| 1. What are you currently up to? (e.g.
touring/studio,etc.)
|
We are doing demos of potential songs for our debut album (to be
released early 2003). But, there are occasional gigs also on the
agenda.
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| 2. Who was/is your biggest influence on your career?
|
That is a tricky one! There are so many great bands and artists that
really like, most of them from the 80s or so. But, I guess Black
Sabbath and (early) DIO were the most important acts in my case.
From a guitarist's point of view I have to add there the names of
Richie Blackmore and Vinnie Moore.
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| 3. Brief history of your work to date the style of
music you play.
|
Our style is melodic hard rock or something like that. Some call it
melodic metal, some say it not metal at all, and I say I don't care.
Anyway, Aurora K got started late 1999 with the line-up of three
girls-one guy. That's was horrible time, dude! Heh heh! Nowadays, we
have two ladies-three guys onboard. So far we've only released one
three-song demo and one single called "11th Hour". We have done about
60-70 gigs during these past two years which is pretty much at this
level, I guess.
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| 4. What has been the highlight(s) and lowpoint(s) of
your career to date?
|
One of the highlights happened late 2000 when "Rosalie" from our
first demo hit #1 on the Metal Chart of Mp3.com. And one of the
lowpoints, (has actually happened a few times) when arriving to a
gig, the personnel - of restaurant, club or so - asks: "Where are
all the ladies of the band!?" You see, long after having only one
lady - Katriina, vocals - in the band we used to send out these old
gig posters featuring one guy and three ladies! Naturally, it must be
a disappointment to get to see only one lady and several ugly guys in
the band. Ha hah! Well, now that Suvi (keyboards) is also in the band
we don't get beat so often. Hehe!
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| 5. How easy is it to gets gigs? What is the live music scene like? Who
have you toured with and would like to tour with in the future?
|
So far we've only gained gigging experience here in Finland. In my
opinion it's pretty easy to get gigs (especially, if you can
compromise a bit ie. if you're willing to do restaurant gigs and can
cut that volume down a bit...). But generally, I think the live music
scene here in Finland is pretty active and alive. There are many
bands and quite enough of clubs and restaurants to play in. Some
cities or areas are more dead though.
As for touring, we don't have touring experience with any name bands
yet since we are still a small and unknown band. But, to tour eg.
with KISS, Van Halen or King's X would definitely be a blast!
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| 6.
What do you think of the state of rock music at the
moment? Do you listen to radio much at all? Has the
Internet helped music grow or hindered it?
|
In my (not so humble) - heh heh - opinion the state of rock music
still sucks. I listen to radio occasionally but usually don't like
what I hear. Very seldom I hear of new bands that arouse my interest.
But, there are signs that things are gradually getting better ie.
noise and aggression are yielding to melody and positivism. Hell
think about it, guitar solos are coming back to pop music also! I've
already heard of couple of them!
I would guess that internet helps music "grow" in the sense that
musical influences travel faster and wider because of its existence.
By that I mean that new styles and tricks get spread out globally in
the underground already before the first band gets a record deal and
their debute album out on the market. On the other hand, all these
genre limited webzines and similar form kind of unbreakable
fortresses that easily tend to reject any unpure, evil - heh heh -
forces ie. bands balancing on the borderline of styles. So, if your
band doesn't belong to any particular genre you might be in trouble
cause people can't find out about your band. Naturally, in this case
internet may not be so blessed new invention.
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| 7.
If you could create a fantasy band - what would be
the line-up and why?
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I would like to see the outcome of Vinnie Moore joining forces with
Ronnie James Dio or with some highly talented musicians and gain
success playing some weird instrumental metal-jazz fusion. Could be a
nightmare also - heheh!
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| 8. What CD's do you currently have available and where
can they be purchased from?
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At the moment, we can only offer our first single "11th Hour" which
features two songs and a cool video of the song "11th Hour". The
reviews of the single have been awesome in some cases. The best way
to get it is to visit our website and make an order there. The price
is ridiculously cheap and includes the shipping to everywhere. We are
lousy businessmen! Hah hah! Our website address is LISTEN.TO/AURORAK
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| 9. Message to your fans?
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Patience, the album will come out sooner or later. Meanwhile, watch
the Osbournes and get drunk or something.
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