An alternative metal musician Indi Loveless changed a sunny and warm island of Corsica for a cold and gloomy sky of Scandinavia, when he moved to Finland in pursuit of his dream. The musician found it easier to express himself in the metal-minded surrounding, where almost every dude is either playing in a rock band or dreaming about picking up the guitar or grabbing the mike one day. Indi did both. After playing in a bunch of Finnish rock bands, he made up his mind and started his own project, which so far has released three songs as singles, all of which won acclaim and resulted in his performances in large rock festivals. And there’s a highly anticipated debut longplay on the horizon. Indi Loveless told Alterock how he ended up in Finland, shared the personal story behind the last single titled “Charlie” and revealed that he is not so “loveless” after all.
When did you come up with the idea to move to Finland?
Let me remember that. The first time I went to Finland was in 2003. And I wanted to get there since two years before that. Finnish bands seemed to be good people. When you listen to Stratovarius, for instance – like back in the days – they really seemed like nice guys. You wouldn’t think of them as anything else but really great guys. And it made me start to think about living in their country. And in 2003 I just went there for vacation, and I really liked it very much. When you come from a small insland like Corsica, it’s pretty different.
And how did Indi Loveless band start?
It was quite a long process. I started doing the mix of Middle East stuff and electro music since I was 15-16 but never did it full-time. It was a bit too nuts for me, I believe. So I playing in rock bands, metal bands or pop bands. One day I had an opportunity, thanks to my friend in Findland, to release my own stuff. I was playing in a band, and it was the band management who suggested: “Why don’t you release your own stuff?” That’s how it started. And I had also reached the point when you’re playing in a band, pushing things forward for years sometimes, and then everything was falling apart, because somebody would meet a girl, get drunk, or whatever. I just thought that was a waste of time. Of course, you are never alone in your own band, but you are the captain on the board. As long as the boat doesn’t sink, you can still do someting.
Have you been feeling at home in Finland since then?
Except for Corsica I felt at home in many places in the world. I adopt easily. I was in St. Petersburg not so long ago, and I felt at home. I was in London, I felt at home. As long as there are cool places to go to, and you have friends – people you feel comfortable around – you feel like home. Honestly, when you feel that the others let you down, they don’t: they just change their plans. But it hurts as much as in a proper band.
Do you see Indi Loveless as a band with a fixed line-up or is it more of a band with a fixed frontman and the musicians may change over time?
It seems like the line-up is changing all the time, so I have to see it as a solo project. I have the freedom to collaborate with whoever I want to collaborate with. It’s a great thing.
Is anything known yet about the longplay you have been planning to release?
The album was supposed to be released in early April this year, but our record label was bought by a bigger label. I didn’t push forward to release the album with them, or they didn’t seem to care much. Misty is in touch with all those people, you have a lot of contacts and plans. I took a break for a little more than six months: I didn’t play any music, I didn’t play a single gig, I barely picked up my guitar. After all this time I feel like starting something new. I would like to release the album as it is, of course, and then maybe play something more acoustic, maybe go back to my roots. People listen to the singles, listen to the album, and maybe they don’t want to go to a live gig and hear Bod Dylan next day. That’s tricky. I’m glad I have people crazy enough to believe in that project but I have my doubts. Will people follow that?
You said the last released single “Charlie” is a very personal song for you. What’s the story behind it?
It talks about a period in my life, which is long gone – Jesus, it’s long gone! But you still carry memories, sometimes you have feelings that are surfacing. I was a happy guy. There’s a moment when first it’s kind of fun, then you’re trapped into it and it’s no fun at all, you turn pretty miserable. But as the time goes by, things tend to fade away, and what you remember is just there were such times. “Charlie” talks about a shy guy, who has troubles fitting in, being outgoing. And I met a friend who has called Charlie. Through collaboration with a friend you find life, new activities, new confidence. And then later in life you find out that Charlie was not your friend all this time, that he was actually feeding on you. And then, of course, you can see it from the perspective that Charlie is not a person, that Charlie is a “substance”. The song is a mix of both.
You were involved for a long time in piercing and tattoo business. Has your previous work experience influenced you in any way?
Not the job itself, I would say. My work experience it tattoo salons taught me that I couldn’t work with a boss. You make the right decisions but they make you believe that they are false. They make you follow their stupid orders. It was exciting to work there, but it was also restricting in many ways, because most people wanted to have the same patterns. But to some people it is very very personal. They are so personal to you, that you want to have them on your skin.
In the interview you said that you dislike many modern rock bands because they are more concentrated on their looks than music. Don’t you care of your own appearance and stage image?
No, I believe when you go to see a band live, it is a show. And clothes are part of the visual, part of the show. But a show is only a part of the whole. The backbone of it is music. You cannot replace it with proper inspiration, proper songwriting, proper production by looking sweet on stage. I don’t care how people look, I’m not listening to bands because they look sexy on stage. Well, some girls do, maybe. (laughs) I also don’t care much about live bands.
Do you mean you don’t often go to see rock concerts?
I rarely go to gigs. I like recorded rock music and I like live classical music. It’s a paradox but it feels like classical music really lives in the teather. It feels right. When you listen to opera in the theatre, it lives. A rock band never sounds as good live as it sounds on an album, because you have sound engineers, all the production behind – stuff you cannot recreate live. You cannot sound as clean as on the record. There’s more excitement live, because you can see the people, you have all that energy going on, but I’m a music fan, I like to hear it well-done. And it sounds better on the albums. Always.
You also said that even tiny things can make you mood go down. What sort of things piss you out or make you feel sad?
I don’t know if it’s the matter of character or of the chemicals in my brain, I can feel totally high about something and then feel really really low two minutes later. It’s really tiring. But the good side to it is that the low is the lowest, the high is the highest.
What about working in the studio and the time before goint on stage? Are you a type of guy who is hard to deal with at stressful moments?
The people around me tend to say that I’m not easy to deal with. I believe I got better. I hope at least. For a long time I had a reputation for being the dictator in the band. Then, at the same time I never found anyone who I could actually lean on. I had to manage the stuff. Somebody has to do it. It’s a shame it had to be me every time.
How did you meet your Russian wife?
We had common friends. At that time I had been single for I don’t know how long. Ok, I wasn’t single. But I hadn’t been in a serious relationship for quite a while. Then there was a party. I was there with my girlfriend. We were ok, we were happy, it was fine. And I got to see a girl. Through friends we got to talking again, we got in touch again, and I had a feeling that maybe there was a slight possibility that things might work between us.
How would you finish the sentence: “There wouldn’t be Indi Loveless now, if…”?
(Indi first thinks it over and then laughs) If I went sideways, there would be no Indi Loveless. I tried to be like: “Ok, let’s see what it feels like to be without music for a while”. And for a very short while it was ok: I was doing something else, feeling like someone else. It was nice. But when I find myself alone, music is the way to express myself. It is music which has the most important in my life, and I cannot function normally without it. And then I think about the things I didn’t complete: “I could have done this, I could have done that”. And it causes me to get back to work again.
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