focus is on the US so I really hope that early spring we can return, and I wish we could play some festivals too. You have some good ones in in May and that would be a good timing.
On if he was surprised by the reaction in the US – Yeah, I was surprised. Last time we went there, it was 16 years ago and that wasn’t huge tour either. We’ve never really worked the country properly. So obviously music travels, the internet and all the streaming platforms. So, people obviously had found our band, and we just had those tickets on sale for like three weeks. In that time, they went and we’re like, “Wow, this is incredible”. You know it was a surprise.
Obviously once makes us to wanna come back as soon as possible to play other places because that was only mostly on the East Coast. We went up and down the East Coast. We also supported American band The Funeral Portrait, which is from the same label, Better Noise music. We could also play some gigs for their fans. That was great because I think we have a good match with that band. In fact, Lee Jennings, the singer of that band, is featuring on one of our songs on this album. It’s also a nice connection when you meet some fellow musicians and you become friends with. It’s a great feeling. I’ve been texting with him like, “Hey, you know, I hope to see you soon again”. They’re nice guys and it just feels great to have that opportunity to come back to the States because it’s the biggest music market in the world. I don’t know what happened, why we missed it, but I hope it’s not too late.
On how technology has allowed his music to be heard around the world – I love this thing that I can get anything on my phone, it’s just so good. Think about from the point of view of an upcoming artist. I think it’s important. You don’t need to have a big studio or even record label. You don’t need to have much money to make a great song and record it at home. Maybe you have a laptop and a microphone and a guitar, and you make a little song, you share it, and next morning you wake up, it’s going viral. All of a sudden, it’s the biggest song, things like that can happen in this modern world. It’s a fair situation for artists because not everybody has the same resource, resources and chances.
