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nanoa1foryou · 2 days ago

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Translation for Kuumaa's interview with Etelä-Suomen sanomat, 27.7.2024

Kuumaa in a backstage interview: "Whichever show can be the best show"

The band has played in Lahti for the first time back in 2017. The memory from years back still awakens warm thoughts.

The halfway point of the toursummer has been passed. For some it might mean a sigh of relief, but not for the band Kuumaa.

– It was a wonderful realization to think that we have half of it still ahead. The summer is absolutely not over, Johannes Brotherus opens the band's feelings.

Brotherus is the singer of the band, founded in 2016. Jonttu Luhtavaara is responsible for the drums, Aarni Soivio plays the bass guitar. The songs the trio write together.

Joy to the toursummer is brought by "the bubble of positivity", that the band describes passing their summer tour in.

– We are incredibly happy for our touring group. We have on the road an exhilarating dynamic. Everyone is a bit different as people, but we still get along with everyone really well.

A part of the joy is of course brought by the performances and encounters with the audience.

– It's difficult to say what that perfection is exactly built from, since you can't break the show down onto an atomical level. Sometimes you just feel it, and often that feeling is mutual.

One of the warmest show memories of the band has to do with performing in Lahti. The year was 2017 and the release day of the debut single. Kuumaa performed in Lahti's Torvi as the warm up for Elias Gould and Kauriinmetsästäjät. The memory resurfacing gets the trio to smile a bit.

– You could be quite excited about small things then, about the feeling of going to a show and the opportunity to play elsewhere than our training room.

Later touring and being on the road has become a part of daily life for the band. The excitement to do has however remained.

"It is really inspiring and fun to mess together tour life and the songwriting world." Johannes Brotherus

– Whichever show can be the best show, the trio describes the attitude with which the conquer one stage after another.

The secret is in being present and being appropriately relaxed. The members of the band enjoy performing and when the being is genuine, the feeling is easy to convey to the audience. In the best case the presence of the band and the audience is mutual

– Some artists say that it doesn't matter what happens in the audience, but in our experience it matters a lot. Audiences are different so I think that adapting to the energy of the crowd is also really important.

Kuumaa's skill of being present isn't left unclear at Lahti's Headland-festival. The band smiles and takes contact with the audience. The speeches between songs seem spontaneous and without dragging on nor rushing. The set moves at the right pace.

Memorable encounters, those Kuumaa have had numerous over the tours. Whenever possible the band goes to see the people also on the other side of the festival fence, who may be too young to come to the festival.

– Those people might write us letters, which is incredibly heartwarming.

Another significant encounter had to do with a fan who travelled all the way from Poland. The fan had made the band a stuffed rabbit dressed in a Kuumaa skirt as a gift for the band, that can nowadays be found from Brotherus' home. Apparently they've yet to come up with a name, but it is being worked on.

At the Lahti show an encounter happens that stands out from the normal concert joy. In the audience a sign sways, wishing a happy name day to Aarni, the band's guitarist. Brotherus is not quite sure if the day of the performance really is his bandmate's name day, but concedes that everyone's name day comes eventually. Along with the well wishes the guitarist gets from the sign bearer a shirt decorated with pictures of different kinds of pickles, as he apparently likes them.

The vigorous tour summer means for the band thousands if not over 10 000 kilometers spent on the tour bus. The bus has become like a second home for the trio.

– Sitting on the bus doesn't have to be conscious sitting in a car. It's more like our livingroom.

People outside of the ten member core team rarely have any business getting on the tour home. The band did however recently invite for one stop photographer and video director Ari Virem. Brotherus remembers how Virem was at first totally quiet and looked around for a long while. Eventually he noted: "I find it incredibly moving how you are here, in the bus. Some staring out of the window, one reading a book and another biting their nails."

The description was fitting according to Brotherus. Everyone has an opportunity to do their own thing or to not do quite anything at all. You can be social, but you can also draw away and everyone respects it. The space is tight, so you have very little of your won space. Despite that being there is natural, even to the point that sometimes you lose track of time completely.

– Travelling on the tour bus is a kind of formless time. We're kind of travelling somewhere, but at the same time it feels that we're still.

The summer and the tour don't stop the making of new music, quite the opposite. The need to create new things remains, even if a busy festival summer is ongoing.

– It's really inspiring and fun to mess together tour life and the songwriting world. We try to dodge a too rigid being because both being on the road and writing new music are terribly natural ways for us to spend time.

Pieces for songs arise alone and separately. Studiodays are often marked on the calendar, but ideas are generated whenever feels good. Everyone collects ideas into their own baskets from what's around them and when the time is right the trio pours them out to their table ideas for everyone to inspect.

In the spring Kuumaa have planned a longer, spring long break from touring as a counter weight for two years of active touring. Though it's unlikely the trio can give up music.

– It's rare we've managed to spend months without making new music. It's in a way needed.

However they respond in a roundabout way when asked about releasing new music.

#kuumaa #translations #I just thought some of their answers were so them #also Ari's comment about their way of just being on the tourbus was mwah #also also no shows for the whole spring? I mean I knew they were going on a break from performing but I'm gonna miss them TM

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